B.C. And A.D.

[frankiej]

I think the U.K. way is now BCE and CE. (Before Common Era and Common Era) At least that's what I was taught.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era

Yeah, that was what I was taught in school aswell.

[LiakosVikernes]

Damn Pastor told me it's worldwide. Thanks everyone for the help.

[Minimalist]

Damn Pastor told me it's worldwide. Thanks everyone for the help.

Those fuckers lie a lot.

[kılıç_mehmet]

1.Is this accepted worldwide?
2.Why is it accepted?

Well, Saudi Arabia, and we Turks too, used the lunar hijri calendar up to some point, although there are moslem nations who still use the lunar hijri calendar today.

Why? Well, my only bet is that it's somewhat accurate and has been used for a long time now. It's not B.C. or A.D. that really matters. It's just that it needs a reference point to start itself from....
Christians have the birth of Jesus, moslems have the exodus of moslems from Makkah to Madina, Hijrat as it's called, as a reference point in time.
The only difference is in it's accuracy.

[Kayenneh]

It's not B.C. or A.D. that really matters. It's just that it needs a reference point to start itself from....

This. Since it would be inconvenient (and probably inaccurate) to date calendars from the beginning of the earth or when homo sapiens appeared, any point in history will do, as long as many people agree upon the starting point.

[Cyberman]

Which is why Common Era and Before Common Era work so well. That they coincide with AD and BC is pure convention; the aim is to remove the religious bias so as not to exclude people of other faiths and none. Particularly as the latter reference an event of extremely dubious provenance which, even if it did occur, certainly didn't happen in the right year to make the system work anyway.

[Polaris]

I think the U.K. way is now BCE and CE. (Before Common Era and Common Era) At least that's what I was taught.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era

I only use that, but wouldn't that be in a way worse than using the old dating system? That's like stating the common era is a direct result of Christ.

[Justtristo]

i think in Saudi Arabia and in Iran; the year 0 is marked by Mohamed`s entry into Mekka

That is the accepted year numbering system in the Islamic world, so it is the year 1433 in the Islamic world. Which makes them still in the 15th century ;D

Anyway AD stands for anno domini (year of the lord in latin), so since people believed Jesus was born in 0AD, every year since his birth was regarded as the year of our lord something something.

[Doubting_Thomas]

If I were God president of world I'd keep it as-is, but change the name maybe if I could be arsed to:
AD = AD (apathetic datum)
BC = BC (before calendar)

And make all countries use it for everyday use. And I'd standardise notation as yyyy/mm/dd format whilst I'm at it.

Things like this really aren't worth ranting about IMO, whatever starting point we could pick with our current knowledge base it'd be arbitrary.


Alternatively we could change the starting point to 19th April 1882 (hereinafter 1000/01/01 ...note i avoided those tricky leading zeros!). For a fee my new company could update the date logic in all your computer systems to the Darwinite Calendar.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

I prefer A.D. over B.C. With B.C. you have to think backwards and it'd be -2012 B.C. today. I prefer my years to be positive.