On Aug 28, 7:31 pm, "Peter T. Daniels"
verizon.net> wrote:> On Aug 28, 6:03 pm, mb
yahoo.com> wrote:
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>>> On Aug 28, 11:15 am, António Marques wrote:
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>>> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>>>>>>>> I for one regard the use of BCE and CE as misdemeanours.
>
>>>>>>>> Since BCE and CE are not just available but familiar, I regard
>>>>>>>> the use of AD and BC as mildly provocative at best.
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>>>>> I think it's a bit totalitarian to demand of users of the BC/AD labels
>>>>> that they abandon them under penalty of being considered provocative.
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>>>> I make no such demand; I merely point out, if given the
>>>> opportunity, that I think that they're being just a bit
>>>> discourteous.
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>>> Ok - though I suppose that just mirrors the attitude of finding the
>>> dechristianisation of the system a misdemeanour. You may be offended at
>>> a personal level by unnecessary mention of religion, whereas believers
>>> may be offended at both personal and religious levels by the deliberate
>>> erasing of religion from everyday life.
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>>>>>>> Does that mean that AD/BC are frowned upon not because
>>>>>>> they offend other religious persuasions (I still fail to
>>>>>>> see where does BC offend anything), but because they
>>>>>>> bring Christianity to the (christian) secularist's mind?
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>>>>>> Eh? Any such objection to AD/BC clearly applies at least as
>>>>>> strongly to AH.
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>>>>> Sorry, I missed your point here.
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>>>> I was responding to your '(christian)': the objection
>>>> remains the same irrespective of religio-cultural
>>>> background.
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>>> Understood. My impression is that most secularists of non-christian
>>> background are not especially militant in matters of form.
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>>>>> What I was asking was whether the objection to BC/AD
>>>>> comes more readily from people who follow a
>>>>> non-christian religion, or people who follow no religion
>>>>> but keep a christian legacy - in calendar, language,
>>>>> etc.
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>>>> I have no idea. *I* object because (1) I see no good reason
>>>> to introduce overt religious reference into dating, and (2)
>>>> I have absolutely no use for religion. Note that a
>>>> Christian could object for the first reason.
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>>> On this I can't comment. To me as a christian, neither my local system
>>> (Before Christ / After Christ) nor AH, for instance, or the mayan or
>>> buddhist reckonings have any religious overtones at all. 'AD' or our old
>>> 'year of the grace of our lord' is a different matter. Probably the
>>> english version could be reformed to BC / AC, with AD reserved for
>>> religious usage (bearing in mind that 'Christ' is hardly used as a title
>>> in common usage, and even as a title it doesn't imply allegiance).
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>>> In my opinion, whoever finds BC/AC unnecessarily religious might as well
>>> adopt a proleptic gregorian calendar with a year 0 and no need for era
>>> markers. At least that might be useful. You may even put year 0 at 4714
>>> BC (which unfortunately is too late for the beginning of civilisation
>>> and somewhat early for reasonably accurate dates). I for one would
>>> welcome all historical dates to be rereferenced to the same stable
>>> system.
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>> Fine. If I use the First Olympiad, as natural, and express dates for
>> Olympiad-unawares with + or - signs, still it cannot change anything
>> because we all know that that starting year was chosen by the Church
>> and the calendar imposed by the church. The sheer idiocy of expecting
>> some renaming trick to camouflage this when using the same Date Zero
>> is mindblowing. The hyper-sensitive renamers may well look at it as a
>> Kosher stamp on a pork chop.-
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> Try to pay attention. There is no Date Zero.
Try to avoid sophistry. That is irrelevant here (you'll bring it up
when the zero is discussed), the relevant portion being the choice of
it and the magical thinking relative to its name.
