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4.20 Deities

(a) Capitalize names, synonyms and personifications of deities and other supernatural beings:

  • God
  • the Creator
  • the Almighty
  • Mother Nature
  • Jehovah
  • Siva
  • Minerva
  • Moloch
  • Allah
  • Manitou

(b) Do not capitalize such words used as common nouns:

  • The child was an angel.
  • The adoring public regarded the film star as a god.

(c) Derivatives of these terms are normally lower-cased, as are similar terms used metaphorically:

  • christen
  • messianic
  • a saviour

(d) Capitalize personal pronouns that refer to deities when they are used as proper nouns, but do not capitalize relative pronouns:

  • Trust in Him whose strength will uphold you.

(e) Do not capitalize the words god and goddess when they refer to pagan deities, but capitalize the names of the deities themselves (Baal, Woden, Zeus).

(f) Do not capitalize words such as heaven, paradise, purgatory, nirvana, happy hunting ground, devil and angel when used in a non-religious sense:

  • After his wife died he went through purgatory.
  • War is hell.

but

  • God is in Heaven.
  • Many Buddhists seek to attain Nirvana.