BC is so BC

[Gob]

CHRISTIANS are outraged that the birth of Jesus Christ will no longer be cited when recording dates under the new national history curriculum.

High school students will not use the terms BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini) when referencing dates.

Although history dates won't change, with textbooks still using the birth of Christ as the change point, they will use the neutral terms BCE (Before Common Era), BP (Before Present) and CE (Common Era).

Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen said yesterday that removing BC and AD from the curriculum was an "intellectually absurd attempt to write Christ out of human history".


"It is absurd because the coming of Christ remains the centre point of dating and because the phrase 'common era' is meaningless and misleading," he told The Daily Telegraph...It was akin to calling Christmas the festive season, he said.

A spokesman for the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, responsible for developing the national curriculum from kindergarten to Year 12, said BCE and CE were to be introduced because this was an increasingly common standard for the representation of dates.

The little known term BP (Before Present) will be used when dealing with "very ancient history and archaeology, and allows for the teaching of more sophisticated understandings of representations of time".

In anticipation of the curriculum change, textbooks for student teachers such as Teaching And Learning In Aboriginal Education, by Neil Harrison, were already using the term BP.

Federal Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said: "Australia is what it is today because of the foundations of our nation in the Judeo-Christian heritage that we inherited from Western civilisation.

"Kowtowing to political correctness by the embarrassing removal of AD and BC in our national curriculum is of a piece with the fundamental flaw of trying to deny who we are as a people."

The curriculum was to have been introduced next year but has been delayed.

HISTORY OF CE AND BE

The Common Era was originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century.
It appeared in English as early 1708 and its use can traced back to the Latin term vulgaris aerae and the English Vulgar Era.
Use of the CE abbreviation was introduced by Jewish academics in the mid-19th century.
The terms CE and BCE became popular in academic and scientific publications in the late 20th century. It was used by publishers to emphasise secularism or sensitivity to non-Christians.
The terms still use the Gregorian calendar, and the year-numbering system associated with it.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/for-chr ... z1Wl1r2ZMH

[Scooter]

"It is absurd because the coming of Christ remains the centre point of dating and because the phrase 'common era' is meaningless and misleading," he told The Daily Telegraph

If there's anything meaningless and misleading, it's continuing to use BC/AD when we've known for centuries that Jesus was almost certainly not born in 1 AD.

[Crackpot]

It is a meaningless change spurred for no other reason to remove an Christian reference from our dates.

Like it or not it is part of our collective religious history which is pervasive in all our dating systems and if it is so important that we remove the one we should remove them all. Which nixes all of the days of the week and about half of the months.

[Sean]

I think CP, that there is a slight difference between naming a day (or a month) after a deity and splitting up the entire history of our planet into events that took place either before or after the birth of a single deity.

[Scooter]

Like it or not it is part of our collective religious history]

That's just it though, it's not part of our collective religious history. It was never part of the history of huge parts of Asia and Africa, for example, who are now consigned to using the same dating system out of need for consistency.

if it is so important that we remove the one we should remove them all. Which nixes all of the days of the week and about half of the months.

Different cultures have different names for the days of the week and the months of the year based on their own history. No one ever expected the Japanese to rename their months based on the names of Roman gods and emperors. But if we do expect them to adopt a uniform dating system, it's inappropriate that they be expected to name it after a god who didn't choose Tokyo harbour for his walking on water trick.

[oldr_n_wsr]

they will use the neutral terms BCE (Before Common Era), BP (Before Present) and CE (Common Era).

Well that certainly makes it much clearer.
BCE, Before Common Era. Does that mean anything before "now" which is the "common era" I know? Or does it really mean "BC" Before Christ. (by any other name)
BP, Before Present. Well today (right now) is the present. So is BP yesterday? hte day before the week, the year, the decade. Oh wait they say it's:

"very ancient history and archaeology, and allows for the teaching of more sophisticated understandings of representations of time".

CE, Common Era. Well I guess that mean now as I know it. is 1000 years ago still "CE"? I doubt we have much in "common" with those people who lived 1000 years ago. But hey, the metric system got as much attention 30 years ago.

[liberty]

It is a meaningless change spurred for no other reason to remove an Christian reference from our dates.

Like it or not it is part of our collective religious history .

he's right

[Crackpot]

Like it or not it is part of our collective religious history]

That's just it though, it's not part of our collective religious history. It was never part of the history of huge parts of Asia and Africa, for example, who are now consigned to using the same dating system out of need for consistency.

if it is so important that we remove the one we should remove them all. Which nixes all of the days of the week and about half of the months.

Different cultures have different names for the days of the week and the months of the year based on their own history. No one ever expected the Japanese to rename their months based on the names of Roman gods and emperors. But if we do expect them to adopt a uniform dating system, it's inappropriate that they be expected to name it after a god who didn't choose Tokyo harbour for his walking on water trick.

Different cultures also have calendars and year numbers. No one is forcing (or even asking) them to change those either.... Unless you're Christian.

If you want a new dating system fine come up with a new one. But it its disingenuous (not to mention flat out hypocritical) to say lets use this historical dating system over here only lets scrub the historical significance (regardless of its accuracy) from it as is might offend someone who doesn't share that history.

There is no point to it other than to purposely offend one set of people so we won't run the risk of possibly offending another.

[Crackpot]

I think CP, that there is a slight difference between naming a day (or a month) after a deity and splitting up the entire history of our planet into events that took place either before or after the birth of a single deity.

Fine then set up a dating system that in no way references or is rooted in the birth of said deity.

[loCAtek]

Like it or not it is part of our collective religious history]

That's just it though, it's not part of our collective religious history. It was never part of the history of huge parts of Asia and Africa, for example...

Neither is the English language part of their collective history, but it's what the global community has agreed to adopt as a standard. The Chinese/Asians do use their own time-keeping standard internally; 2011 is Year 4708 by the Chinese Calendar, but when interacting with Westerners they use English and the Gregorian Calendar.

Whatever standard is used is pretty irreverent, so long as communications and records, are agreed on.

[Crackpot]

Just my 2 cents:

This is just the type of meaningless and needless change that lends credence to the "war on christmas", "War on Christianity" brigade.

I so don't want those assholes to be right.

[dales]

BCE = Before Chrisian Era.

CE = Christian Era.

Works for me.

[rubato]

I guess I don't see any advantage to changing it now. And it isn't even a real change since you will be retaining the numerical years as starting from the "time of Christ" (imprecision noted, but why precision would be expected of a mythical event or even valued in that context, I don't know). The only way to truly remove any reference to the central myth of the christian church would be to start counting years from some other event, a natural or historical event perhaps. And I'm lazy and I don't want to have to learn a whole new set of numbers for things.

yrs,
rubato

[dgs49]

The calendar does not date from the birth of Christ and never did.

The Romans had developed a calendar based on solar years, and it began with the number 500 and worked it's way down to zero. When the calendar was established they assumed that they had picked a number high enough to last until the end of time. When it did run down to zero, they started back up the other way with one, two, etc. This is the calendar we now date by.

The tie with the birth of Christ came a couple hundred years later, and they were not interested in the exact date of the birth of Christ, only that the calendar had coincidentally "started" at around the same time that Christ was born.

I have seen references to BCE for at least 40 years. It was used in the novel, "The Source." I see no reason to make an issue of the change. No disrespect is intended.

[thestoat]

Neither is the English language part of their collective history, but it's what the global community has agreed to adopt as a standard.

Really? Can you mention it to the French - they must have been asleep when that "agreement" was made

[loCAtek]

I understand your confusion, but lingua franca does not pertain specifically to the French language;

A lingua franca (or working language, bridge language, vehicular language) is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.[1]

...

Examples of lingua francas are numerous, and exist on every continent. The most obvious example today is English, which is the current lingua franca of international business, science, technology, and aviation. There are many other lingua francas centralized on particular regions, such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish.

Wiki

[The Hen]

Yay. The Stoat returns!

[thestoat]

Thank you Hen. I had a month holiday ... Back to the drudge now ...

[The Hen]

Nice* .


* the holiday, not the drudge.

[thestoat]

I understand your confusion, but lingua franca does not pertain specifically to the French language;

I know what a linugua franca is lo. Let's keep this nice and simple.

Neither is the English language part of their collective history, but it's what the global community has agreed to adopt as a standard.

Can you point me to such an agreement by the global community?