AD versus Common Era
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That's not what I asked. What I asked was: Wouldn't you prefer not to be pressured to use a year naming scheme where you have to declare a god in which you do not believe to be yours?
No, you were not being fair. Someone else pointed out that you were assuming that an American cultural norm applies universally when it does not -- that you were, in fact, being unfair. Responding to that by saying, "Well, we're really influential and can spread our culture to everyone else then" is not being fair, it's advocating for your culture's dominating others.
ETA:
Doctor Who is still British-dominated; a single two-parter being filmed in the U.S. doesn't change that.
Oh? I see no evidence that Earth "dominates" the Federation. It's the capital planet, sure, but that doesn't mean that it controls the Federation government or has disproportionate influence over the Federation Council. To draw a comparison to modern life, the District of Columbia may be the capital of the United States, but D.C. does not dominate the U.S. (If anything, California, New York, and Texas dominate the U.S.)
Is American English -- or any form of English -- the language that came to dominate Earth? Do we actually know that, or are we assuming it is? Frankly, Trek has only rarely showed civilian life on Earth, and, of that, it's even more rarely shown it outside the Anglosphere. It's entirely possible, for instance, that the United Earth government conducts most of its affairs in Mandarin, or that it's multi-lingual, like South Africa or Belgium. And that's to say nothing of the fact that we don't know for sure, further into the canon we get, whether the characters we see are actually speaking English or are speaking another language that the Universal Translator is translating for us.
I wouldn't say that. English is already the universal language of space travel, science, the Internet, and global commerce, due to the events of the past couple of centuries making it a global lingua franca. It's perfectly logical to assume that it would become the dominant language of spacefarers over the next century or two, and that its dominance online would keep it as a primary global language. And that scenario doesn't require America to remain politically dominant. It just requires people continuing the trends that already exist worldwide.
You're assuming a lot. I don't think anyone's OFFENDED! They'd just rather use terminology that reflects a more neutral, secular position.
That’s true of the Jewish calendar as well. The Jewish week begins on Sunday, which is called Yom Rishon (first day) in Hebrew. The following days are numbered 2 through 6, with the week ending on Yom Shabbat (Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath). This nomenclature is used in Israel today.
I do. All hail the great Thor and his mighty hammer!
I know Thor exists. I saw it this weekend...
Apparently there are about a million Neopagans who profess to worship the Aesir (Norse gods), a religion called Ásatrú, and some of them are offended by the movie Thor, while others see it as an opportunity to spread awareness of their faith: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/05/09/thor-pagans-norse-gods/
And at least 900,000 of them are in California!
I have no idea how to do a multi-quote, so apologies for the reply being in the style of 1990's AOL. That's the last time I was involved with online forums so I'm a bit behind the times, but have lurked off an on this board for a decade. And having a political discussion about interpreting Star Trek is new to me as well so I hope I can contribute to a constructive conversation without going off topic etc.
Sci wrote:
>>Doctor Who is still British-dominated; a single two-parter being filmed in the U.S. doesn't change that.<<
Was talking more about the upcoming Torchwood Series 4 here, although that Doctor Who opening two-parter does show BBC productions being influenced from BBC America/Worldwide funding.
>>Oh? I see no evidence that Earth "dominates" the Federation. It's the capital planet, sure, but that doesn't mean that it controls the Federation government or has disproportionate influence over the Federation Council. To draw a comparison to modern life, the District of Columbia may be the capital of the United States, but D.C. does not dominate the U.S. (If anything, California, New York, and Texas dominate the U.S.)<<
I felt in 2161 when the Federation was founded, Earth would have to have held some kind of predominate influence to have the initial Federation institutions located there. And in the 24th century a majority of the non-Starfleet Federation officials shown are human, which repeated enough times does allow for some inferences. But certainly the Federation Council itself is shown to be very pluralistic in TVH. And Starfleet is certainly human dominated (and a lot of those human Starfleet members do have North American backgrounds), although Vulcans having their own segregated ships does raise its own questions.
Christopher and Sci responding to my assertion about English dominating Earth:
The future United Earth government shown in Star Trek would be multilingual (like the current EU), but English is the only language shown on the United Earth Embassy to Vulcan, on the NX Enterprise and Columbia, plus UE Starfleet headquartered in San Francisco. That Mandarian (which is currently the most spoken first language on Earth) isn't along side say official-bilingualism-in-Canada-style or EU style to show several languages shows that English must still be punching above its weight, and the amount of Americans depicted and conspicuous absence of other Earth groups could contribute to showing said influence.
And Thor...
I wonder how the neopagans responded to the depiction of the Asgard in Stargate.
Sci wrote:
>>Doctor Who is still British-dominated; a single two-parter being filmed in the U.S. doesn't change that.<<
Was talking more about the upcoming Torchwood Series 4 here, although that Doctor Who opening two-parter does show BBC productions being influenced from BBC America/Worldwide funding.
>>Oh? I see no evidence that Earth "dominates" the Federation. It's the capital planet, sure, but that doesn't mean that it controls the Federation government or has disproportionate influence over the Federation Council. To draw a comparison to modern life, the District of Columbia may be the capital of the United States, but D.C. does not dominate the U.S. (If anything, California, New York, and Texas dominate the U.S.)<<
I felt in 2161 when the Federation was founded, Earth would have to have held some kind of predominate influence to have the initial Federation institutions located there. And in the 24th century a majority of the non-Starfleet Federation officials shown are human, which repeated enough times does allow for some inferences. But certainly the Federation Council itself is shown to be very pluralistic in TVH. And Starfleet is certainly human dominated (and a lot of those human Starfleet members do have North American backgrounds), although Vulcans having their own segregated ships does raise its own questions.
Christopher and Sci responding to my assertion about English dominating Earth:
The future United Earth government shown in Star Trek would be multilingual (like the current EU), but English is the only language shown on the United Earth Embassy to Vulcan, on the NX Enterprise and Columbia, plus UE Starfleet headquartered in San Francisco. That Mandarian (which is currently the most spoken first language on Earth) isn't along side say official-bilingualism-in-Canada-style or EU style to show several languages shows that English must still be punching above its weight, and the amount of Americans depicted and conspicuous absence of other Earth groups could contribute to showing said influence.
And Thor...
I wonder how the neopagans responded to the depiction of the Asgard in Stargate.
Well, in theory, they've had fifty years to get used to the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby version . . . .
The difference is obvious. "Thursday" is closer to "Thor's Day" than "Thunor's Day" anyway and is obviously still in honor of Thor;
Oh, come off it. The overwhelming majority of people in the English-speaking world don't even believe in Thor; their calender system's Thursday ceased to be in his honor when they stopped believing he was real, and most of them don't even know that it was originally "Thor's Day." The name is still there because of inertia, not to honor Thor.
In the same way that January is still January because of inertia, and not because people believe in Janus, yes? So what makes the days of the week and months of the year different from BC/AD? If you want to rename the calendar to remove any religious connotations, why not go whole hog? Bonus: you can make the names of the last four months make sense.
And your point about people not knowing it was named after Thor (or Saturday after Saturn, or March after Mars) applies just as well to BC/AD.
What exactly would "restoring the Germanic Pagan connection" look like? It's a name, a label, with equal power as any other.
I imagine the Jewish days of the week have always been that way. With the Quakers or others that intentionally rename days of the week and months of the year, I understand what they're doing, but I don't agree with doing so.
That's not a removal, that's a corruption and evolution of language. The origin is still clearly there in the word itself.
Seeing as I learned all of the above in school (Primary school mid-late1960s, high school 1970s) that a pretty damning indictment of today's education.In the same way that January is still January because of inertia, and not because people believe in Janus, yes? So what makes the days of the week and months of the year different from BC/AD? If you want to rename the calendar to remove any religious connotations, why not go whole hog? Bonus: you can make the names of the last four months make sense.
And your point about people not knowing it was named after Thor (or Saturday after Saturn, or March after Mars) applies just as well to BC/AD.
LOL. Stargate killed off most of the Asgard race (except the small pocket in the Pegasus Galaxy) in the last episode of SG-1. Hopefully they didn't get the memo on that one. Now that Universe is over I wonder if Stargate will get a literary relaunch like the Star Trek series, Buffy/Angel, Firefly, and Farscape.
Speaking of offending the religious, imagine if "In Thy Image" had somehow been filmed, or released as a book, with the alien Jesus Christ. (This can even be on topic since Mike Friedman tried to novelize this).
Seeing as I learned all of the above in school (Primary school mid-late1960s, high school 1970s) that a pretty damning indictment of today's education.In the same way that January is still January because of inertia, and not because people believe in Janus, yes? So what makes the days of the week and months of the year different from BC/AD? If you want to rename the calendar to remove any religious connotations, why not go whole hog? Bonus: you can make the names of the last four months make sense.
And your point about people not knowing it was named after Thor (or Saturday after Saturn, or March after Mars) applies just as well to BC/AD.
Eh, I was just going with what Sci said. I don't remember when I learned that stuff, but it was definitely by high school.
Ahh, but an intrinsic part of Norse/Germanic mythology is that the Aesir are mortal deities. Remember Wagner and Goetterdammerung, "The Twilight of the Gods?"
Fandemonium Books has already begun publishing Atlantis "Season 6" novels as part of their ongoing line of SG1 and SGA fiction. I imagine they've probably done some post-series SG1 books too.
That was The God Thing. "In Thy Image" was the Phase II pilot script by Alan Dean Foster that was rewritten into ST:TMP.
Oops my bad. Wasn't there a poster here who went by the handle TheGodThing and had the proposed novel art for their profile picture?
I was noting that people were offended by it, because I took note of people branding AD/BC as "imposing" beliefs on others, when it's just a convention. Consider:
I doubt many laymen who invoke AD/BC do so really knowing--or necessarily caring--what they're short for. Furthermore, as a rule, most people don't attach "AD" or "CE" to the year unless it's being used in contrast to a BC/BCE year. Even then, it's uncommon.
Finally, as Chris pointed out, CE could actually have a lot of different meanings. AD, as it were, is in Latin--a language that is, except maybe in the Vatican, dead. Therefore, just as CE can have many different meanings, AD could be constrained to fit whatever someone wants, provided it has that initials.
"OH LOOK! A fresh pile of newly laid sh?t! I must step around it... oh NO! I stepped right into it!"
Seems to me the who thing IS to remove the God, Alah or whatever from the equation. As someone said prior, science uses BCE/CE and ST is all about the science, or at least made up science.
Plus, it is PC and will not offend anyone. As for the idea of removing it because latin is dead, well we need to tackle some science, law, medical, etc books as well....
Seems to me the who thing IS to remove the God, Alah or whatever from the equation. As someone said prior, science uses BCE/CE and ST is all about the science, or at least made up science.
Plus, it is PC and will not offend anyone. As for the idea of removing it because latin is dead, well we need to tackle some science, law, medical, etc books as well....
^(long pause, eyes bulging wide....)
Ah...o-kay....
No comment.
Ah...o-kay....
No comment.
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