I guess being an old retired fart I've missed out on this contemporary change. Suffice it to say I personally find it abhorrent.

Seems the anti-religious forces have found yet another way to secularize a tradition.

First came across this in a YouTube video the other day which was discussing a number of historical events. My reaction was WTFO leading me to do a web search where I found this business stood for Before Common (or Current) Era and Common (or Current) Era.

I am so sick and tired of these leftist anti-religious asshats destroying foundations from what defines marriage, creating phony additions to the two natural genders, and shit like this. A pox of their houses! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....

That convention has been used by many—perhaps most—historians for decades.

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Originally posted by bald1:
Seems the anti-religious forces have found yet another way to secularize a tradition.

Nailed it right here.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
I guess being an old retired fart I've missed out on this contemporary change.

It has been in English usage since the early 1700s and came into wider usage by Jewish religious scholars in the mid-19th century. By the late 20th century usage was common in academic and scientific publications.

I remember it in high school in the mid-60s

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Seems the anti-religious forces have found yet another way to secularize a tradition

The Common Era notation was devised by the Christian monk Dionysius Exiguus in the year 525 to replace the Era of Martyrs system

Further: https://www.ancient.eu/article...bcece-dating-system/

Go to 3:30 where he debates this topic and why he still uses BC/AD.

Jews prefer BCE/CE. Personally, I don't care.

Jews by convention use Before Common Era and Common Era. It kinda sticks in their craw to say Before Christ and Annum Domini (year of the Lord) as the demarcation line is the supposed date of Jesus ‘ birth. Most experts agree the birth of Jesus is a few years off the current timeline.

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BCE/CE versus BC/AD

I care just enough to write this post about how much I don't care. It's just a calendar, not any kind of attempt to demean or diminish Christ.

 
I kind of like the Julian calendar, first proposed by Julius Caesar. It is simply a continuous count of integer days, with partial days indicated by a fraction expressed as a decimal number following the Julian day number. There is no BC/AD or BCE/CE. The origin date (January 1st, 4713 BC) was chosen because on that date several celestial events coincided, and since it was prior to recorded history. Today is 2458763 on the Julian calendar.
 
It is widely used by astronomers, chronologers, and some historians. It is far easier to subtract one day number from another to come up with the periodicity of a comet, for example, where the number may span centuries. Easier than factoring in months with different days and leap years.
 
The Modified Julian day is more commonly used. Subtract 2400000.5 from the Julian day. This drops the millions (24) leaving a 5 digit number and moves the start of the day from noon (as in the original Julian calendar), back to midnight, UTC. So today's MJD is 58762.
 
I ran across this calendar in the logs of the Network Time Protocol, which records time stamps using the MJD, with decimal portions.
 

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:

I guess being an old retired fart I've missed out on this contemporary change.

I'm an older fart, not yet retired. You say "contemporary change."

How do you define "contemporary?" I remember this convention (BCE / BE) being in common use as far back as seventy years ago. Probably before then, but I was a kid and didn't pay that much attention to something that was very common.