User talk:Xipirho

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Oi oi

[edit] AD vs CE

Hey. Sorry about partaking in the 'AD' vs 'CE' wars on the Old English page, but I'm intrigued why you think it's best to use 'CE' rather than 'AD'. By all means make it 'AD X' (as opposed to 'X AD'), but why 'CE'? It seems just like a re-branding of AD in order to make it PC, but when it clearly corresponds with the AD system it seems absurd. Xipirho 10:46, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I didn't realise this was an edit war. There are a few reasons why I used CE/BCE rather than AD/BC, which are:

1. CE/BCE is used as an industry standard among many historians and scientific publications.
2. It is now used by government schools in Britain, Australia, etc. (not sure about America).
3. It is non-religious specific (non-christian countries such as China, Japan, etc use our date system to some extent).
4. Our date/calendar system has been adopted as the standard for international timekeeping.
5. Why should non-christians (such as Secularists, Jews, Muslims, etc.) accept this notation for international timekeeping.
6. I'm secular, not a christian or even religious, find AD/BC off-putting, and I don't see CE/BCE as being PC.
7. Using the AD/BC notation 'AD 2005' or '2005 AD' is essentially saying the "2005th year since the birth of our lord Jesus Christ", which is offensive to non-christians, such as myself.
8. The more this system is used, the more people will come to accept it.
9. It's only a minor change, nothing like realigning dates.
10. Even though I'm secular I think Jesus probably did exist, and that the AD/BC notation doesn't actually align with his now widely accepted date of birth c. 6-4 BCE.
11. Christians don't have to find this offensive, they can interpret the 'C' in CE/BCE as Christian, while others can interpret it as Common.

Hope this answers your question. -- 203.164.184.242 14:20, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I spose it wasn't really a war - would an edit diplomatic incident be more appropriate? ;-) Anyway, I spose as it can mean 'Christian era' it's OK. Why I find it rather irritating, and I suppose that's the word to use, is because the dating system still revolves around approximately the time of the birth of (be he mythical or not) Jesus but it's just given another, meaningless (what does 'common era' mean?!) name. I'm not a Christian - indeed I'm an atheist - and for this reason when I first came across the system I thought it sounded good, but as it still dates from approximately the birth of Jesus it seems in many respects pointless to 'rebrand' it, as it were. I suppose that as it's 'industry standard' as you put it I can't really oppose it on a historical wikipedia page, and I also see that maybe referring to Jesus as 'dominus' (as in anno domini) could be a bit offensive to some (although surely you could think of it as 'lord [of the christians]' couldn't you?) - how about 'anno christi' ...or 'BJ' (could be problematic! :-) ) and 'AJ'!? I spose they're not gonna catch on! ...well, in brief, thanks for taking the time to explain your case - I think I'm basically I'm OK with BCE and CE now as 'c' can stand for 'Christian'. -- Xipirho 16:28, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind, but I have copied your reply to your talk page, because It's probably better to leave replies here rather than on Anonymous talk pages as Anonymous users use non-static IP addresses, which can be shared between many users.

[edit] Burford

Hello. Your opinion sought at Talk:Burford. Cheers. — Trilobite (Talk) 06:31, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)