Magdlyn

As far as I have read, previous to the use of the AD terminology becoming widespread, writers designated dates by saying what year of what king's reign it was.

As we might say, we are now in the 7th year of King (Richard, er,) George's bitter and bloody reign.

Dogfish

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Ben C Smith

An erroneous calculation, true, but an erroneous Christian calculation. It was not somebody (mis)calculating the fall of Rome, after all; it was somebody miscalculating the birth of Christ.

The comments about the yearly calendar, which I agree is fundamentally Julian (with modifications by Gregory), and the names of the days of the week, which are Roman and Norse, are irrelevant to the actual topic of AD and BC, which is a thoroughly Christian system. (The proof of their irrelevance is simple: One could easily apply the Julian-Gregorian calendar and the days of the week to the AUC system, too.)

Ben.

spin

Does that change the ultimate irrelevance of the date to christianity?

As the date is wrong, it renders both abbreviations silly. Jesus was born according to the literature four years before he was born. The year of our lord is the year of our lord plus four. Inherently silly. Retaining them as a means of referring to the dates we refer to today institutionalized the errors.

The system of reference has for convenience sake become a generally world wide supported system. Talking about using the AUC system is not serious on your part. But rendering them with a neutral name should be acceptable in itself to all. When we talk of a date "before the common era", the phrase disturbs no-one, refers to an arbitrary point in time that everyone has agreed to, a date which incidentally has nothing directly to do with christianity. Yet, it seems that there are religious objections to the use of a neutral name for a reference system that doesn't directly impact on christianity, as the reference date is actually a miscalculation, yet a date used by Chinese people, Indians, Japanese, and people from various parts of the world, many of whom are not christians, who may or may not believe in other deities. To attempt to force a n overtly christian name on a term that they have to use is certainly insensitive.

I don't understand why you would be so insensitive, Ben C.


spin

andrewcriddle

Do ordinary Chinese Indians and Japanese generally really care ?
(This is a genuine question. I don't know and would be interested to find out.)

FWIW I use CE and BCE myself but I have the impression that it is a real issue mostly for (some) academics.

Andrew Criddle

Ben C Smith

No, because there is no irrelevance of the date to Christianity. It is relevant, even if mistaken.

Just because some Christian historians dated certain events to the wrong year does not make them non-Christian historians or their histories non-Christian histories (or their mistakes non-Christian mistakes).

Exactly. The CE and BCE system retains the same means of referring to the dates, based on exactly the same error, but sanitized somehow (?) by creating a nebulous era (what on earth is the Common Era??).

Indeed. And so has the nomenclature AD and BC.

It is very serious. Most of Europe threw out their old standards wholesale to embrace the eminently logical and consistent metric system. That took a lot more work than a changeover to a non-Christian dating system would.

But I am not actually in favor of such an approach. I favor using the old AD/BC system as is. And I would favor it even if its origins were Buddhist or Shinto or Muslim, and I would favor retaining the original name instead of creating an era that nobody ever heard of.

Retaining the original name should be acceptable in itself, too. That it should disturb some is more of a comment on the disturbed than on the system itself.

My objections are not religious. If you think they are, that says more about you than about me.

And the Common Era is an exercise in meaninglessness. Let us drain our words of meaning so as not to offend anybody, shall we? I favor saying what we mean and meaning what we say.

I am staunchly against forcing a Buddhist to adopt a Christian dating system; I am all in favor of Buddhists implementing their own dating system, if they so choose. If that forces me to have to get used to a new-to-me Buddhist system when dealing with their literature, so be it. That would be no more foreign to me than what I already have to do in order to read the ancient histories and chronographies, which often use the Olympiads as their dating mechanism.

You do not understand me at all, it would seem.

Ben.

ETA: You yourself brought up the Roman calendar and the Roman and Norse names for the days of the week. I use the names Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday all the time, knowing full well their origins in Norse religion and mythology, without taking offense. I use the term Easter, too, knowing full well its probable etymology from Eostre, and again I take no offense.

GakuseiDon

From what I understand, the Chinese don't care. The Japanese use both the BC/AD numbering, as well as their own numbering system, which is the name of the Emperor (not the Emperor's real name but a name that symbolises their rule), and the number of years that they have ruled. IIUC they use the "Christian" numbering for academic and official purposes. I'm not aware of any current controversy with them doing so.

spin

Not normally. It wouldn't even be considered, just as in western countries. Extremely few think about it.

It certainly hasn't spread far outside fields that are sensitive to the issue, which are mainly academic and therefore not out in the face of the general public.


spin

spin

Calendars get fixed. Why don't you fix the date? Are you happy with the wrong date?

And you haven't actually said why working with the wrong date is relevant to christianity.

It's only an error when the date has a significance. You give it significance based on an error.

The references mean nothing in themselves to the majority of the world's population.

Why bother changing the date at all, when the issue is not the date but the nomenclature?

No, you are not serious. Otherwise you would consider the communication between people who don't share the same dating system. Were you born in 2725 AUC? (Tick, tick, tick.)

Isn't it the same as BCE/CE with just a less acceptable name?

We have a de facto standard of dating. You are suggesting instituting confusion by changing that standard (if we change the names) for some so far unstated reason.

What you are suggesting seems to be a form of chauvinism. We have stopped using terms such as "chairman" in preference to "chairperson" or simply the "chair", because the terminology was deemed not appropriate for a percentage of the population. The institution remains, but the term changes. That's what's at the center of the issue in my eyes.

Do you still talk of Peking, the city, rather than Beijing? Names do get changed. Do you nowadays talk of someone as "retarded"?

You do seem to be chauvinist.

Sorry. I was trying to make sense of what seemed otherwise nonsense. You haven't made your position any clearer.

This doesn't make sense. The "common era" is a reference to the present one, the era that everyone uses, hence "common". Not rocket science.

This seems to be irrelevant to co-operation in discussion of dating.

You're apparently right. You seem to have no justification at all for denying an acceptable term for the de facto standard. Finding a more acceptable name should be a good thing.

They're myths. Their religionists haven't done any damage to anyone for a thousand years or more. What's there to take offense at? It's not surreptitiously foisting signs of an active religion onto non-believers.


spin

Ben C Smith

Being happy (or unhappy) with the wrong date has nothing to do with it. What I am most happy with is the convenience (believe it or not, I personally kind of wish no one had ever conceived the idea of dating things from the birth of Christ). What I am most unhappy with is the intentional concealment of origins.

Because it is a Christian date, even if an incorrect one. I am certain at least some of the martyrs have their days celebrated on an incorrect date; that does not make their day any less theirs, as it were, nor the origin of the date (necessarily) any less martyrological.

I do (did) not give it a significance. That was done nearly a millennium and a half ago. The significance of the AD/BC year system as we have it, whether shifted by 4 years or not, is Christian; there is no denying this. The system was introduced in order to date things from Christ; there is no denying this. The CE/BCE system is functionally the same system; there is no denying this. All that has happened is a change of name in order to conceal the origin of the system. That concealment is what I find somewhat repulsive; I like things out in the open. If Sunday is named after the sun in a sun-worshipping context, I am not in favor of renaming it Sonday in order to honor the son of God; that is concealment.

What exactly is the problem of the nomenclature? (Besides your personal affront, I mean.)

This is a game on your part. Assert-deny-assert. I politely bow out on this one.

Why not just stick to the system that everybody already uses, then? Why the change in anything, including the nomenclature, at all?

No. It is the same as BCE/CE with its original name. Acceptable or unacceptable nomenclature is your game, not mine.

(That is not to say there is no such thing in my mind as unacceptable nomenclature to me; any slur would be unacceptable to my mind. But AD/BC is not a slur.)

That is not my suggestion. I personally wish to retain the de facto system intact, nomenclature and all.

I will listen to such charges just as soon as you confirm for me that you also advocate changing the names of the weekdays (based as they are on the old Norse religion, and hardly universal), some of the months (based on Roman emperors, one of them not even his given name, but rather his cult name), the number of days in a week (based as it is on the old Jewish sabbath laws), and so forth.

I talk of Peking when dealing with Chinese history before the name change. I do not studiously avoid Peking, nor do I studiously conceal the fact that the name of the city used to be Peking.

I call a spade a spade. (Ah. Perhaps now I suddenly see why you, the master of diversion, consider that chauvinist! )

I suggest that, if the only motive that springs to your mind upon hearing my objections is religious, your focus is too narrow.

But it is not properly an era; it is just a timespan, and an arbitrary one at that unless its origin is remembered. It marks off nothing. Nothing began in CE 1; nothing ended. Nothing changed. The only significance of the date is purely historical; D. E. thought it was the year of the birth of Christ. That he was off by 4 years or so does not change the significance of the dating system, nor its origins. All that the CE/BCE system does is to hide the origins.

And there it is. You wish to obscure only those origins that you have personal reason to object to; you are offended by certain religionists (living, apparently), but not by others (dead only?). You, sir, are the one playing the chauvinist.

Absolutely nothing. In any of the cases you have mentioned so far, AD/BC included.

Ben.