+35 "Before Common Era" and "Common Era" are terrible, amirite?

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

we dont? what do they use now?

by Dangerous-Lock4763 4 weeks ago

Oh yeah that's right. So it seems I was born too late for the iron age But born too early for the energy age

by Smithamnova 4 weeks ago

I want to be in the song and dance age.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

I'm trying to be in the Unemployment Age

by Actual_Vegetable_136 4 weeks ago

Atomic Age>Information Age

by Automatic_Stretch 4 weeks ago

Come on we can come up with better I wanna live in the "age of knowledge" or something cooler like that

by zwehner 4 weeks ago

We had the age of enlightenment before the industrial revolution. This is more like the age of misinformation

by Far_Payment9033 4 weeks ago

Sadly, that's exactly what it is. Or perhaps, "I believe whatever I feel is true." Age. Who cares about facts anymore, am I right?

by Necessary_Being9267 4 weeks ago

Disinformation

by Framivada 4 weeks ago

Age of enlightenment

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Sadly that's come and gone

by zwehner 4 weeks ago

That's kinda cool but if it was the stainless steel age or something it'd be better

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

I am almost 100% positive if we were following that type of naming convention we would be in the plastic age.

by Jermeykassulke 4 weeks ago

The iron age lasted 700 years, I think we can keep stainless steel for a while

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Yeah because technology advanced at a slower pace. For the average working class person 1910 - 2020 is a bigger change than bronze age to iron age.

by Dangerous-Lock4763 4 weeks ago

the silicon age

by Smante 4 weeks ago

I disagree. We are currently living in the Silicon Age.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

No, we're saving that one for when the silicon based aliens invade and enslave humankind

by Smithamnova 4 weeks ago

The Metal Age

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

"we are changing BC to BCE." Oh, what significant event are you basing BCE on? "The same date as BC but we didn't like the wording."

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

I think the main reason to move away from Christ being a signifier is just to de-religion science. It's all semantics but I think that's the reasoning.

by Zlesch 4 weeks ago

But wtf so common era mean then? What makes 1 CE special for the start of the common era?

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

TIL the pagans I know don't actually exist.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

I mean, to say it is inaccurate is a matter of perspective. Yes what you are saying is true. But it's also correct that this form of dating was calculated at that time and then a few hundred years later started to become popularized, then spread amongst most of western culture. That isn't inaccurate, and I don't think the counter argument is really that it's more correct about the date of Jesus' birth, it's that it makes sense to continue using a methodology that is thousands of years old that does have that origin whether we like it or not. I'm not religious. I don't think we should use it out of the respect for the religious aspect. I think changing it is just a weird way to wash away a part of history that doesn't really seem necessary. We can understand everything you just described while continuing to use the same terminology. Are we supposed to rename the planets because their current names give too much tribute to Greek and Roman pantheons and that is too exclusionary? Everything about that notion seems silly to me.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Because in Latin numerals there is no place holding zero. 10=X not 10.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

40 is just one more than 39. Pour out 39 Skittles and add one. There isn't actually a zero there. The zero is only in the writing, which represents that it equals 4x10 + 0x1, which is convenient for our calculations. In a base 16 system, the same amount is written 28, 2x16 + 8x1.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Which is odd because our days of the week are named after Norse gods, some of our months are named after Roman gods along with the planets. Scientists still use these names all the time.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

That is named after mythologies though, Christianity is a religion.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

no difference really (outside of age and currently having adherents)

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

I just think, Before Christ Era, and Christ Era to help me remember. Works every time!

by Distinct-Flamingo 4 weeks ago

Me too

by Wlang 4 weeks ago

They can do what businesses do and rebrand. GOG used to be "Good Old Games", and MTV was "Music Television" till they rebranded and changed their names.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Nope, it was back in 2012.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

My response to BCE and CE is "Common era defined by what major event?"

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

BCE/CE has been in scholarly use since the 1700s and BC/AD are still common. No one is taking them from you. Use whatever you want.

by Ckoelpin 4 weeks ago

This was like a decade ago, but we used to get scolded in my high school history class for using BC/AD instead of BCE/CE

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Indeed. I prefer to stick with BC/AD and I'm Atheist. I'd rather make a fuss about terms like "the dark ages", luckily we don't have such term in my native language.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

I still use BC and AD, dont understand why the change, but I think people will know what I am saying if I continue to use BC and AD

by Windlerlillian 4 weeks ago

Yeah. I was encountering them a few years before that, on the regular, in formal contexts, as well. And in an academic setting, it is honestly more noticeable when BC and AD are used, because they aren't the norm in that context.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

That's relatively recent, though. Not in the grand scheme of things, but when you're talking about identifying time by the thousands, 20 years isn't much.

by Elias69 4 weeks ago

Relatively recent as in 1708, which is the first documented use of 'common era'. Definitely longer than 20 years, though not thousands of years for sure

by Rueckermark 4 weeks ago

Neil deGrasse Tyson's a bitch

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

I would say he's a massive douche, but that works too.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

It wasn't even that accurate. Sure maybe for the time, but now by our best estimations they were at least 4 years off.

by Yasmeenkautzer 4 weeks ago

Let alone BC, is there an objective reason of Anno Domini being superior, other than a lot of people are used to the term?

by blockshania 4 weeks ago

It sounds much cooler.

by Distinct_Sun 4 weeks ago

It sounds cool

by faustino20 4 weeks ago

Can we at least agree that CE and BCE are daft in the sense that they're too similar in how they're said? They share two of the same letter. Surely they could have found something that at least uses two different letters to avoid potential confusion when people don't speak clearly. Nobody was mistaking AD for BC.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

I agree. Besides, I immediately recognize BC and AD to indicate what era they mean. But every time I see BCE and CE I have to take a minute to think which one is which. It's only one letter different; why did morons think that was a superior solution?

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

What started the Common Era?

by Material_Night 4 weeks ago

So many things these days are based on latin. Scientific names, body parts, months of the year. If that's the reasoning then everything else also has to change.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Literally every body part in our anatomy would have to change its name

by Elias69 4 weeks ago

Language changes very slowly, but Latin is being phased out. Latin terms are not as common as they used to be.

by schroedertrysta 4 weeks ago

There's a difference between based on Latin and is Latin. Anno domoni is Latin.

by taltenwerth 4 weeks ago

There's plenty of Latin words in common English usage. I'll leave you to Google it if you wish.

by Aschimmel 4 weeks ago

Ya don't say. Anno domini is not one of them.

by taltenwerth 4 weeks ago

There's other Latin words used less frequently or only in specific cases, too. Of all the arguments for switching to CE/BCE, this one is rather weak tea.

by Aschimmel 4 weeks ago

It is religious, it was coined by a Rabbi specifically because it would not be appropriate for Jews to use. It is religion all the way down.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

When I say it is not religious I mean it's valid for every religion including irreligious to use. I'm just not really sure what the term for that would be.

by schroedertrysta 4 weeks ago

The wild thing is, BC is "before Christ", but AD is "Anno Domini", and it can't mean "After Death" because tradition is that Jesus died in 33 AD. His entire life took place in what we sometimes call the "after death" half. The names are a bit of a mess, but it works fine in the end.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Right, and that's assuming you can find anything other than a Roman record that says, "there was a Jesus of Nazarath" killed for rebellion on a Tuesday. Of course. None of that will prevent religious idiots from contending it's oppression.

by Cjohnston 4 weeks ago

I'm actually with you on this. It was Pope Gregory that introduced the gregorian calendar, so he gets naming rights. BCE/CE is just the gregorian calendar with whitewashing the history away. (*Whitewashing, not in the racial sense)

by Aschimmel 4 weeks ago

You're conflating the calendar with the year count. The 2 aren't necessarily linked… the julian calendar existed for like 6 centuries before the a.d count was even established

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Even though I'm an atheist, I still prefer AD and BC just because its less boring

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

This is the answer I needed to see. Not the oh BCE was used first actually, well it's tacky and I hate it

by Life-Cat6457 4 weeks ago

They tried. During the French Revolution, they changed the names of the months and the days of the week to get rid of religious significance. I think they tried to have a 10-day week. It went pretty well for them, at least for about 5 minutes.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Personally I think we should just use "years ago" as our time scale and not have a 0 start.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Then the year numbers would change every year.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Why change the calendar and all the date we already learned in history just for that, when you can keep it intact? I still use BC and AD to be honest, but I don't really get what AD means. Our teachers said it meant After Death, but that can't be it.

by Far_Payment9033 4 weeks ago

You'd be surprised how much stuff you're taught is just what that particular teacher thinks. Especially in elementary school. As you get to higher education it becomes more and more stuff that's in a textbook and less purely what the teacher thinks but it never completely goes away.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

I agree. The whole thing is stupid and I refuse to use it. I've never met anyone outside a history class who uses BCE/CE either.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Another thing that makes BCE and CE stupid is the fact that it uses the birth of Jesus Christ (Christian reference point) to assess timelines. So the sensitivity to non-Christians is practically not fulfilled by just change in nomenclature.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Christians made the calendar pretty much, and it is brilliant system. Let them have it. I agree, I dont care if it offends a small percentage of ppl

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

"Keep the old way".... Oh, so it's 2777 Ab Urbe Condita, from the founding of the city of Rome. Oh, you actually meant, "keep the way that lets me pretend my culture reigns supreme." Yeah no, that hierarchy doesn't exist outside your mind, so we'll pass and keep using the more accurate name, that's been used for hundreds of years.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

It's the same thing haha

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

"Even if you're not Christian you have to admit that they are superior" Christians not making assumptions that eveyrone has to believe the same as them challenge: impossible

by sammie92 4 weeks ago

I mean they do sound much better. BCE is just too long.

by faustino20 4 weeks ago

One extra letter, the horror

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

50% increase in letters and "CE" is hard to pronounce in conversation.

by Similar_Gas 4 weeks ago

Not unpopular. BCE/CE is antihistorical trash from absolute %>*wits.

by alanarolfson 4 weeks ago

Most biblical scholars consider Jesus' birth to take place at around 6 BCE or 4 BCE. Doesn't really make sense if it was BC.

by Pearliebayer 4 weeks ago

It's the type of era that was just laying around everywhere. What I want to find out more about are the rare, mythic, and legendary eras.

by Similar_Gas 4 weeks ago

Nah. BCE/CE is so much more pleasant

by yostmadelynn 4 weeks ago

Anno Domini sounds cooler

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

This non-Christian agrees with OP.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Nah

by magali41 4 weeks ago

The issue with BC is because christ comes from the Greek "christos" which means messiah. (Which comes from a Hebrew word which means anointed.) By using BC you are referring to Jesus as a messiah. Which is fine for Christians or Muslims who consider Jesus to be the messiah. But for example Jews who don't believe that take issue with it. AD could be interpreted to be even worse. Its Latin for "year of our lord" so it's implying that Jesus is God. Which is a no go for anyone other than s Trinitarian Christian. . Irreligious people don't typically care so by all means use whichever you want. I don't care what other people say. I'm not trying to be the PC police about it at all I just don't want to refer to Jesus as christ or lord.

by Jaskolskiemmy 4 weeks ago

I don't mind but there are some Christians who actually think this is proof that their apocalyptic cult is true, and that part makes me cringe. Moving the world towards secularity is a net positive for 99.99% of the human population.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

The intent is good, but it's still the exact same years centering the supposed birth of Jesus as the defining marker so it's not actually a change at all. Just a pointless rename that keeps the bias elevating Christianity to world primacy

by Stokesfermin 4 weeks ago

I read this as "command erq" and was confused what the windows command prompts had to do with anything

by Rylanerdman 4 weeks ago

BCE looks like they tried to still include BC so yeah, we need something better.

by flavio34 4 weeks ago

no. FYI, it's not "common era"

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

This isn't so much an unpopular take as it is inconsequential. Literally one extra letter.

by Framivada 4 weeks ago

If Jesus was a real person, he was definitely not born in year 1/0 of our calendar. The sources don't add up, if you read about it. So while it's supposed to count years after his birth, it doesn't, so just saying outright "This is what everyone uses as the year we're living in because it's convenient" is much simpler and factual. The BCE/CE convention actually arose when the British Empire was spreading and conquered countries with other religions (most notably Muslim) that couldn't use "Anno Domini" because it would be blasphemous. So in the interest of business and smooth bookkeeping, the "Vulgar Era" was introduced, which is essentially CE, but in slightly outdated language.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Use ab urbe condita

by Pinksmitham 4 weeks ago

I've always agreed, and I'm an atheist. My main complaint is that they're exactly the same, just with a different name. It does nothing to address the problem, which is the Eurocentric bias of our dating system. What we should do is move to the Holocene calendar. Add 10,000 years to the current date. Done.

by Emergency_War203 4 weeks ago

"But basically it changes nothing. Keep the old way." So nothing changed but you're still upset?

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

We should count from the earliest known writing

by Ok_Shopping_8839 4 weeks ago

Your history is off a couple of hundred years. BCE/CE have been used for centuries, it replaced 'vulgar era' in the 1700s. You get to have an opinion, but it is better to have an informed one.

by Conscious_Routine_43 4 weeks ago

How many people have been using it though? It's made a resurgence recently. It's not like everyone started using it, it's been around but not commonly used.

by faustino20 4 weeks ago

Thank you!!

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

For better or worse, whether they believe in him or not, Jesus Christ changed our calendar system and we're probably not going to change it again, so BC and AD are perfectly fine and never needed to change. But people hate Jesus enough to go through that effort, even though, like I said, not believing in him doesn't change the impact he had on calendars.

by Elias69 4 weeks ago

People find the dumbest reasons to resist change

by jaskolskiorland 4 weeks ago

Yeah, OP's argument is basically "it's different so I hate it". People can be so stubborn about changing the littlest things

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Human Era calendars all day, homie. It's 12,024

by Terry11 4 weeks ago

You are right: it's an unpopular opinion

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Go back to ab urbe condita and ante urbem conditam

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Also common era is stupid. Most none European civilizations have their own calendar with their own year 0, calling it the "common era" is just stupid

by zwehner 4 weeks ago

He's not my lord.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

They've used BCE and CE since the 1700s.

by Pacochaclaudie 4 weeks ago

CE and BCE are better

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Get used to it buddy religion is dying

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Let's get rid of everything religious at that point. No more saying things like goodbye (origin: God be with you) or godspeed

by Equivalent_Front3101 4 weeks ago

Deal.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Lol who's calendar do you use?

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Check this guy's hard drive

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

There's no proof Jesus existed. That's why BC and AD are meaningless.

by Xmoore 4 weeks ago

Absolutely true, but imagine a young kid asks you why we use the year zero as reference point. You can turn an old church into a pizzeria, like they did in my city, but that doesn't change the fact it still looks like a church. And everytime you look at it you can't avoid seeing it as a church.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

I don't agree. It's not better as I want nothing to do with religion.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

Your use of Christian and superior in your opening argument cannot be ignored. The rest of your argument is the nonsense you mentioned.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

This is unpopular. Why would we base our years on some random dude named Christ. Weird

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

I like this plan. Yes, more days off is good. As long as the holiday is on Columbus's birthday I'll call it Columbus Day because that's what it is.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

I agree with NDT on this. He says religious scholars fixed the map problem, they get the naming rights.

by BarAble2601 4 weeks ago

I have no problem with this.

by Limp-Mud2525 4 weeks ago

Jesus wasn't born at 0 AD, so let's just throw that argument out the window to start. BCE and CE is an attempt to use existing calendars within a more academically accurate framework. You are partially correct that it does not change anything because the inaccuracies caused by relying on religions "history" are baked in would require a batter calender. But people like the pagan-based calendar Gregory XIII made, so we continue to use it despite the problems of forcing religious compatability into it causes.

by No_Steak 4 weeks ago

Tell me more about the batter calendar 🀀

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

It's what happens after deep frying a pagan based calendar overlaid with a Christian veneer.

by No_Steak 4 weeks ago

Better than AD and BC.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

then what year are you in?

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago

BC - Before Christ AD - Anno Domini = in the year of our Lord are for Christians πŸ§”πŸ»β€β™€οΈπŸ“–πŸ™πŸ»β˜οΈπŸ˜› BCE - Before Common Era CE - Common Era are for atheists 😈πŸ€ͺ BC - Before Covid AD - After (Covid) Deaths are for pandemic conspirators πŸ₯πŸ©ΊπŸ¦ πŸ’‰πŸ˜·βš°οΈπŸ’ΈπŸ–•πŸ˜πŸ’°πŸ’°πŸ’°

by lueilwitzchelse 4 weeks ago

I believe BCE/CE were invented by Jewish scientists who didn't really want to say "Before the Messiah" when they didn't consider the Jewish Messiah to have arrived yet, so I have no problem with it

by luciohowe 4 weeks ago

Yet the number of Christians/Muslims (people who do believe that Christ is the Messiah) far outnumber the number of Jews who don't.

by Distinct_Sun 4 weeks ago

Muslims do not believe Christ is the Messiah. They believe that He is a prophet and that the Christian Bible was corrupted to say otherwise

by luciohowe 4 weeks ago

Look we all know Christianity is pretty much the thing that defined the difference between those. We all know that

by thelmarutherfor 4 weeks ago

B.C. is fundamentally flawed for several reasons. There is no evidence that Jesus even existed, let alone when he was born. The stars mentioned in the Bible put his purported birth at a different time of year. The Catholic Church says that he was born between 3 and 2 B.C.. CE and BCE are just a compromise to keep using the currently most accepted date because there's no specific day that any calendar should be based on.

by Anonymous 4 weeks ago