BC or BCE, AD or CE?

[Headgardener]

Spell it

Alternating Current/Direct Current

 

[XmisterIS]

Hooooooo yeah!

Jeeez, Ah said Jeeez, Ah said, JEEE-ZUS is lord!

Haaaaaleluiah!

Can ah get an A-M-E-N???

Ah need me some WITNESSIN'!

Jeeeeeezus touched me! (and I liked it!)

 

[jonesy]

I was taught AD and BC at school, but have come across CE and BCE in books about religion. I know CE and BCE is more culturally sensitive to non Christians, but the CE/BCE terms still annoy me. What does common era mean? CE and BCE are still estimated from the birth of Christ. Even if you dropped the AD/BC/CE/BCE suffixes altogether and just uses the minus symbol for BC (which you couldn't because there's no year zero) the dates would still be estimated from the birth of Christ.

Is it? Why? What is there for non Christians to be sensitive about? I'm an atheist, it doesn't bother me. It sounds a bit like those stories about references to Christmas being removed to avoid offending Muslims, but no-one can ever cite a Muslim who is actually offended by it.

 

[Arch]

We were taught on the archaeology course that it was 'Before Christian Era" etc, not common. Christian makes more sense than common.

The point I think is that 'Before Christ' implies the absolute existance of such a person, which might be disputed, whereas "Before Christian Era" relates to the religion whose existance can't be denied, since it exists today.