Ether's Bane
future Singaporean
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"It seems we have reached an impasse." - Patrick Star
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BCE/CE or BC/AD?
- Thread starter Ether's Bane
- Start date
"It seems we have reached an impasse." - Patrick Star
Karkat Vantas
Virile God-Snake Tower of Masculinity
It's funny because everyone's immediate response upon seeing this thread seemed to be "MUST USE NON-SECULAR TERMINOLOGY". And obscure non-secular terminology at that.
I just don't get the reasoning behind using BCE/CE?? Using them doesn't make your arguments inherently Christian. So what's the logic behind it? "Oh no, if I don't use the obscure non-secular term when referring to the date, the Pope will incept himself into my mind and make me die from internal hemorrhaging!!!"?
I just don't get the reasoning behind using BCE/CE?? Using them doesn't make your arguments inherently Christian. So what's the logic behind it? "Oh no, if I don't use the obscure non-secular term when referring to the date, the Pope will incept himself into my mind and make me die from internal hemorrhaging!!!"?
How is it at all obscure? You're 13. It's used in higher education texts a lot.
What?
You're just grossly exaggerating. "AD" means "in the year of our lord". He's certainly not my lord, and he's not for plenty of others, too. It's a simple choice.
Karkat Vantas
Virile God-Snake Tower of Masculinity
why did i not remember that asdfndsfndsifdoaodmaiosdmiadasdsfgh
Outside of serious academic papers I don't think I've seen anyone use the terms before... I understand you're not Christian but this is pretty inconsequential.
Minish
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- they
If you feel it's inconsequential, why does it matter enough that you're so bothered?
The whole point of trying to spread the terms is so that you'll see it outside of academia? That's... kind of how new terms work! If some terms make more sense than other terms and people would prefer to use them for fairly sensible reasons, then I don't really see why that should be mocked. And also, it is fairly consequential to continue measuring history using Christian or biblical terminology in an increasingly secular/multi-cultural world, so.
Karkat Vantas
Virile God-Snake Tower of Masculinity
I'm not...? I don't know where everyone got the idea that I'm bothered by usage of the terms, I just find it kind of silly!
Teh Ebil Snorlax
izombie, uzombie, weallzombie
(1) You're 13. Your knowledge of the world is not a standard by which to measure the silliness of other people.
(2) I knew about BCE/CE before I was your age and I'm in the second most Catholic country in Europe (and beyond that, 97% of the population believe in the Abrahamic God). The fact that you haven't seen BCE/CE used is a sign of a flaw in your education, not of a lack of use in the modern world.
(3) Quite apart from the social, religious and cultural implications of BC/AD, it is simply ludicrous to use it as a scale when some sources have Christ's estimated birth years before and after the year he was supposedly born on the BC/AD scale. Using a scale based on an uncertain date is pretty ridiculous.
Tarvos
helt plötsligt blev det tyst
even Christians I' ve seen use BCE/CE. It's the way to standardise our calendar.
Karkat Vantas
Virile God-Snake Tower of Masculinity
Aobaru
Floooooon!
- Pronoun
- he
Or maybe it's because most Americans use BC/AD?
Um... before you dig your hole even deeper, BCE/CE is based on the exact same timeframe as BC/AD. Do a little research.
Wikipedia said:
This whole discussion about BCE/CE being somehow superior to BC/AD is, frankly, ridiculous. They both (originally) had religious meaning and they both use the birth of Jesus as their era maker. The only difference is one uses Jesus explicitly. If the goal is to remove every trace of religion from our year-numbering systems, we sure as hell aren't there yet.
Tarvos
helt plötsligt blev det tyst
The thing is the way we choose to number our calendar is entirely arbitrary, so we might as well stick with something that doesn't suddenly require us to change every calendar just because we can. It's practical to keep our current calendar, but we don't want to be associated with the fairy tale that accompanies it - the real reason is that the current calendar makes a lot of sense and fairly accurately describes our movement through space.
I mean we still use degrees Celsius when using Kelvin makes much more sense. Or even Fahrenheit. It's just that Celsius is much more built in and intuitive.
I mean we still use degrees Celsius when using Kelvin makes much more sense. Or even Fahrenheit. It's just that Celsius is much more built in and intuitive.
thunder
Master of electricity
I am referring to the fact that 1 CE is not more "common" than 1 BCE whereas 1 AD and 1BC are distinguished by the appearance of Jesus (although I don't actually believe it is still a difference).
- Pronoun
- he/him
To my knowledge it is short for a longer expression with the intended meaning "in the year of our lord Jesus Christ".
That is not what TES said. He said that just because Karkat had not often encountered BCE/CE did not mean it was uncommon, which is a perfectly good point to make.
Teh Ebil Snorlax
izombie, uzombie, weallzombie
I use BC/AD myself, as do most Irish people, but I still see BCE/CE used and I still know of it.
I know that, thanks. The difference is that BCE/CE says "here, this is a nice point to measure things from" and BC/AD says "oh, this happened a certain amount of time before Jesus Christ was born, even though, on this scale, some sources claim that he was born before he was born".
No, they both use a date that some sources estimate to be the birth of Jesus as their era maker. The difference is that from a BCE/CE standpoint, it's just a good, convenient point to use, whereas from a BC/AD standpoint, it's a point on which a certain event may have happened and is therefore a bit of a flaky scale to measure time on, especially since you can legitimately argue that Christ was born several years before Christ.
Karkat Vantas
Virile God-Snake Tower of Masculinity
I've encountered the terminology before; it's just that here in the States it's nowhere near as commonly used as BC/AD.
Come to think of it, AD/CE are just really redundant terms in general; I never use either when referring to the year and unless you're referring to events that occurred prior to 1 AD it's pointless to include them period. Why do we even use them?
Come to think of it, AD/CE are just really redundant terms in general; I never use either when referring to the year and unless you're referring to events that occurred prior to 1 AD it's pointless to include them period. Why do we even use them?
Minish
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- Pronoun
- they
Because when we do need to distinguish, we need something! Do you not think this might be partly why you probably haven't seen BCE/CE much outside academic texts - because, like you say, there isn't much need to use them anyway? There are a lot more dates in academic texts than in daily conversation. :D
Tarvos
helt plötsligt blev det tyst
Common doesn't mean it's a common date. Common just means that it is in common use and refers to how Westerners commonly use the calendar.
Karkat Vantas
Virile God-Snake Tower of Masculinity
That's a good point, but it doesn't answer the question of why we need to use AD/CE to begin with-- if there's a BC/BCE at the end, it's past 1 AD/CE, and if there isn't, it's after 1 AD/CE. This seems like a perfectly logical system to me, and it avoids all that "Anno Domini" shit that seems to bother everyone.