BBC stops using AD and BC

[bicyclebuilder]

The BBC changes the terms AD and BC into Common Era and Before Common Era. This is supposed to be religiously neutral.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8787311/BBC-drops-Anno-Domini-and-Before-Christ-to-avoid-offending-non-Christians.html

I suggest, purely to avoid religious reasons, counting years starting from the invention of the steam engine. 

[elShoggotho]

Common Era, formerly known as Anno Domini, is a Christian way of counting time. If anything, that implies that the Christian way is the only way, and offends even more.

[bicyclebuilder]

That's what I was thinking. In stead of making it "better" the BBC made it worse. #Facepalm#

Can't we make the counting of years, scientifically accurate? Like they did with degrees Celsius. (0 deg.C is ice, 100 deg.C is boiling water) or Kelvin (Absolute zero)

[James Harrison]

The problem as I see it is that most, if not all, of the widely-understood calendars possess religious origins.  Thus to use any one of them in preference to the others is necessarily open to criticism of religious bias. 

Now either we stop using 'AD' and 'BC' outright- to be replaced by.... what?  Yet another system that will cause more debate, probably take years to gain acceptance at all and itself be flawed (as any new calendar must necessarily be a wide committee production, with all the drawbacks that entails, if it is not to exclude any socio-religious group). 

Or do we instead accept that no matter what is done somebody somewhere may take offence and carry on as we have before? 

Another instance, I think, of being d*mned if you do and d*mned if you don't.  Although to be honest I haven't heard of any protests by non-Christians at the use of BC and AD- is this just the BBC trying to tackle a problem that doesn't exist?           

[Septimus Holrych]

BCE and CE aren't exactly new terms they've been floating around for years, but never really caught on to my mind. I can't remember when I last heard anyone use them. That in itself suggests to me that they're surplus to requirement, especially (as has already been mentioned) since it's still in reference to the Gregorian calender.

I think its a bit daft, but if there's a greater will to use them in the media you never know, it might grow on us. I reserve the right to giggle if I hear any historians on iplayer use BCE/CE, and then go onto explain that they mean BC/AD in the same breath.

[Dave the Troll]

This applies equally well to Calendars.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[bicyclebuilder]

Hang on. We need an event widely known to mankind that took place at year 1. Something like a meteor passing earth. A meteor passing can be scientifically proven and has no religious content whatsoever. (It just happend to pass earth around year 1)
We can use the phrase Before Meteor or After Meteor. BM/AM. When people ask:"what meteor?", we could say:"the one passing earth at the birth of Jesus"
Problem solved! 
Oh, wait. Was there a meteor passing earth at that time?

[Rockula]

BCE and CE aren't exactly new terms they've been floating around for years, but never really caught on to my mind. I can't remember when I last heard anyone use them. That in itself suggests to me that they're surplus to requirement, especially (as has already been mentioned) since it's still in reference to the Gregorian calender.

I think its a bit daft, but if there's a greater will to use them in the media you never know, it might grow on us. I reserve the right to giggle if I hear any historians on iplayer use BCE/CE, and then go onto explain that they mean BC/AD in the same breath.

Personally I've been using CE/BCE for about 20 years if I ever feel the need to suffix the year in any way. But if I write, say, 1966 I feel no need to put 1966 CE or 1966 AD.
 It's usually redundant.

 And I don't suppose most people even make the Religious connection of BC and AD to Christianity anyway. Well, not anymore.

 If we used the Chinese calendar we wouldn't need either.

[Fairley B. Strange]

I would observe that this is the 174th year of the reign of our enduring Queen-Empress, and as such should suffice for our purposes, thus : years BVE and VE.

[elShoggotho]

Hm... a new time system, based on the notion that Queen Victoria lives on as a steam powered cyborg? Obviously, new year would be 20 June, which marks this year as VR 174.

[Tamarand]

I think we should use the Mayan calendar... then we wouldn't need it at all from next Christmas/Yule onwards! 

[Mr. Boltneck]

The late Robert Anton Wilson liked to use a variety of calendars, and is said to have dated letters and other documents with a mixture of them. Somewhere, I have one of his books which outlines several of them, including the synchronizing information to some of the other systems. He included a 'Pataphysical calendar, the Revolutionary French one, the Chinese, the Discordian, and so forth. His point (or one of his points) seems to have been that all calendars are arbitrary ways to slice up time.
His friend William S. Burroughs wrote a short story (The Discipline of D.E.) in which the main character starts a kind of one-man revolution with musings on creating a better calendar. It's a wonderful piece, and appears in the collection Exterminator.

[Angus A Fitziron]

How pointless - even the BBC are confused about their own bulletin...

"The BBC said last night: "The BBC has not issued guidance on the dates system. Both AD and BC, and BE and BCE are widely accepted dates systems and..." which should have been, according to their own blurb "Both AD and BC and CE and BCE are...."

so why foist a pointless, confusing set of abbreviations on us just to gain a few points in this month's interdepartmental competition to out PC each other ~ they probably have management targets for this and it contributes to someone's bonus!

Clearly all thanks to "the unique way the BBC is funded"

[barb dwyer]

They are still using BCE and such
over here in college reference materials.
My Philosophy prof. calls it
'Before the Hijacking'...

[Dave the Troll]

so why foist a pointless, confusing set of abbreviations on us...

Exactly.  We don't want the abbreviations CE/BCE or AD/BC.  Not in the past, not now in The Year Of Our Lord Two Thousand and Eleven!

Or should I say "The Two Thousand and Eleventh Year of The Common Era".

MMXI Indu Tempus Popularis

That's ITP as opposed to ATP.

[Sir Nikolas Vendigroth]

We should use a calendar based on geological timescales.

"What time is it?"

"4.5 billion years and 20 minutes, give or take 10 million"

It's logical, precise and easily understood. Possibly a bit useless if you want to boil an egg though.

[Dave the Troll]

We should use a calendar based on geological timescales.

"What time is it?"

"4.5 billion years and 20 minutes, give or take 10 million"

It's logical, precise and easily understood. Possibly a bit useless if you want to boil an egg though.

What we use is like Celsius is to Kelvin.
Kelvin goes from absolute zero.  Real time should go from The Big Bang/God's creation of earth/Other (please delete based on own religious preference).

[Sir Nikolas Vendigroth]

Smashing idea!

For the more modern stuff, why don't we use a point about 2 millenia ago? Seems like a nice number.

[Dr. Madd]

To be frank, it does not bother me to offend non-Christians. They can use this new crap if they want.. it's still BC and AD for me.

[Capt. Dirigible]

so why foist a pointless, confusing set of abbreviations on us just to gain a few points in this month's interdepartmental competition to out PC each other ~ they probably have management targets for this and it contributes to someone's bonus!

^This^ (my bold italics)

[elShoggotho]

To be frank, it does not bother me to offend non-Christians. They can use this new crap if they want.. it's still BC and AD for me.

Calling it "common era" is more offending anyway - to ALL sides.

[Atterton]

I suggest we could base it on the supernova seen by Tycho Brahe, in the year 1572. This should be the new year 0.

[bicyclebuilder]

I suggest we could base it on the supernova seen by Tycho Brahe, in the year 1572. This should be the new year 0.

What should be the new year 0? The date the supernova was seen or the actual supernova? There is a couple of lightyears time difference.

[Atterton]

The year it was seen. I can´t think of too many other non-religious non-political events we could use instead. We could of course start using 1950 as the year zero, like they do for carbon dating.

[Sir Nikolas Vendigroth]

We could use the start of the Anthropocene as the year 0, which'd make sense.

Now, we only need to find out what year that was.