BC and AD, or BCE and CE
By Fidget
@Fidget (291)
January 19, 2008 9:07pm CST
So, do you use BC/AD or BCE/CE? What reason are behind your choice?
Suppose I should start. I use BC/AD. It is not a religious matter for me, I'm generally agnostic. It's just how you date things in the society I was brought up. Even in the academic community I have found BC/AD in common use. And then BCE and CE start appearing with increasing regularity. And I hate it. Why? Because I think it's political correctness gone mad. Can someone please tell me what was suppose to have happened 0 BCE/CE?
*Ahem* rant concluded. So what do you use. I'm not gonna shout if you say BCE/CE, I am just interested as to why.
Thanks :)
6 responses
@ShardAerliss (1488)
•
20 Jan 08
If a new date were chosen as 0, as the transition between Before and After I wouldn't really mind. But it wasn't. It's the same system, setting Christ's supposed birth year as the transition time. It's still based on Christ, just given a new name. Really now, what was the point?
What I really want to know is what is so common about the last 2k years? Why is it the Common Era? What happened in 0 to make it a Common Era? Why was time before that not common?
1 person likes this
@ShardAerliss (1488)
•
20 Jan 08
Hmmm, good idea. I'll wait and see if anyone can answer my questions here first (and I'll see what I ca find out on the internet). If not, off to start a new thread.
1 person likes this
@miacis3101 (82)
• United States
20 Jan 08
Maybe the next step is to refer to time in mathematical terms. Instead of 600 BC, it will be -600. After all, we have to take into account the feelings of scientists. :P
1 person likes this
@Ravenladyj (22902)
• United States
20 Jan 08
"*Ahem* rant concluded"
LOL that made me giggle.....anyway, I use BCE and CE when I need to use that sort of term at all which is beyond rare really...Why? habit I suppose..I guess it just made more sense to me since I'm not a Christian...Like I said though, the amount of times that I've actually felt the need to say either at all in my life is so rare I could probably count them on one hand....
1 person likes this
@telefriend (3)
• United States
20 Jan 08
Since many of my predecessors were alive when time skipped a beat and rotated around the event to face it into eternity, I'm sticking with tradition.
@kundalini444 (194)
• Italy
23 Jan 08
Christ is not very important in my life, but he was in the life of those who compiled our actual calendar. That's why the calendar has been compiled starting with Christ's supposed birth.
It has been used among common people for all these centuries, so now it is the "common" way of counting years, regardless of the importance of the name of Christ, which originally was so over-important to those who had the necessity of compiling calendars in the middle age.
@miacis3101 (82)
• United States
20 Jan 08
Does BCE/CE mean Before Christian Influence / Christian Influence? If so, then it may be the next evolution in the phrase. Think about it, in historical terms, it was "Yule", then "Christmas", then, "The Holidays" so why not change the moniker of our understanding of absolute zero in time? I don't think it's necessarily PC (even though I HATE PC), just evolution of acceptance.
