Gas Giant
07-06-2007, 10:08 AM
This is an issue that had been on my mind for a while and I thought this forum would be a good place to raise it and hopefully find out what others think.
As a casual teacher in NSW public schools, one day I was given the dream casual teacher’s job of supervising year 7 students sitting their state-wide standardised tests.
Reading through the test booklet, I was intrigued by a question that involved the historic time-line. What caught my attention was that the time-line had been divided into BCE and CE, which was explained as standing for Before the Common Era and the Common Era.
A little searching on the Internet revealed that this wasn’t something invented by politically correct public school examiners, but that there is a movement afoot to change the historic division of BC and AD to BCE and CE so that all cultures don’t have to base their world around Christianity.
I can see the point of that; but in my opinion not much thought has gone into the change. The Common Era? It sounds so lame! When students ask why the division was made, how will it be explained without reverting to the birth of Jesus?
The system we use now use that is centred on the birth of Jesus was first proposed by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century. Whether you believe is was divine intervention or just an historical accident, it caught on and has become more or less universal despite other religions having their own versions of the calendar.
In an effort to hopefully increase tolerance in the modern world, there’s little point in just changing the designation of the focal point. Devout Christians will just refer to the Before Christian Era and the Christian Era; and, despite the fact that the initial calculation was in error and it turns out Jesus was actually born in 4BC, historically the origin of the current calendar we use would still have the advent of Christianity as its genesis (no pun intended).
If the universal calendar across nations and cultures is to be relevant to everyone, why not just change it completely? Astronomy has a simple means of doing so.
Astronomers often use the Julian Date. This is the number of days since 1st January 4713 BC (BCE). This year was chosen as it was far enough back in time that no astronomical records existed. If you have ever submitted observations of variable stars, for example, the time of the observation is generally recorded as the Julian Date.
My suggestion would be, call 4713 BC (BCE) year 1 of Recorded History (RH). Before that year would be Pre-history (PE). All the other calendars, Jewish, Islamic, Christian etc could still be used within the relevant settings, while the dealings in the wider community could be based on a purely secular calendar.
This isn’t something I intend pushing with any zealotry, but just raise as something for discussion. With over 2,000 members, there is bound to be a significant proportion in the IIS community with a strong Christian Faith who may be very perturbed by any change to the Before Christ and Anno Domini (Latin for in the year of our lord) system.
I’d like people’s opinions on these points, though:
1) Even though it does show bias toward one (admittedly very large) group, it’s better to stick with BC and AD, which at least have some historical clout, rather than the, in my opinion, meaningless BCE and CE.
2) If there was a move to change the calendar, base it on the Julian Date, with what is now 4713BC as 1RH.
Submitted on June 7, 6720RH.
Cheers
Andrew the Gas Giant (if you’d ever been observing with me you wouldn’t have to ask!).
As a casual teacher in NSW public schools, one day I was given the dream casual teacher’s job of supervising year 7 students sitting their state-wide standardised tests.
Reading through the test booklet, I was intrigued by a question that involved the historic time-line. What caught my attention was that the time-line had been divided into BCE and CE, which was explained as standing for Before the Common Era and the Common Era.
A little searching on the Internet revealed that this wasn’t something invented by politically correct public school examiners, but that there is a movement afoot to change the historic division of BC and AD to BCE and CE so that all cultures don’t have to base their world around Christianity.
I can see the point of that; but in my opinion not much thought has gone into the change. The Common Era? It sounds so lame! When students ask why the division was made, how will it be explained without reverting to the birth of Jesus?
The system we use now use that is centred on the birth of Jesus was first proposed by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century. Whether you believe is was divine intervention or just an historical accident, it caught on and has become more or less universal despite other religions having their own versions of the calendar.
In an effort to hopefully increase tolerance in the modern world, there’s little point in just changing the designation of the focal point. Devout Christians will just refer to the Before Christian Era and the Christian Era; and, despite the fact that the initial calculation was in error and it turns out Jesus was actually born in 4BC, historically the origin of the current calendar we use would still have the advent of Christianity as its genesis (no pun intended).
If the universal calendar across nations and cultures is to be relevant to everyone, why not just change it completely? Astronomy has a simple means of doing so.
Astronomers often use the Julian Date. This is the number of days since 1st January 4713 BC (BCE). This year was chosen as it was far enough back in time that no astronomical records existed. If you have ever submitted observations of variable stars, for example, the time of the observation is generally recorded as the Julian Date.
My suggestion would be, call 4713 BC (BCE) year 1 of Recorded History (RH). Before that year would be Pre-history (PE). All the other calendars, Jewish, Islamic, Christian etc could still be used within the relevant settings, while the dealings in the wider community could be based on a purely secular calendar.
This isn’t something I intend pushing with any zealotry, but just raise as something for discussion. With over 2,000 members, there is bound to be a significant proportion in the IIS community with a strong Christian Faith who may be very perturbed by any change to the Before Christ and Anno Domini (Latin for in the year of our lord) system.
I’d like people’s opinions on these points, though:
1) Even though it does show bias toward one (admittedly very large) group, it’s better to stick with BC and AD, which at least have some historical clout, rather than the, in my opinion, meaningless BCE and CE.
2) If there was a move to change the calendar, base it on the Julian Date, with what is now 4713BC as 1RH.
Submitted on June 7, 6720RH.
Cheers
Andrew the Gas Giant (if you’d ever been observing with me you wouldn’t have to ask!).