Should we replace the birth of Christ to date time (BC/AD) with a secular .....

H

Heath

Active Member
Joined
May 31, 2005
Messages
8,069
Reaction score
1

Should we replace the birth of Christ to date time (BC/AD) with a secular dating method (BCE/CE)? Read the information below and then vote!


The Kentucky Board of Education has voted to take the first step in redefining how America dates time. The board voted to include a new secular system of dating the calendar, BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era), and added it to the BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, Latin for "in the year of our Lord") method.

The new secular system of time dating will appear in the curriculum and other materials used by Kentucky educators. This new system is already being included in textbooks across the nation.

The new method will replace the birth of Christ as the dividing point in history. For example, the new system would change 2006 AD (Anno Domini) to 2006 CE (Common Era).

It also opens the door for the ACLU to find a liberal activist judge who will forcefully remove the use of BC and AD. The ACLU types will claim that the use of BC and AD are a violation of the First Amendment because it dates history based on the birth of Christ.

Please forward this poll to your friends and family!

Take Action

Results of the poll will be shared with members of Congress.

Should Congress pass a law making BC/AD the official method of dating time?



Cast your vote. Give us your opinion!
http://www.afa.net/petitions/BCAD/TakeSurvey.asp



Sincerely,



Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman
American Family Association
 
We should keep the dating system we have now, BC and AD. Really, what does "Common Era" mean? Nothing. Common to what? If you change the BC and AD, then you should also change the year numbers because they are determined by the birth of Christ. If you don't use the birth of Christ as a starting point, then why even bother with CE and BCE designations?

If we don't figure the dates according to the birth of Christ, then I guess we could use Star Dates for our calendar. :D

Beam me up, Scotty!
 
Reba said:
We should keep the dating system we have now, BC and AD. Really, what does "Common Era" mean? Nothing. Common to what? If you change the BC and AD, then you should also change the year numbers because they are determined by the birth of Christ. If you don't use the birth of Christ as a starting point, then why even bother with CE and BCE designations?

If we don't figure the dates according to the birth of Christ, then I guess we could use Star Dates for our calendar. :D

Beam me up, Scotty!
Click to expand...


Hitting the transmit LOL :)
 
Does anybody really care? It's not like it really matters in the end what descriptors we use to number our years.
 
I don't think there's any reason to replace it with a "secular" abbreviation because unless we totally recalculate our calendar, the break between times IS still made by an approximation of the year in which Christ was born. That's a fact--unless someone wants to come up with a new calendar entirely that (for instance) goes all the way back to the first records we have of civilization or something. And I don't think anybody would really want all of that hassle, regardless of their beliefs.

So basically I'm with Reba. I just said it in a really complicated way. ;)
 
CE could also be called Christian Era or Current Era. The BCE/CE system started with Jewish and Christians scholars in the middle east to be culturally neutral in their research. Not everybody are Christians. It's insulting to make everybody use BC/AD. Here's the Religous Tolerance page on this.

Here's what the Religous Tolerance people say about this:

Imagine how you would feel if the notation were BM and AM where "M" stood for Mithra -- a mythical god-man from Persia on whom the religion of Mithraism was created. (Mithraism was the main competitor to Christianity at one time). You would be offended, and distressed at having to acknowledge such a god-man every time that you wrote a date. Well, this is how many non-Christians feel about BC ("Before Christ") and AD ("Anno Domini" or "In the year of the Lord"). Consider Native Americans, many of whom associate Christ and Christianity with the genocide of their ancestors. Consider Jews, many of whom consider the Nazi Holocaust to have been founded on centuries of Christian Anti-semitism.
Click to expand...

We still use Roman names for months and Norse names for days of the week, but nobody is insulted because those religions are not around anymore. There are still Christians around now, so using BC/AD can still be insulting because it is saying that somebody one doesn't believe in, Jesus Christ, is so important that the numbering of years should be based on his life.
 
RedFox said:
... There are still Christians around now, so using BC/AD can still be insulting because it is saying that somebody one doesn't believe in, Jesus Christ, is so important that the numbering of years should be based on his life.
Click to expand...
So changing BC/AD to BCE/CE would change the fact that the number of years is still calculated from the birth of Christ? No. If non-Christians are offended by our current dating system, then they need to create one that has nothing to do with any religion or culture. So, what would you use as a starting point?

See, we're back to using Star Dates again.

While we're at it, why do we use the 7-day week? :D
 
Reba said:
So changing BC/AD to BCE/CE would change the fact that the number of years is still calculated from the birth of Christ? No. If non-Christians are offended by our current dating system, then they need to create one that has nothing to do with any religion or culture. So, what would you use as a starting point?

See, we're back to using Star Dates again.

While we're at it, why do we use the 7-day week? :D
Click to expand...

Changing to BCE/CE would only be a slight step because what's special about 2006 years ago? It's when that monk figured that Jesus, who he believed in, was born. Choosing another starting point would make sense. The Church decreed a seven day week based on Genesis. Before that, the ancient Babylons used a 7 day week, based on there being 7 special objects, the sun, moon and the 5 easily visible planets besides Earth. Seven days is also easy to use because it's about 1/4 of a lunar month.
 
RedFox said:
Changing to BCE/CE would only be a slight step because what's special about 2006 years ago? It's when that monk figured that Jesus, who he believed in, was born. Choosing another starting point would make sense. The Church decreed a seven day week based on Genesis. Before that, the ancient Babylons used a 7 day week, based on there being 7 special objects, the sun, moon and the 5 easily visible planets besides Earth. Seven days is also easy to use because it's about 1/4 of a lunar month.
Click to expand...

What about the logistics of actually making that change...remember how expensive Y2K compliance was. This would involve that kind of cost AND revisions of printed items running all the way from calendars to all hard-copy documents. The costs would be crippling.
 
No difference to me, because most people don't put AD at the end of the year.
 
Why don't we all go back to AUC (Anno Urbis Conditae)? The Romans counted from the founding of Rome, so 20 AUC means 20 years after the founding of Rome. Rome was founded in 753 BC.


Lots more fun! So hey, yeah, You don't say, "It's the 21st century, duh!" anymore. Now you say, "It's the 2750s, you bums!" ;)
 
By the way, Heath, did you know that the use of BCE is very common in academia?
 
Agreed.....it should be a NEUTRAL figuring, not really biased towards a particular relgiion. That said, coming up with a totally neutral dating system would be very hard.
Oh, and did you know that some people think that Mithrasism IS Christianity?
 
Heath : Ah so that means it will be in cirriculum books and other materials at schools, too ?
 
Heath said:
No Endymion, I did not know that.
Click to expand...

I didn't either, and I'm pretty smart and educated! :P

By the way, I voted to keep it as is.
 
Back
Top