Didn't Know This Was Controversial - Schools Get Rid of BC and AD

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Didn't Know This Was Controversial - Schools Get Rid of BC and AD

Post by Secret Alias »

“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
User avatar
Peter Kirby
Site Admin
Posts: 8033
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 2:13 pm
Location: Santa Clara
Contact:

Re: Didn't Know This Was Controversial - Schools Get Rid of BC and AD

Post by Peter Kirby »

This was literally the #1 thing I got complaints about by e-mail regarding Early Christian Writings.

After switching out my CE / BCE for AD / BC, over 80% of the negative, critical e-mails stopped.

From my perspective, it really doesn't matter. If it helps someone be more open-minded about the stuff, that's a win.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Didn't Know This Was Controversial - Schools Get Rid of BC and AD

Post by Secret Alias »

Piers Morgan is the editor of this paper and a Trumpite. They're always trying to stir up the old people.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
User avatar
Peter Kirby
Site Admin
Posts: 8033
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 2:13 pm
Location: Santa Clara
Contact:

Re: Didn't Know This Was Controversial - Schools Get Rid of BC and AD

Post by Peter Kirby »

This is the perfect kind of issue for getting people riled up. There's no practical argument one way or another. It's just a couple letters that have interchangeable meanings. Choosing one or another can only be done on the basis of whom you want to please or displease.

I find that using AD / BC helps to keep some people from tuning out and shoving what they're reading in the "irredeemable liberal" bin.

I'd recommend that Christian apologists use CE / BCE for the same reason.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
Ulan
Posts: 1505
Joined: Sat Mar 29, 2014 3:58 am

Re: Didn't Know This Was Controversial - Schools Get Rid of BC and AD

Post by Ulan »

People are so damn touchy nowadays. We're still saying "January" or "Wednesday", and nobody bats an eyelid.
User avatar
DCHindley
Posts: 3411
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:53 am
Location: Ohio, USA

Re: Didn't Know This Was Controversial - Schools Get Rid of BC and AD

Post by DCHindley »

Ulan wrote: Mon Oct 02, 2017 1:24 am People are so damn touchy nowadays. We're still saying "January" or "Wednesday", and nobody bats an eyelid.
Among ultra fundamentalist Christians, some don't like to use month and sometimes even the weekday names: "In the 5th day of the third week of the 12th month ..." Might as well be reading the book of Jubilees!

Takes all kinds ... :confusedsmiley:

DCH
User avatar
DCHindley
Posts: 3411
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:53 am
Location: Ohio, USA

Re: Didn't Know This Was Controversial - Schools Get Rid of BC and AD

Post by DCHindley »

Peter Kirby wrote: Sun Oct 01, 2017 8:15 pm This is the perfect kind of issue for getting people riled up. There's no practical argument one way or another. It's just a couple letters that have interchangeable meanings. Choosing one or another can only be done on the basis of whom you want to please or displease.

I find that using AD / BC helps to keep some people from tuning out and shoving what they're reading in the "irredeemable liberal" bin.

I'd recommend that Christian apologists use CE / BCE for the same reason.
I'm getting confused: So, the people most fiercely opposed to your site were set off by use or non use, of "BCE/CE"? Really?

To be honest, I would think that Jews *could* be offended by use of "In the year of our Lord" (anno domini, AD), or "before Christ (BC, oh, I know there may be some Latin phrase behind it ...)" and might also be the case with Muslims. "Wait a minute, Jesus isn't MY Lord and Savior!" they might say, but lower their eyes anyways so as not to draw attention to them among so many praying folks. It's the same as if someone handed out free food during a famine in the Hasidic part of NYC and would only hand out ham sandwiches, or the preacher who opens the football games/courtroom proceedings "with a prayer to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" regardless of who's in attendance or whose testifying.

Use of "CE/BCE" was actually a nod to this situation by academia, meaning "Common (Dating) Era"/"Before Common (Dating) Era." I have maintained that dating eras have always been kind of arbitrary, so it is OK to call these what they are: "Christian Era" and "Before Christian Era". Now it is no longer that divine figure's "day" or "year" like he owned them, but an era for dating.

I'm sure early Christians used the eras current in their regions, Roman, Macedonian, or Oriental. Would someone object on religious grounds to "Year of the World" (Anno Mundi) used by Jews (you'd have to in Israel), or "Year of the Hijra" (the flight of Muhammad from Mecca in 622 CE, which would be the norm in a Muslim majority country) if it didn't threaten your own faith (or lack of it). So, while I don't feel threatened by Christians or Jews or Muslims using whatever era they are used to, I do prefer to call an era what it is, Christian Era, Year from the creation of the World, Year from the Hijra.

So, you caved in and switched *back* to AD/BC? Shame ... :oops:

DCH
Last edited by DCHindley on Mon Oct 02, 2017 8:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Peter Kirby
Site Admin
Posts: 8033
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 2:13 pm
Location: Santa Clara
Contact:

Re: Didn't Know This Was Controversial - Schools Get Rid of BC and AD

Post by Peter Kirby »

If someone is offended by the traditional acronyms for a calendrical system that is undeniably Christo-centric either way, they are not very vocal about it (have not sent one email) and honestly must be the most boring milquetoast snowflake that you can imagine. I don’t cater to these (possibly fictional) people.

My own personal view is that there is no God and that it harms me none to refer to (as others have pointed out) January, Thursday, or (for that matter) the Year of the Lord.

I actually have also found that there is a slight increase in readability after switching to AD / BC, especially for those reading at what must be a 5th to 8th grade level. Some of the emails were from people who were not angry, just puzzled.

Hollywood continues to use AD and BC liberally in its subtitles, so it is safe to assume that it is still the vernacular and is to be preferred whenever you want the most readable prose. Mark Twain, I am sure, would still be sporting AD / BC and making fun of effete atheists, Jews, Muslims, and others who are offended or pretending to be.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
User avatar
MrMacSon
Posts: 8798
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:45 pm

Re: Didn't Know This Was Controversial - Schools Get Rid of BC and AD

Post by MrMacSon »


"East Sussex’s 2017 R[eligious] E[ducation] syllabus states: “BCE (before the Common Era) and CE (the Common Era) were first brought into use in the sixth century, and are now used in order to show sensitivity to those who are not Christians.

“Many Christians perceive BCE and CE to be an affront to Christianity. [However] BCE/CE is becoming an industry standard among historians. Pupils have to be able to recognise these terms when they come across them.”

" .. for centuries BC/AD played second fiddle even among Christian to local conventions such as the foundation of Rome in 753 BC or Emperor Diocletian’s reforms of 284 AD ..

" .. Anno aerae nostrae vulgaris - a phrase broadly consistent with ‘common era’ - appears in an astronomical table devised by the German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1615."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10 ... d-appears/
Yet, from 2011, from that^ article -

Controversy is raging in Australia over changing the national curriculum to reflect the new BCE orthodoxy. The change was made in Britain nine years ago [in 2002], sparking a similar controversy1 and claims by Christians that the authorities were “imposing political correctness in schools to ensure children are cut off from the past, for fear of upsetting someone”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... r-BCE.html


and, from 2002, -
1 History has to be rewritten as school bans BC and AD
by David Sapsted12:01AM GMT 13 Dec 2002

A secondary school has banned pupils from using the terms BC and AD when writing dates because they are deemed unsuitable in a multi-faith society. Parents of pupils at the Dorothy Stringer School in Brighton were bewildered when they found their children writing BCE (Before Common Era) about the construction of Stonehenge.

The state school, which has only a few children from ethnic minorities, admitted yesterday that it had replaced Before Christ and Anno Domini, which have been in use since the 16th century, with BCE and Common Era.

Philip and Anne Long, whose 11-year-old son Alex is in his first year at the 1,600-pupil school, said they were "astonished" by the change.
Mr Long said: "Why change a term that is universally used and accepted to describe a particular period? It doesn't seem to make any sense."

Church officials are also upset by the change. David Guest, communications officer for the Diocese of Chichester, said: "BC and AD have been used for centuries and have not upset people. They do have Christian significance but they have historical significance as well. We would be disappointed if these new terms became the norm."

John Thorne, the school's deputy headmaster, defended the new terms. He said they had been around for years.

"They are approved international terms for using dates and they are also in the official GCSE glossary of terms for religious education.
"It is not the job of the school to lead a pupil towards a particular faith: we teach about religion, not just one religion."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... nd-AD.html
User avatar
DCHindley
Posts: 3411
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:53 am
Location: Ohio, USA

Re: Didn't Know This Was Controversial - Schools Get Rid of BC and AD

Post by DCHindley »

Boo hoo!

I don't use CE/BCE to rile anyone, but if it does, I just explain "you Christians don't have to use it, but I do to avoid ruffling non-Christian feathers." That make me anal and what not? I am somehow upsetting the faiths of millions?

Christian culture already dominates my life far more than I'd like it to. They want to tell me what to think and not think, who to like or hate, what to do or not do. A lot of it is culturally relevant to society that dissipated 1,500 years ago. Now in the 21st century, I think they have not come around to the times and ask too much of me and I push back.

All major religions seem to want to enforce the hegemony of their POV. So did Nazis and Stalinists and even Buddhists in South Vietnam during their conflict with the US. Assimilate or die. That does not mean it is OK.

Should we go back to the endless wars between Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists and Anabaptists? All of them would kill you for deviance from their prescribed norms.

So, I have my convictions and I am not ashamed to display them. Interestingly, it was in 5th grade that I realized that "under God" was not in the original US pledge of allegiance. The pledge was originally a marketing scheme to sell flags, and if you watch those old "Little Rascals" and "Our Gang" movie shorts from the 40s & early 50s, they did not say "under God."

I found out that it was added to the pledge and the pledge officially adopted as the formal oath of allegiance by act of congress somewhere around the mid 1950s during the "Red Scare". I was not a "Red," but I stopped saying that little phrase when I recite it then and there and haven't said it since. The US might be a nifty place for many, but it is hardly the Kingdom of God on Earth.

DCH
Post Reply