Posted on 06/15/2006 5:05:48 PM PDT by xzins
In the Microsoft system, all dates prior to December 31, 1899 will be designated by their number extending backwards with BMDS attached. For example, July 4, 1776 would be 45079 BMDS, and today would be 37421 ADS. Simple, huh?
Too many modern educators are AC/DC to accept AD/BC, if you get my drift.
I agree with xzins. I will always use 1776 as the year the Declaration of Independence was written, and 1941 for the attack on Pearl Harbor. I wouldn't change, even if a politically-correct government insisted on it.
To me, the most ridiculous aspect of the terms B.C.E and C.E, is that these PC terms STILL use the birth of Jesus Christ as their reference point. It's as if we are expected to use the traditional numbering system, but conveniently ignore the history behind it.
As for the label, I just don't think it matters. CE/BCE and AD/BC are synonyms, everyone knows it. The former doesn't presuppose belief in Christ, but that doesn't make it less descriptive.
I just don't think energy ought to be wasted debating and taking stands on the issue. I mean in the school board, not on this forum.
In fact I withdraw my "GR and PG" designations -- "G" is fine. With years before 0 G being negative.
(Or, perhaps "yG. Today is 2006-06-16 yG.)
If the year 1776 is still the year of the Declaration of Independence, then WHY do they want to change the AD to CE?
That is the question....WHY the change? What's driving it?
Because a Buddhist historian talking to a Hindu archaeologist probably would feel kinda silly using the birth of a messiah they don't believe in as a chronological landmark.
It is political correctness.. or whatever you'd call it when standards are adopted to make them more universal. I'm not favoring the change, but I think it's a losing battle. I haven't seen BC/AD in a scholarly work in a long time.
I dont know, maybe because 3/4 of the world is something other than Christian?
As the percentage of Jews in academic life has increased during the last fifty years, they are doing what they can to expunge America of its Christian symbols. They are, of course, moved far more by their attachment to liberalism and its anticlericalism than by Judaism and, to be fair, they are do this in simple observance of the fact that the American elite is less and less Christian in its worldview. So why bring it up? because the first time I ever saw this useage was in a history of Judaism more than forty years ago.
They measured years from the foundation of Rome. But for about 1500 years the western world has used A.D. I am not sure when B.C. popped up.
That's news to me. What, exactly does "common era" mean? "Common" to whom or to what? Who or what is "common"? What does "common era" mean or refer to? Do you know, Lunatic Fringe? I certainly don't. What was "uncommon" about an earlier era, and why did an era become "common" at the date that we usually call 1 AD?
The era that began with the establishment of the Roman Empire by Augustus in somewhere between 15 and 1 B.C., which was a far more significant event than the birth of Christ.
We're not part of the Roman Empire, so there's nothing "common" between us and Augustus.
Rome started its dating with the founding of Rome by (according to legend) Romulus and Remus. Augustus didn't start a new dating system. The dating system we use starts with Christ. People who want to deny Christ's centrality to Western Civilization apparently want to blot out the obvious. It's very Orwellian - - sending history down a memory hole.
even for those who do use BCE and CE--they cannot get away from the influence Christ has had in the historical timeline... what separates BCE from CE?
I need to be enlightened. Please provide a source for this info. Thanks.
Other than the fact that it was the impetus for the rise of Christianity. Funny how it all connects sometimes, isn't it?
At least you've given yourself an appropriate name, lunatic fringe. I'm sure I'm not the only freeper who agrees with you on that much.
So you're saying the foundation of Rome was important "because it was the impetus of the rise of Christianity." Historically speaking, that's probably correct. The world-changing force of Christianity was facilitated by the Roman Empire - - but that still makes the Empire, in our modern perspective, of secondary importance, as having laid the groundwork for the historical force (Christianity) that was of primary importance and so remained for millenia after the fall of Rome.
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