Non-Christians aren’t a minority.
No problem!
Again, might be interesting to ask how many people use non-BC/AD dating in their indigenous convention.
I would guess that the majority of the laity still uses BC/AD, at least in the US.
You’re reading motivations into other people’s choices which simply don’t exist.
Are you assuming that everyone using it is Christian and just posturing for PC points?
I’m baffled by this question.
When I was a Catholic, I was of the laity. I was not a member of a religious order.
So when I was writing in papers about Sumer I was trying to make you feel guilty? Did it work?
As is nearly always the case in threads like this, the amount of people hang-wringing about “oh, the PC police are trying to force us to do things their way” is VASTLY larger than the amount of people actually trying to convince anyone to do anything, much less FORCING anyone to do anything.
I will go out on a limb: I think people should use CE and BCE because it inclusive.
Oh, God, the PC police just came after every single one of you and may attempt to eat your baby! No, I mean, your infant-American!
… of the world’s population. B/CE is a minority practice.
BC yes.
AD no, which was the question.
I don’t see that your interpretation is any better founded than mine. Here in the thread, several posts substantiate my view.
I can’t see where you got this Christian bee in your bonnet. I’d tend to assume differently; heathen nerds mostly, sticking it to the man! ™
As above, is AD used much or at all, other than in contrast to BC?
Read them for information on Sumer, not to be distracted by your view on the date convention. Write another paper for that. At the time I was less influential, or you would have been marked down acutely, like when a student described an opposing view as ‘Anti-choice’.
Well, I got it from my misunderstanding of your intention. When you said “minority sympathies,” I assumed you meant “people [who are not cultural minorities] who sympathize with minorities,” as opposed to what you seem actually to intend, which is “minorities.” Why you think it’s “this Chjristian bee in [my] bonnet” when I asked you a question about your post, which I found unclear, is an open question.
Perhaps we’ll meet and you’ll do this. Then we’ll have a nice discussion with the Dean of Academic Affairs. I will win.
What are you getting at by trying to divorce BC from AD. They’re part of the same convention. Anyone who uses BC also uses AD unless they’re really weird or something.
Do you mean that people don’t usually bother to identify recent dates (say the past 1000 years or so) with the preface “AD?” That’s more a function of that designation being assumed and not requiring qualification. Generally, if someone speaks of the “1800’s” or the “15th Century,” it is usually taken for granted (and obvious from context), that they aren’t talking about BCE. It’s only when you’re talking about more ancient dates that the clarification has to come into play. Most people don’t bother to say “CE” either when they’re talking about modern dates.
I am certainly smarter than you wish to recognize. (I can, for example, quote multiple posters in a single post without making it appear that the first several quotations were from a single poster when that is true only of the first quotation).
Given that you have no logical reason for getting so bent out of shape over a convention that was established among people who were attempting to demonstrate mutual respect, I figured your problem was cultural (as in: early 21st century “ant-PC-ism” culture rather than any religious origins which appeared to have no bearing on the matter).
If you wish to adhere to the BC/AD convention, feel free to do so. I have never in my life criticized or sneered at a person who chose to use the older nomenclature. If you’re going to open up a thread lambasting anyone who happens to choose to employ the newer convention, sprinkling your post with historical errors, then you should expect to be teased about your silly behavior.
Oh, sure. Not even a mention of Zulu Time. That’s a coincidence, I suppose?
Jokes aside, I do actually use “GMT” exclusively over “UTC”.
Zulu time was 1879, IIRC. 