And you probably know very well that the reason for this is that God's "real name" isn't supposed to be used -- some old Jewish Yahweh taboo -- so in effect the ordinary word 'god' _HAS BECOME_, in Western culture "the name" God. F'rinstance, you didn't wonder *which* God the first occurence of the word "God" in the previous sentence referred to, did you?

Then again, the Muslims have their own taboos... Prominent among them, AFAIK, a prohibition against translating the Koran into languages other than Arabic. (A way to impose cultural homogeneity by having all prospective converts learn the language, an effect like the Catholic Church's insistence on using Latin in medieval Europe -- only more pronounced, since the Muslims were more for having people read their Book for themselves than Europe, where the Catholic priests read it to their parishioners -- probably more useful than harmful in both cases, for simplifying long-distance trade and other contacts.) Thus, the Muslim God was referred to only in Arabic, and therefore "his name" came to be 'Allah'. So while it may be (or at least originally have been) true that "'Allah' is just the word for 'god' in Arabic", there has been an "in effect" change there too, so in effect the opposite view, that "'Allah' is the name of the Muslim God" has become at least somewhat true, too.

But still, it doesn't matter whether you, Imric, or Brandioch is more right than wrong on this particular sub-sub-issue of Allah -- on the original sub-issue of "God" referring to the (Judeo-)Christian God, Brandioch is fucking obviously right: If it were just a noun, *a* god, any which one -- then it would be written with a lower-case 'g'.

Furthermore, even if you somehow manage to wriggle out of that (or rather, just refuse to admit defeat), on the *original* MAIN issue Brandioch is basically right (or IOW, far more right than wrong): Phrasing like "One nation under [g/G]od" is *obviously* religiously discriminatory.

"What, 'under [g/G]od', singular?!? Why just one??? And *which* one of them?!? I thought this was 'One nation under' Odin *and* Thor *and* Frigg!!!"

Obviously discriminatory to all polytheist beliefs.

What, are they somehow *less* "equal"?