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The newer dating abbreviations seems much more plebeian. It's as if a few people decided that the Latin abbreviation was just a little too difficult for them to grasp, or somesuch, so they replaced it with some boring English-centric phrase. *sigh*

hmm.. I don't see why it should bother someone if there's no mandate on what the individual should say. I use AD, but when others use CE or BCE it doesn't bug me. o_O; in fact, I would be pissed if there was a mandate, for one or the other, because that's unconstitutional! >.>

Then they taught you wrong. AD is never used for After Death because then you have 33 years when Christ was alive being marked as after his death.

I know that the western calendar system is not perfect, there is a gap in years when speaking of Christology in History, but to just chop off 33 years out of ignorance is no excuse....

Sorry... I am probably making nothing out of an anthill again, but it does bother me. It also bothers me when college professors mark your grade down because you don't conform to the BCE and CE notations. I wonder what they would do if I started doing like the Japanese do and start dating things according to the people in power of the US... Such as the Obama Era... or the Isenhower Era.... We could actually use the Waring States Era for the time of the Civil War. lol

perhaps pre world war 2. Now, not so much...

Eras are defined by length of office for the heads of parliment or the life span of the emperor. That really isn't all that much different than the length of the Presidential office or the reign of the Kennidys in the Senate...

But there are religions that do not believe Jesus even existed. Then there are others that acknowledge his existance, but he was not important in their history. I guess whoever came up with CE tried to please everyone. Even though it is failing.

I tend to go at things from the perspective of a Historian so I prefer BCE and CE. For me, the BC AD stuff just has no relevance. It's not trying to cut out the history. It's just what it says it is. The Common timescale accepted for general use around most of the world, at least for intereacting with each other. Which is also why they're not bothing to change the actual dating method. It's been in use for so long and is so widely excepted that it's difficult to get people to shift. Sure, you could change year zero to the year the classical Roman Empire effectivly ceased to exist but it would be difficult to get people to use it. Hell, do you know how many people I know who still use the four food groups instead of the food pyramid?

I see no issue using either, as the yearly nomenclature of "CE" has been used interchangeably as Christian or Common Era since it's inception (~300+/- years ago.) Seeing as their historical root is the same, its significance is also the same. I would, however, disagree with attempts to secularize the dates. The name system was devised by a Christian monk based on a Christian event, and thus it's what we've followed for the past 1500 years. Secularizing it is ignoring a massive chunk of history, and achieves nothing.

Christ was born. 1 A.D./C.E. (they're the same thing...,) there's nothing to it, so there's nothing bad about keeping it.

The historical origins of "Common Era" was used, as said in the aforementioned, interchangeably with Christian Era and Anno Domini. The discussion comes from the misunderstanding that is thinking CE is secular nomenclature. Accordingly, this misunderstanding has caused superfluous contention.