Things that have Changed Since You were in School

Translated properly from the Latin, anno domini means “in the year of our Lord.” So it's technically incorrect to say “the year 1565 A.D.” or “the fourteenth century A.D.” We should say, “Such-and-such happened A.D. 1565.” But nobody says that, of course.

I'd make Henry Ford's birth year the new Year One. Of course, by then, babies will be grown in bottles.

 

I disagree.

 

On what grounds?

If you say "it's a matter of semantics," you are claiming that BC/AD and BCE/CE are just different terms that mean the same things.

They aren't. BC and AD have religious meanings that BCE and CE do not, as I clearly indicated.

 

But her point is that they're still using Jesus' birth as the dividing line, regardless of the terminology used. If someone asked, "When did the Common Era begin?" the answer is still, "It started when Jesus was born."

Unless something else happened that year worth noting, it's still about Jesus.

 

Well, I don't like to brag...

 

I understand that. And as I said before, I don't have a problem with that: the birth of Jesus of Nazareth was an event of world-historical significance.

The problem, as I also said before, is that the terms "BC" and AD" are freighted with religious significance, rather than merely historical significance

People who don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth was Jesus Christ--that is to say, Jesus the Messiah--have objected to having to date things from "Before Christ".

Similarly, people who don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth is "the Lord" object to having to date things in "the year of the Lord."

Using either expression is tantamount to confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord.

To understand how objectionable that might be to some people, I ask others to consider how they might feel if they were expected to use the dating system adopted by the Church of Satan, in which this is the Year XLIV AS--that is to say, the forty-fourth year of Satan.

Or, consider my earlier suggestion to make the year 1543 the year zero. How would Christians on this board feel if they were expected, not only to use this year as an epoch, but to use the expressions "Religious Darkness (RD)" for years before zero, and "Scientific Enlightenment (SE)" for years afterward?

They wouldn't like that very much at all, I'd wager. And yet here we have people saying it's no big deal when others have to do something like that, and even saying that it's "silly" to object. In my opinion, that's a selfish and complacent position.

And while we're on the subject of "what has changed since you were in school"--CE and BCE are not new. Historians were already using them when I started university.

 

Yet it uses the supposed birth year of Jesus as the dividing line... You are not really debunking TSQ's posts about this issue.

 

Some of the atlases at my junior high-school were so old they still showed things like "French North Africa."

 

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

 

I remember the two library field trips: one to learn the Dewey Decimal system, and one to learn the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Now my kid just Googles everything and watches historical documentary posted in pieces on You Tube.

 

When I was first entering high school, Microsoft had just released Encarta Encyclopedia on CD the previous year. We were all fascinated (well... those of us who enjoyed knowledge), and knew that THIS was the way of the future, the way it would be from that time onward. Little did we know a scant 5 years later, that method would start to become obsolete.

 

Actually it started five years after he was born thanks to a little calculating error a monk in the 6th century made.

 

Ordinary people buy individual serving sized bottled water. It is now impossible to get out of walking distance of a McDonalds restaurant.

 

Yes, I believe he was known as Dennis the Short (no relation to Martin the Short or Bobby the Short).

 

A lot of things have changed - Burma is Myanmar, Kalkutta is Kolkata, Bombay is Mumbay, and also the Indo-Pakistani War and the Vietnam War are both over... ...crazy how things happen so soon.

 

I think it works better without the fourth panel, but what do I know?

 

I've always spelled it Calcutta. And when did Bombay change its name? That's news to me.

I do remember when Peking became Beijing, and the romanization of Chinese names changed so that Mao Tse-Tung became Mao Zedong.

When I graduated from high school, China was still called Red China, wasn't a member of the U.N., and wasn't diplomatically recognized by the United States. Official U.S. policy was that the Nationalists on Taiwan (which many still called Formosa) were the legitimate government of China, even though the Communists had controlled the mainland for 25 years. Talk about denial!

 

I still consider the United States to be a rogue province of the British Empire.

 

Exactly. It's debatable whether Jesus really even existed. It's far more likely that he is a conglomeration of different older gods and legends, after all. Jesus isn't as sound a historical figure as many think. You're trying to separate the religion from the "man," which simply cannot be done. The story of Jesus affected society through religion, and by no other means. That is why it is a matter of semantics.