The Calendar Thread

[Chris]

This "common era" thing IS bullcrap. It's identical to the christian calendar, and by doing that it STILL has several decades that don't fit into either ce or bce.

The real thing we need is a calendar for objectively recording the course of human history that is NOT determined by a particular religion, culture, individual or nation-state.

Getting rid of these bizarre negative numbers and missing years would merely be a great benefit from the transfer.

And in reality, this means absolutely nothing. Most people in this world couldn't care less about missing years or negative numbers - even as a history buff, I can tell you I don't. Whether you call it Anno Domini or Common Era, the calendar that places us in the year 2007 is the most widely used in the world and has been for centuries. And it will continue to be used long after we're gone for the sake of simplicity and because it's so widely used.

To give a somewhat related analogy, Microsoft Windows is used by about 90% of the world's computers. You could argue that Mac OS and Linux are better (which they may be - I don't use them), but because so many people have been used to Windows for so long, they're not going to switch en masse to another OS.

[ShadowCell]

hmm changing the calendar system after world war ii and the start of the atomic age wouldve made some sense, the world was definitely changed after that.

The world changed after the invention of the written word, the Internet, the factory, and many other things. We'd be changing our calendars every couple of decades if that were the case.

maybe they couldve done a progressive countdown til the worlds end sorta like bc except much darker. oh well thats what the doomsday clock is for i guess.

Can't count down to something for which you have no definite date. Especially since "the world's end" may come about well before the sun finally does that "inflate and die" thing a few billion years from now.

[wing zero alpha]

Can't count down to something for which you have no definite date. Especially since "the world's end" may come about well before the sun finally does that "inflate and die" thing a few billion years from now.

Or in the next few years, assuming the Mayans got it right.

[WhiteWingDemon]

Can't count down to something for which you have no definite date. Especially since "the world's end" may come about well before the sun finally does that "inflate and die" thing a few billion years from now.

Or in the next few years, assuming the Mayans got it right.

Or when oil runs out and there is a massive last ditch resource war and somebody fires off one too many nukes and kills us all. (They know that if twenty were fire it would create enough debris to create an Ice Age that would kill everything.)

[Big Zam]

Or in the next few years, assuming the Mayans got it right.

Doesn't the Myan version involve all sub-human life and prety much all inanimate objects attaining a sudden self-awareness and the ability to speak whilest said inanimate objects come to life and procede to tear we decadent peoples limb from limb?

The Christian calendar starts at the death of Christ, or shortly thereafter,

It's very important to clarify here, as it's such a common misconception: The A.D. Calender does not begin with the death of Christ, but rather, his birth. The phrase itself is ment to signify the point when God elects to become tangible and therefore capable of 'owning' all the tangibile trappings of existance He created and so on and so forth. So it literaly goes from 1BC to the birth of Christ in 1AD, to the death of Christ in roughly 33AD.

This is how it works in theory at least, the less than clockwork nature of the planet and its rotation and the attempts to compensate for it even as our understanding therof hadn't completely developed have contributed to obscure the exact dates and numbers.

The problem I realy have with the 'Common Era' has already been outlined rather nicely: It realy is just 'Anno Domini' for the politicaly correct. However, unlike the system it emulates, C.E. does not reference an epoch, or significant event after which the years are counted, but rather it references A.D. and the commonality of its use, adding years in synch with its counterpart. In this way, I feel, the 'Common Era' designation is among the commercialisation of Christmas and the phrase 'Happy Holidays' in that they are shallow trappings intended strictly for a present-minded western culture that wants to enjoy the traditions of their typicaly christian-oriented backgrounds without having to burden themselves with big scary Christianity itself. And while it is certainly conveniant in that you probably wont offend anyone (or have someone become offended on behalf of someone else...) it realy is little more than a shallow facade.

Anyway, that's my opinion on the matter as an observer, as a Christian I'm much more concearned with the frightfuly high international martyr rate right now...

As for a secular calendar system that actualy has some significant anchor behind it... well it's realy easy to look back on recent history and marvel at our wonderful acheivements, but bearing in mind that A.D. wasn't realy formaly adopted anywhere untill about 500 years in, none of the realy charming candidates (flight, the atomic bomb, space flight) have matured into the 'universaly accepted turning point in world history' that it would need to be in order to constitute wide-spread international usage.