Talk:Common Era

You deleted the contents of CE and BCE to redirect them to your new pet article. Why? I don't see what they contained being merged here. 06:18, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I see most or all of wound up here, nevermind. But this still would better have been discussed on their talkpages.  No blood no foul...  06:24, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I am unrepentant as a matter of principle, even though I probably should have mentioned something on the talk pages first. Still: bollocks to you, as they say Across the Pond.  Bollocks!-- 06:44, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Balance issues in the criticism section
"There are several arguments against the usage of the Common Era system. Pretty much all are from conservative Christians stating that the removal of AD and BC is "oppression" of their religion - as if enforcement of AD and BC isn't repression of anyone else's religion or religious calendar."

This passage is not appropriate. As written the passage comes across as amateurish and emotional. Not only does it contradict the rest of the section where various logical criticisms of the BC/BCE system are presented, it also fails to provide a citation for the claim that the majority of criticism of BC/BCE comes from "conservative Christians." If that is true, please provide a citation to substantiate that claim. Also, supposing an appropriate source can be found, please reconstruct the sentence to reflect a more neutral and academic tone. 20:21, 12 November 2014 (UTC)


 * They hate neutrality on this website. Largely because they believe it to be part of the vast right wing conspiracy. Burkean (talk) 09:13, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Neutrality on this website? What are you smoking, there is no Dana NPOV, only Zuul SPOV!--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 15:09, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It's just projection from someone who whips out conspiracy nonsense for modern medicine and criticisms of Ron Paul after failing to even make their position. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 15:17, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, my favorite internet stalker. And saying Ritalin might be overprescribed constitutes a conspiratorial view of modern medicine as a whole. How do you figure? And several others pointed out how many facts about paul were misrepresented in the article (false accusations of double billing and so forth). Glad I'm interesting enough for you to continue to chase after. Burkean (talk) 10:37, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I love how conversing with you, or talking about our conversations, is stalking. Especially when you scream for my attention by blanking my user page.  -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 21:05, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * You seem to respond to me a lot. It seems a bit trollish. I blanked you after you made another bogus claim about how I spread medicine conspiracies. Burkean (talk) 19:14, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * BC/BCE system? Okie. 14:32, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Which website and who is they?--TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 14:38, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, thinking about it, changing stuff to Common Era doesn't fix a whole lot. Even as a rebranding it isn't really effective, since the Cs in the acronyms might just as well stand for Christian, especially considering that it actually is the same system based on Jesus' approximate birth date. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 15:51, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I've never liked the Common Era style. First of all, it's a misnomer as there's nothing "common" about it; secondly, it simply disguises the quite culturally specific (if somewhat arbitrary) origins of the AD/BC system under a new headline, as well as the processes that enshrined it as the standard style of chronology worldwide. ScepticWombat (talk) 15:46, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Whelp
This was never an issue to me before, but I'm hereby introducing the Anno Quadraginta Duorum, or "the 42-Era". Instead of 2 millennia ago, it started 42 millennia ago and is abbreviated AQD, A42, FTE or 42E. The before-terminology is always B42, because. Also, it's completely up to you whether you put it before or after the year, though being consistent on a text-to-text basis is probably a good idea. How about it, guys? What do you think? 142.124.55.236 (talk) 15:06, 17 August 42015 AQD (UTC)
 * Sure, fine. Works for me. Flux gate gamma (talk) 16:07, 17 August 42015 (UTC)
 * Great! The movement is growing! 142.124.55.236 (talk) 16:23, 17 August 42015 (UTC)

We should have the years in hexademical. This year is 9C since the invention of hexadecimal. it's the only rational way forward. Bicycle wheel  17:09, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, it means I'm actually 30. Result! Bicycle  wheel silverbrain.png 17:13, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * If we're gonna go that route, why not base 42? Which would be... quadragesima(l)-dual? Or bi-quadragesimal? Hmm... 142.124.55.236 (talk) 17:37, 17 August 42015 AQD (UTC)
 * Because in base 42 I'd be 1.167 and there's no way I'm going back to nappies. Bicycle  wheel silverbrain.png 17:40, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Awful joke about NAMBLA rejoicing in... 5... 4... 17:45, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I finally discovered, quite by accident, what your wonky signature is about. Carpetsmoker (talk) 21:26, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yay! The awareness grows. :) 142.124.55.236 (talk) 21:28, 13 November 42015 AQD (UTC)
 * I only just now noticed your signature actually contains a link to this ... Somehow I never noticed this link before ... Humans are stupid. Carpetsmoker (talk) 21:44, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It's okay, I don't usually look at the dates in people's sigs either. ;) 142.124.55.236 (talk) 21:45, 13 November 42015 AQD (UTC)
 * Yeah, most people don't. Walker Walker Walker 15:50, 32 November 2015 (CDT)

Am an atheist and against BCE/CE
My native language is Russian (which uses 'до н.э.', ' н.э.' which I find rather tedious) and I when I was learning English I was pleased to see that English uses much more laconic BC/AD. Not only it's shorter, all the four letters are different. I did not even know that these letters meant. 'BC' could mean 'Before Christ', I thought, but what did AD mean? Ah, I didn't care anyway.

In BCE/CE, only letter 'B' (as Russian 'до') conveys any information. Now people are writing extra letters and periods with sole 'benefit' of bashing Christianity. Russian word спасибо 'thanks' is derived from 'God saves', should Russians change this word too to avoid religion? Alliumnsk (talk) 13:20, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I can't answer questions about Russian language but the adoption of CE & BCE is nothing to do with "bashing Christianity" any more than any form of secularisation is. The point is that people all around the world follow different cultures & traditions but, for practical reasons, it's best if we have certain conventions in common with each other such as measurements of date and time.  What is significant (at a global level) about our system of counting years is that it's "common" (i.e. shared), not that it's Christian, which is alien or irrelevant to billions of people worldwide.  16:56, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
 * So BC/AD WAS common, and is understood by everyone. Not only using BC/AD does not make you a Christian, it does not suggest any relationship to religion, UNLESS you know its etymology. Moreover, 'C' in 'CE' could be read as 'Christian' as well. Shift to BCE/CE has nothing to do with measurement of time, because the measures is the same. If you want people to use common system, force everyone abolish abhorrent 12-hour AM/PM system (which is very confusing for me -- not native English speaker) or degrees Fahrenheit. I don't fucking care if its 'common' or 'christian', I just don't want to write or read these stupid extra letters and periods. BCE/CE system is alien to to people who got used to use BC/AD. Alliumnsk (talk) 06:38, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Not to mention (as I did in an earlier section) that calling it "common" can actually be seen as even worse, because there's noting "common" about it, more like a pragmatic acceptance of what's basically a European cultural and historical convention. Of course, the claim that using BCE/CE is Christian(ity) bashing is ridiculous, but such usage is also not the kind of multi-cultural or secular progressiveness than some BCE/CE adherents seem to suggest. If the argument is one of pragmatism (as Weaseloid's seems to be) then the potential practical downsides of BCE/CE (that it's easier to make mistakes using it, either through misreading or typos) are decent arguments against it. However, even this is a language specific issue as, for instance, in my native tongue (Danish) where both BCE/CE and BC/AD suffers from the same problem that switching one letter will reverse the meaning. The respective versions in Danish are "f.v.t./e.v.t." (literally "before/after our calculation of time") and "f.Kr./e.Kr." (literally "before/after Christ" or rather "before/after Christ's birth") and the only issue is that "e.v.t." looks a bit too similar to the widespread abbreviation "evt.", meaning "eventuelt" (the closest translation would be possibly or something like that). I still don't see a strong argument in favour of either the BCE/CE or BC/AD designation and consider adherence to one or the other mainly an aesthetic and/or cultural choice. ScepticWombat (talk) 07:36, 6 March 2016 (UTC)