[WikiEN-l] Re: Announcing a policy proposal

Wed May 18 17:56:14 UTC 2005

Timwi wrote:

> JAY JG wrote:
>
>>> The point isn't that the measurement is inaccurate. The point is
>>> that renaming it to "CE" does not make it a different measurement.
>>> It is still based on the same Christian considerations.
>>
>> When one uses the B.C. system one is able to make the rather bizarre
>> statement that "Christ was born 4 to 6 years Before Christ".  At
>> least Before the Common Era does away with that.
>
> No, it doesn't, it only makes it subtler. "4 to 6 years before the 
> Common Era" would still mean "4 to 6 years before the point in time 
> that some wackos at some point thought was the birthdate of Jesus".

I wouldn't exactly call them wackos.  Research facilities at the time 
were rudimentary by today's standards.  I don't know how long it took 
before it was realized that Jesus was probably born 4 years earlier, but 
by then the damage was done since the A.U.C. dating system had already 
been abandoned for some time.  I suppose that the properr thing might be 
to advocate for a change in the calendar that reflects the fact that we 
are now four years later than we thought we were.  This is really the 
year 2009!  All dates in historical records and books should be changed 
to reflect that.  (Columbus did not discover America until 1496, WWII 
lasted from 1943 until 1949, the Y2K panic anticipated the coming of the 
year 2004, etc.)

Unfortunately people might not understand the importance of such a 
move.  There were riots when the change from the Julian to the Gregorian 
calendar stole 11 days from people's lives.  Imagine how irrationally 
they will respond when we seek to shorten their lives by four years. :-)

Ec