History of todays date.

[poser765]

well in my view breaking away from a norm fueled by something I wish to have nothing to do with.

It is in no way "fueled" by religion and really in no way does writing 2014 bring you any closer to religion. The fact is it's an arbitrary date. It could have been "since the fall of rome" or since the battle of hastings or since the discovery of the new world, or really any other date that is significant to western culture.

Really the only valid argument I see for changing it spite.

[Trassk]

now your fishing for ultimatums. you know full well the Gregorian calender applies to how this has been interprated.

The year 0 is that in which one supposes that Jesus Christ was born, which several chronologists mark 1 before the birth of Jesus Christ and which we marked 0, so that the sum of the years before and after Jesus Christ gives the interval which is between these years, and where numbers divisible by 4 mark the leap years as so many before or after Jesus Christ.
—Jacques Cassini, Tables astronomiques, 5, translated from French

However, there might be evidence, which wouldn't surprise me, that much like so many other things christianity took from other religions at the time, other religions and faiths were resetting there own calenders in that time to coincide with an event of there own, and christians just took it and slapped the birth of jesus on it.
At least this holds up when you understand where christmas came about.

[Kalyyn]

We base our calendar on the birth of Jesus for the same reason that most of the world uses English. At some point, somebody with a lot of power made a decision, and it's not worth the effort to change it.

[Kalis]

...that most of the world uses English.

They don't.

At some point, somebody with a lot of power made a decision, and it's not worth the effort to change it.

That didn't happen. There are two main reasons that English is the business language of choice for many nations, neither of which are down to somebody with a lot of power making any decisions.

1. The British Empire was a primarily commercial empire, and their global reach ensured English was well spread.
2. The US influence on international business in the latter part of the 20th Century.

[Kalyyn]

They don't.



That didn't happen. There are two main reasons that English is the business language of choice for many nations, neither of which are down to somebody with a lot of power making any decisions.

1. The British Empire was a primarily commercial empire, and their global reach ensured English was well spread.
2. The US influence on international business in the latter part of the 20th Century.

I genuinely just had to slam my face against my desk. Never done that before.

First of all, according to Wikipedia and the hundreds of sources they've cited, English is the 3rd most common native language, and the most common secondary language (by a massive margin), so yes, most of the world uses English. Debating that is just being arbitrarily contrary.

Next, you've gone on to tell me that English being widespread (which you just said it wasn't) is not due to the actions of someone in power. Then you go on to explain how English became dominant due to the two most powerful entities of the last three centuries making it so.

Like, am I being trolled right now? Because mission accomplished, you've rustled my jimmies so greatly that they shall never be unrustled again.

[poser765]

now your fishing for ultimatums. you know full well the Gregorian calender applies to how this has been interprated.



However, there might be evidence, which wouldn't surprise me, that much like so many other things christianity took from other religions at the time, other religions and faiths were resetting there own calenders in that time to coincide with an event of there own, and christians just took it and slapped the birth of jesus on it.
At least this holds up when you understand where christmas came about.

Sure I guess anything is possible. However, that still doesn't in any way imply a need to change to a 100% secular calendar.

[Kalis]

I genuinely just had to slam my face against my desk. Never done that before.

First of all, according to Wikipedia and the hundreds of sources they've cited, English is the 3rd most common native language, and the most common secondary language (by a massive margin), so yes, most of the world uses English. Debating that is just being arbitrarily contrary.

Next, you've gone on to tell me that English being widespread (which you just said it wasn't) is not due to the actions of someone in power. Then you go on to explain how English became dominant due to the two most powerful entities of the last three centuries making it so.

Like, am I being trolled right now? Because mission accomplished, you've rustled my jimmies so greatly that they shall never be unrustled again.

English is spoken by more than 50% of the world's population? Nope. So most of the world doesn't use English. English also has less speakers (800-900m) as a first or second language than Mandarin does (1bn), so it isn't even the most common. Maths is hard.

Nobody made a decision to use English as the de facto business language, it was organic - if you wanted to do business with the most powerful trading nations, then speaking English made it easier - due to the two factors I listed.

Both of your points are, to be frank, a load of bollocks.

[Endus]

The calendar's already secular.

The religious labels for the eras used the terminology BC, for "Before Christ", and AD, for "Anno Domini", or "Year of the Lord". Those aren't used any more in many circumstances.

The current terminology is BCE, for "Before Christian Era", and CE, for "Christian Era". The starting point is the same, but it's a reference to the emergence of a religious group that shaped the European community that started the calendar system, rather than a religious meaning itself.

The reason not to switch to a more or less completely different "start date" for the calendar system is simple; we've been using this one for a very long time, all our records are in this model, and it's already a nightmare dealing with the changeovers to other calendar systems various nations have used in the past, let alone the Julian calendar and all that. It's a giant freaking nightmare, for basically no positive gain whatsoever.

[Masark]

The current terminology is BCE, for "Before Christian Era", and CE, for "Christian Era". The starting point is the same, but it's a reference to the emergence of a religious group that shaped the European community that started the calendar system, rather than a religious meaning itself.

Or if you like, it can also mean (Before) Common Era.

[Endus]

Or if you like, it can also mean (Before) Common Era.

Yes, "Common" or "Current" are also used, but seem a bit silly when it arbitrarily ties the date to the beginning of Christianity. There's nothing else special about that date, really. CE/BCE aren't religious themselves, even though they reference the existence of religion, is the point.

[poser765]

Yes, "Common" or "Current" are also used, but seem a bit silly when it arbitrarily ties the date to the beginning of Christianity. There's nothing else special about that date, really. CE/BCE aren't religious themselves, even though they reference the existence of religion, is the point.

Exactly. To say "before christ" in no way implies a spiritual aspect to the keeping of the years. It simply alludes to a reckoning to specific event that was pretty important to the evolution of western civilization.

[Deleted]

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

[poser765]

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Meh, if you can improve upon it, then fix it...but I really don't see any conceivable way to improve upon our dating system.

[runedhill]

I have wondered for a long time why we in modern time, where science gets a firmer grasp of people compared to religion as time goes by, why we still count time from the life time of Jesus Christ?
Why is this a part of a modern age when we have such huge knowledge of time pre Christ and knowledge of the vast space which is far bigger than we can even imadgin.

I can understand that when we write down the date of a meeting or something similar that it wont be very practical to write down several numbers to provide the correct year.
As i see it in a non religion bashing way, "science" and "religion" should be kept seperate.



Why is it this way?

We don't.
And, if you understand that it won't be practical to write a 10 digit number to signify the date then why would you make this thread? There's nothing else to get.
When are we supposed to "start time measurements"? Do we start 5000 years ago? Why then? 3 billion years ago? Why then? 12 billion years ago? Why then?
"BC" exists, but the year 2014 has nothing to do with that period.

[Thekri]

I have seen this suggested before, when I was in college some of the professors liked to use BCE. My point of view (Atheist btw), is that why are you trying to hide the fact that the beginning of the common era is marked by the (inaccurate estimate of) the birth of Christ? The fact I don't believe he was the son of God doesn't change the reason we start our calendar that year. As for actually changing the numbers, that is a lot of work with very little reward.

If we are trying to pretend religion had no influence on our culture why is nobody suggesting changing the names of the week? They are all named after Germanic/Norse gods. Sunna's Day, Mani's Day, Tew's day (Tyr), Wodan's (Odin) day, Thor's Day, Frigg's Day, and Saturn's Day (Saturn is a roman god, because F** it).

The Months are named after Roman Gods and Emperors, except for September through December, which are creatively named 7th Month, 8th Month, 9th Month, and 10th Month, despite the obvious fact that they aren't, and haven't been since a Roman Emperor added January and February about 1900 years ago.

Nobody seems to be even slightly interested in fixing these things, because they simply don't need to be fixed, and I would argue Christianity is at least as influential to European history as the Norse or Roman pantheons, with the only difference being it is still around, so lets keep it.

[Ravenblade]

You could always use the North Korean calendar instead. I believe it is year 103 or so according to that one, the world is young in this one. Jokes aside I believe changing our time of reference may open a can of worms because we would have to consecutively purge all time scales and cycles from religious influence. I believe it is not really harmful to leave it as is. Interestingly enough I have a very atheist colleague at work as well who was fervidly complaining about something similar but she did not like my idea to remove weekends and rename the days of the year into day #1, day #2, day #3 etc.

[Frozenbeef]

You could always use the North Korean calendar instead. I believe it is year 103 or so according to that one, the world is young in this one. Jokes aside I believe changing our time of reference may open a can of worms because we would have to consecutively purge all time scales and cycles from religious influence. I believe it is not really harmful to leave it as is. Interestingly enough I have a very atheist colleague at work as well who was fervidly complaining about something similar but she did not like my idea to remove weekends and rename the days of the year into day #1, day #2, day #3 etc.

I'm surprised the north korea one doesn't restart every time someone new comes into power >.<