Whaddya know, someone who actually researched and thought through his opinion and explained it in a respectful way. This is how you properly have an argument.
Yeah I agree. I am Christian and have always been using AD, BC, so I feel like I may have come from a biased perspective. I suppose most people have a biased perspective on this sort of thing, though. I mean, everyone has an opinion on religion, so it is a hot topic intrinsically.
Metatron is a linguist and historian so whoever was attacking him picked the wrong guy to start this argument with because it just gave Metatron a chance to have fun flexing some knowledge
*Alien arrives on Earth* - What year is it, earthling? - 2021 CE. I use CE to be religiously neutral. - Oh, ok. What happened 2021 years ago that marked the beginning of your common era? - ...
Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened at AD 1. All serious historians agree Jesus was born somewhere between 8 BC and 4 BC. You can blame saint Dionisius for that.
I liked the reference to the Christian Era joke... I made that joke often when they first started pushing BCE/CE in High School... Got me into lots of trouble, but personally worth it to point out the hypocrisy of the new designation.
The thing is, the changing of the name still considers the birth of Jesus as the pivot between the 2 eras... so does it really matter that you are changing the designation? I don't believe in religion but historically BC-AD has been how the dates have been calculated, so I have no issue with it. If you wanted to change it by choosing a different historical moment and re-work the calendar around it, that would be a different matter. But keeping all the dates and just changing the acronym makes very little sense to me.
@@Calendyr On another comment thread someone suggested the year that to me sounds like the transition from humans be nomadic basic tool using pack animals to settled agricultural based villages. They gave a better description why, but to me it was the nomad pack hunter vs agricultural society.
@@Calendyr So how do we measure Star Dates. Do we start when we first have a Permanent Extraterrestrial Outpost or Extrasolar Outpost? By what measure will a Work/Rest Cycle be measured? How many Work/Rest Cycle before a Full Cycle of Rest except in States of Emergency? Will there be people Devoted to Working during States of Emergency or will everyone be on a Rotational Schedule for such Events? Will we have Regular Public Memorial Days for Landmark Events in our Interstellar Travels?
I'm used to the portuguese language version, "antes de cristo" "before christ", and "depois de cristo" "after christ". It makes for a lot of AC/DC band jokes.
@@AndreasSweden It's a bit hard to remember the date is 13,738,483,931 (or whatever the accurate year is). Also we don't know how long it's been exactly since the big bang. Also what if one day we found out something happened before the big bang? Also, how are we going to have new year's glasses with all those numbers? Your idea is pure chaos. And i love it.
@@drogadepc "Before the Conventional Era/ Conventional Era"?? Muslim asks, "What convention?" Secular person whose ancestors were Christians replies, "Uh, ....er, ...the convention of counting from when we thought Jesus was born." Muslim then replies, "Who cares about Jeezy, he was just a minor prophet -- far less profound than the last one!" Secular person whose ancestors were Christian replies further, "Well, uh, could you use this system anyway -- and let's all pretend that it doesn't put Jesus' birth at the hinge point of everything, shall we?"
Can we just take the beginning of agriculture as a starting point? A rather important point in human history that would count from where we started "owning" land and thus property and nations, etc became a thing.
I completely agree, mainly for one reason: "Common Era" has no logical meaning, just ideological. I'm not a religious person myself, but if we take Christ out of the equation, than there's really no reason to put emphasis in those years. Why would we start the "common era" there? What's the event that we use to decide that year 1 is the starting point? of what? I mean, we could start counting from the first written word (but than that date may move), from the invention of the printing press (but isn't that still European-centric?), from the steam engine... My point is that any time we'd chose to start counting from would be an arbitrary one. So why make a mess where there's absolutely no need to?
Heck if your worry is being Eurocentric the entire dating system based on the Julian and Gregorian Calendars is a European thing. In the Islamic Calendar the current year is something like 1453ish IIRC. Japanese and Chinese years are totally different for the current date.
Technically, we have a scholastic watershed line; Ancient Era and Modern Era, with the third Gothic sacking of Roma (or the removal of the last seated Roman Emperor of Latinum)
@@BigWillyG1000 I don't worry really, I was just underlining that if one goes down that road, one can always find objections to something that is arbitrary :)
@@dark_fire_ice that's interesting. But at the same time, that would also be an arbitrary point. So asking for a massive effort to shift from a convention to another, doesn't seem to be worth it. :)
@@Denien82 well there's no such thing as non arbitrary when it comes to human inventions so that point is a bit moot. I wasn't arguing for it to replace, the current and very modern dating system, I was just pointing out there is another generally accepted scholastic point. To be honest, either the Trinity test, or Apollo 11 would be better watershed moments for the species; the creation of a man made star, or the first step on another celestial body.
@@ungeimpfterrusslandtroll7155 obviously for example the 13 core principles of faith according to Maimonides.(although not all Jews will agree with them being the core principles or even necessarily being all correct) Compared to the philosophical holdings of Thomas Aquinas. Obviously they're not the same . And contrast that with the Almohads (Arabic for those who affirm the unity (/being one indivisible) of God. That influenced Maimonides.
@@Nitro1000 It has nothing to do with what it is but doing what it commands, following and believing in it. Jews don't follow the OT they follow the Mishna.
I prefer BC/AD, even though I'm not Christian. Reasons: as you mentioned, no commonality of letters for less confusion; two letters each, better formatting; millions of documents from two centuries using the older format. Some of those documents have the date in the title, meaning that if you use BCE/CE in your article, by mentioning the name of the quoted document you would be using BOTH systems in the same piece!
Im proud atheist and I dont care if someone use BC/AD instead of BCE/CE. Not a big deal at all. P.S. Im not liberal btw, Im moderate conservative. Many people think atheist always = liberal, but its not.
@@jus_sanguinis It's literally not about religion at all, we've changed the various christian calendars a lot to create a comprehensible calendar that can be used interchangeably; it is dumb however to try and change the fact that our literal anchor point is the birth of Christ. Using CE is nonsensical, calendars are based on important historical dates - just as the Romans used the battle of Actium for their calendar, or the dates of the inclusion of different provinces to form a provincial calendar.
When I went to college in the 90s academic trends were starting to go towards the CE, BCE (Common Era, Before Common Era) route. Since then, I've noticed AD and BC (Anno Domini and Before Christ) are as common as before, while BCE and CE are relatively rare.
I think how often you see CE/BCE or BC/AD really depends on your field and what you read. In history books and articles I read it varies which one you'll see, often by who it's written for. If an article intended for an academic journal I almost always see CE/BCE, but if it's written for the general public then I see BC/AD used a lot, maybe even the majority, of times. If I'm reading something from a scientific journal regarding geology, my former field, it's CE/BCE nearly 100% of the time. Very, very, occasionally I'll read something written by a proponent of the Holocene calendar (HE), which is a calendar based on the start of the neolithic revolution.
@@adorabell4253 I think it depends very much on the academic discipline and country where you studied. I literally never ever heard of CE/BCE before now and I thought I was both pretty educated as well as a history buff. You never stop learning, I guess.
@@adorabell4253 Finished my history degree last year, CE/BCE is still pushed, although you do get SOME profs and teacher's assistants who are fully self aware of the hypocrisy of the whole thing lol/
As a rather convinced atheist I remember when the bce/ce convention became popular and how horribly stupid and self important its proponents seemed to me. It always made me suspect that they had nothing worth publishing and needed something to attach their careers to.
The only people getting butthurt about BCE/CE are indeed Christian conservatives, who can not think otuside their narrow minded world view. It is a sad sight to see. So much bitterness, and unironically, hypocrise in their hatred.
I love how Lindybeige made B.C./A.D. non-religious for those who want it. B.C. became "Backwards Chronology" A.D. became "Ascending Dates" We can still use B.C./A.D, it can to some be non-religious, and we will all be merry. Although it still revolves around the birth of Christ
Renaming it to appease the PC activists will never erase the reference point. If these PC pushers want another dating system, then they should start a new one based on their perceived reference point. But they are too lazy to do that so instead they just rename, censor, deplatform, or destroy existing systems (linguistic etc), historical references, literary masterpieces, and even cultural norms they disagree with.
I like the old Samurai saying " Some people will attempt to convince you that a white Crane is a black Crow, ignore them. But ! if they continue to annoy you kill them swiftly ". Very pragmatic approach, lol.
Only Americans need worry about metric tons of hate, because they use the weedy short ton. The true Imperial ton, the long ton, laughs at the metric ton.
I think the best thing is to embrace all these funny cultural artifacts in dates. - days named for Nordic gods - month named for roman emperors - month shifted around so the seventh month is now the number nine - dates based on a made up date for the birth of Christ.
"month shifted around so the seventh month is now the number nine" This is backwards. The 9th month is named "seventh month", the way you said it implies the reverse.
@@metatronyt no bro thank you for making videos on gladiators, armors, weapons, the debunks and the numerous other topics you went over. It was entertaining and i learned a bit too
Is this a big issue or just some random internet people hating on things? Coming from very atheist country, and people here use christian-related expressions all the time and nobody seems bothetred by it.
I personally found the BCE/CE thing rather pretentious. When you think that outwardly atheist historians who are perfectly willing to use BC/AD why use something different?
History major here. We used BCE and CE, but I always felt it didn't make that much sense to rename it, because it is still based on the same thing (so there is an additional step for people who learn using BCE and CE to make that connection: it is called CE but it still effectively the christian dating system). Rather than rename it, I think just having students understand there are a bunch of different dating systems, often based on religion, and this is the one historians adopted. I would rather have had a section on dating systems around the world and throughout history than trying to address any concerns people had by simply changing the language used
BCE/CE is English, BC/AD is not. BCE/CE is mainstream and will continue to be. It is of course important to remember ALL the dating systems, but nothing will replace BCE/CE, unless it's a new calendar in the future.
@@kokko9507 My point is BCE and CE are just BC/AD by another name, so in my view the shift only created confusion, it didn't really solve anything. I was a history student, we used BCE and CE because that was the standard. But I could see the flaw in the change, that it created this problem where older history books used BC and AD, and newer ones didn't. A minor point of confusion but still a point of confusion that needs to be explained. So it adds an unnecessary step without really adding anything useful to the mix. My argument is we would have been better off sticking with AD and BC, and just explaining why. I think the idea that you can fix any social concerns by adjusting the language is misguided (and in many ways a bit pernicious)
@@kokko9507 where is BC/AD from, I thought it’s the same as BCE/CR? I don’t follow the logic either. Why will BCE/CE be mainstream forever? Seems reasonable to think another system could appear not based on religion.
You can also see it this way our modern world, Gregorian Calendar is a measuring system like the Metric System. Would you change "cm" because you feel that you are being forced to use French.
Replacing BC/AD with BCE/CE wouldn't change the fact that major point in this Calendar is still the year when Jesus was born (doesn't matter if it is historical figure or not). So it is like useless virtue signaling. And I am atheist, btw.
I was thinking that. Like, the calendar still revolves, theoretically at least, around the birth of christ even if it isn't named so. Changing the name just puts a bandaid on the fact that our entire timeline is based on Christianity.
I just love how we all are troubling ourselves with Anglophone problems. In my language AD isn't used. So switching to BCE/CE is for my more "natural". I hope someday Anglophones will discover 24 hour clock...
And different cultures use different calendars, which makes the virtue signaling people look stupid as usual. They are very Eurocentric and usually have no clue about other cultures. I am not a Christian but in our culture we count time from the birth of Jesus Christ. It's what we do. Chinese, Muslims and Jews have other calendars.
@@HlewagastizHoltijaz Yes. While they feign "neutrality," it's not about neutrality at all. It's about the destruction of Christianity and everything associated with it.
By the way, AD should always be italicized because it's Latin. A lot of people don't do that but in upperworld medieval studies circles it's expected and you'd lose points on your thesis if it wasn't italicized.
Same with taxonomy (not because it is Latin, since it's not quite, but rather to distinguish it) - e.g. you are supposed to write: “The European magpie, _Pica pica pica,_ is a subspecies of the Eurasian magpie, _Pica pica,_ having a trinnomial tautonymous name and a binnomial tautonymous name respectively.”
I think of it in terms of how Neil deGrasse Tyson talked about saying 'Godspeed' to astronauts. Even if something loses it's religious significance later in time, rewriting something for modern sensibilitites is a denial of history. It's the worst sort of revisionism. BC - AD all the way.
those who advocate to remove religious word only advocate it to remove christian word, they are perfectly fine with any other religious word, they are just a bunch of hypocryte and false atheist, especially since they are the first to defend islam against any form of criticism by saying we are islamophobic but are perfectly fine with criticising christianity. so for me since its mostly done in such a disingenuous way, i will keep BC/AD especially since we are keeping the gregorian calendar, which btw the pope did an excelant job to correct and even include bixetile year and the like, i see no real need to change imo
That disconnect is the reason I preferred BCE/CE over the traditional form. OCD kicked in whenever I would look at a single system using two different languages within its terminology. Similarly, if I'm talking to you about the forces on a lever, I wouldn't use 扭力 in the conversation instead of using torque.
@@Alex_Fahey false equivalency, English is full of Latin words has it's a Latin+Old German+ Norman French(which was still Latin and wasn't really anything like modern French, which comes from the Parisian dialect of the 19th century), there isn't any disconnect by using Anno Domini, plus Latin was the official language for the most part till the high middle ages when the languages you know now in many parts of Europe started taking permanent form, if you have OCD then the entire English language should be a problem for you because it has a multitude of adopted words, and terrible grammar.
I am an engineer, I work in R&D. The thing that I consider most, when implementing new systems is, will it increase efficiency? How many errors will it initially lead to? Is it idiot-proof? In my opinion, if it's not systematically defective, then there's no need to replace it.
Even if it wasn't already my personal preference, I would choose BC/AD just to stick it to the people who are doing it to remove every little vestige of religion from the public. (Which, in and of itself, is advancement of non-theistic religion, whether they are being honest with themselves or not.)
That's a stupid thing to think and do and a bad attitude to have (no offence, not saying that you're stupid). Not using something (and in more extreme cases, not your case shaming/insulting people for using something) just because a specific minority of people use it in a specific way is stupid. If it doesn't hurt anyone, generally you should be allowed to freely do/use it, regardless of who it's associated with, and you shouldn't pick things just based of off who it's associated with. You should pick things, even things like BC/AD or BCE/CE based on more objective factors, like functionality, or maybe factors like personal preference of a specific system, not the personal preference of the people who use it, that stuff doesn't matter really.
@@richard6133 Speaking as an atheist here, I can't recall ever meeting anyone who actually cares about this. You can certainly find a few idiots in any demographic, but that hardly amounts to any real erasure of Christian culture. For the record, I prefer BC/AD.
@@ozzyp97 Noted. I have met only a few, all of them spent more time in the halls of academia than out in real life. Most people I run into have about an elementary school level of retained historical knowledge, and by that reason, they couldn't possibly care less about this issue. As a Christian, I honestly don't care which one a person chooses to use, any more than I care whether a person chooses to use Imperial or metric units of measure. Accuracy in the measure and expression of that measure are what I care about, same as with time. Speaking of such things, do you have any opinions on the proposed idea that the Late Bronze Age Collapse might have been significantly shorter than originally thought? Since we base our estimation of time off of Egyptian history and records, it could mean that our entire system might be off by about a couple hundred years. What's your take on that?
Who else but the Metatron could bring us this knowledge? You’re the greatest historian and RUclipsr on earth Metatron! I await your next clapping of historical cheeks!!!!
@@KalonOrdona2 I came here to say the same thing. I just rewatched Lloyd’s video, and most of the arguments are the same. I think maybe Metatron saw it years ago, forgot about it and thought he was creating new content.
@@MessihippiWhy would you presume he watched this other person’s video? This is a very old debate in history-related circles, and the arguments haven’t changed. Heck, I was making much of the same arguments 40 years ago.
I would assume it's the same everywhere unless it's an history book or some place that could have date both before and after BC/AD 1. Here in Canada I only see dates with the designator if it's BC as well.
It’s only really a problem pre-AD 1000; three digits just doesn’t look like date. Standard convention is then to use AD upon first use, say “AD 793” - always with AD preceding the numbers; then to just use 793.
In Portugal the same, our equivalents are a.C. (BC) and d.C. (AD), but no one uses d.C. only the year is stated. Only when it's a.C. it's it ever used.
Also a fan of the BC/AD ammendment involving Backwards Chronology/Ascending Dates for those who would rather mute connotation without creating new acronym paradigms.
Maybe we should split our history in the Tolkien fashion instead of using BC/AD e.g. I era - prehistory (preliterary times) II era - antiquity and middle ages III era - modern history (humanism, scientific, industrial, technological revolutions) :D
BC/AD for lyfe. It was good enough for the historians of the past, it's good enough for the historians of the future. Why should we have to change it? Because some pearl clutching busybodies think it's not inclusive enough? Nuts to them.
I can't wait for some out-of-touch academics to request we change the names of July and August because of some irrational dislike of the Roman emperors.
Me, an intellectual before watching the video: we should obviously use the Holocene Calendar, so we live in 12,021HC. Advantages: • No random inaccurate starting date (Jesus wasn't born at this date anyway even if he indeed existed in the way he is portrayed) • No bloody minus anymore or missing year (since the year 0 was missing and thus counterintuitive creating mismatching) • Finally bridges the gap between historic timelines and geological timelines • Gives a definite framework from which to build a calendar agreeable to all Disadvantage: • IT people will hate you forever for even suggesting changing the dating system ▪︎Secret bonus advantage: we'll get closer to the year 40,000.
This should be the real alternative to BCE/CE designation. Start the Calendar at what is possibly when humans started forming agricultural based villages.
@@qwertyuiopzxcfgh Right, I forgot about that one. That being said, I'm unsure how going to HC directly would complicate or simplify this particular problem. I'm out of my league when it comes to IT stuff.
You'd still need negative years when you're talking about events further in the past. Although then it's often just "x years ago". Love your bonus fact.
I personally love how prefer how Polish counterparts are self-centered: it's simple n.e. ("our age") and p.n.e. ('before our age"). No direct reference to religion whatsoever, but it is apparent who the age supposed to belong to...
@@saluteadezio7893 You’d think they would have set year 0/1 to be the year of some communist revolution, instead of leaving it as the same as AD. I guess they wanted to be taken somewhat seriously.
@@keoghanwhimsically2268 The French tried that during the revolution and the following Terror, and if the history I've read is correct, the Soviets did too at the same time they outlawed money. None of those things worked out well, for the despots or the ruled, and so were abandoned.
Always happy to be early when a new metatron video drops! Raf once again picked an interesting topic and made a great looking video I personally like using BC and AD as a Christian
As a non-christian it is very annoying when people assume that only Christians support BC/AD. If anything it should be changed to BC/AC (before and after christ) just so that's its all in English, still acknowledges the arbitrary reference point, and doesn't say "lord".
Hello Metatron! I would like to give you my thanks for the 5 years of wonderful content you have produced on your channel. I pray for your health and for the future success of the channel. Lastly, I would like to suggest an idea for a video concerning the culture during the Meiji Period of Japan.
“You’re pushing Christianity on people who doesn’t want it” How many people were ever baptized by the mere mentioning of a date? I just went to an Arabic website and over there the day is 16 Shawwal 1442. I’d have to be an utter idiot to feel offended by this.
@@shinobi-no-bueno true, but BCE and CE have more consistent usage methods, are more easily translatable to other languages while remaining elegant (to most languages) and might be prefered by non Christians for not carrying Christian connotations/being linked to Christianity.
@@mrmoth26 The Gregorian Calendar is, by definition, a Christian Calendar. Imagine trying to erase judaism from the Hebrew Calendar or islamism from the Islamic Calender. Why are people on the western world so eager to erase their own culture or heritage just to feel "tolerant" to others...
I personally use metric time, but since no one wants to change with me, I spend a lot of time translating to whatever it is all these Philistines speak. 😆😆😆
@@b1laxson I mean, that was kind of the joke. A lot of common terminology has evolved from religious terms, and acquired or lost meanings as contexts change. Unless we all decide to switch to some entirely new con-lang (including a constructed calendar system like metric time) there's going to be religious artifacts in our vernacular.
Great video! I agree with your explanation and may use you as a reference. I am a Christian, so I use BC & AD, but people have told me to switch to the more religiously ambitious terminology. I like your reasoning and response to this issue and I find it encouraging that other contemporary historians also prefer the BC/AD dating system. Thanks for the video.
I find BCE to be an extra unneeded syllable, and before this video I never heard anyone use CE, most people I watch seem to use BCE with AD. Being a bit older I used AD and BC as in the 80's and 90s when I was in school nobody used BCE. While it is not a deal breaker, BCE is just grating enough, that I will be less apt to watch videos that use it vs ones that use BC. Also since the use of BCE seems to be newer and more politically motivated I am less apt to trust that someone who uses it are not letting their own ideology tarnish the history they are presenting. I like my history as true and non-biased as possible. If I can't trust the presenter I am going to go elsewhere.
@@Kriegerdammerung Alright? Though clearly I was thinking along the line of English and more American sources, as I was like 20 before the internet was able to connect me to more foreign sources.
I actually think it's even more biased towards Christianity to call it the "Common Era". Yes, it may be the most common calendar in the world now, but that may change. The fact that it's based on the birth of Jesus* will always be true, regardless of your faith or lack thereof. Common Era sounds like you're taking Christian hegemony for granted, to the extent it doesn't even have to be stated out loud. *Even though the year AD 1 is widely regarded as the wrong year for the birth of Jesus as he is generally known, the idea was that the calendar was based on his birth year.
I connect it with the type of atheist that is too rectionary against christianity. The type that always argue against the Christian concept of God and never address any other religions. Similar to pagans and satanists that do the same thing. All they do is attack another religion rather than focus on their own ideology.
It was about A. D. 525. A monk named Dionysius Exiguus was tasked by the pope with determining when Christ had been born, since that date was a bit uncertain. Today, it's believed that Dionysius was probably a bit off in his calculations, and that Christ was actually born in the year we would call 4 B. C.
@@bigscarysteve, Or around that time during the mid-late 740s AUC which by the way AUC or Ab urbe condita for short was a dating system that scholars of Roman history in both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance used to figure out the years of when such Roman events took place before the creation of the AD era and before when it became popularly used around the world. Put those dates in the BC era and you have the birth around the years 7 BC to 1 BC (or also in this case the years -6 AYN to year 0 AYN since the astronomical year numbering system or AYN for short puts a year 0 in it's chronology unlike the AD system which doesn't really do that exactly because of the time it was made in with AD being made in the 6th century AD where no 0 was used and AYN being made in the 18th century AD when 0 was indeed a thing in everybody's minds).
I will be royally pissed if somebody tried to compel my speech in that way. In my language both forms are used but I never even tried to think about correcting someone. It's not my business, since both forms are accepted. Like seriously, these modern tendencies in the West are just not healthy
@@tafazzi-on-discord This is human language. Languages have synonyms. All attempts to create fully optimized/normalized languages have failed (see Esperanto). The rule of thumb - do not compel speech
@@georgiyyamov5827 We no longer accept the term "coloured" to refer to a black person because it went from neutral to racially charged. I agree that compelled speech is bad, but you can't write "coloured" in a newspaper article. The question at hand is: should we let BC/AD have the same fate as "coloured" or not? I stand with the "no" crowd, but this discussion has nothing to do with compelled speech.
@@tafazzi-on-discord As I wrote in my initial post - I dislike current policy in the West to compel speech. So yes, despite what you put as an example - I disagree with whole concept. Let people use "coloured" as they used to do, let people use BC/AD as they used to do. Even if someone deem usage of certain words offensive - it's essentially not their business. Language is fluent construct, if something falls out of fashion - it will be natural (and welcome). If you enforce rules in language - it's tyranny, plain and simple. Sorry if I was unclear
@@georgiyyamov5827 Oh alright I didn't get your point then, thanks for being more clear. I politely disagree, in my opinion the language we use for making legislations should be handled by experts instead of the whims of the crowd, while common people are left speaking dialects between themselves, if they don't like the official language. That said, since english is a global lingua franca I don't think that regulating it sensibly is even possible. I agree that compelled speech is conceptually disagreeable, if I don't want to participate in the cringey roleplay of an alphabet-individual I shouldn't have to, but language needs fixed points.
Fun fact about the days of the week in portuguese is that they were actually changed for religious reasons. To leave behind any reference to the old gods the days of the week were renamed to: Domingo, which comes from Dies Dominicus, Day of the Lord; Segunda-Feira, which comes from Secunda Feria, Second Free Day; Then this pattern repeats all the way to the sixth day, Sexta-Feira; And finally we have Sábado, from Hebrew Shabbat, then Sabbath/Sabatum in Latim, which means Rest.
Funny, I've been in the opposite position, where people have given me crap for using BCE/CE. They were trying to claim that it's excessive political correctness, when for me it's just a more scientific term that I grew used to in my university studies. Either way it's pretty ridiculous to me that people get their panties in a bunch over this. Just use whatever you prefer and let others do the same. Everyone understands what's meant, so it's a non-issue.
Partner, you forget that if someone doesent have a reason to bitch about something they think of a reason to be offended. If we last long enough to not wipe out our civilization these times will probably be joked about as the offensive years as everybody is offended over everything at all times.
What's scientific about it? Is the thing that makes it a "common" era even defined? What scientific observation separates 1 BCE and 1 CE as separate eras, and unites 1 CE and 2021 CE as the same era? How does the scientific method apply? Question is sincere, not rhetorical.
@@oxwagon The goal of science is to get as close to objective observations and theories as possible. A neutral, non-religious term seems more appropriate in that regard. Although I should probably have said something like "more scientific sounding". It is just semantics after all.
@@Skallagrim Out of interest, then, do you apply the same standard of religious neutrality to the likes of Wednesday and July, which are also explicit references to non-neutral figures of religious significance?
@@Skallagrim Yes, it's more about avoiding value-judgements about the status of Christianity relative to other systems of faith so the usage makes sense in academic publications at least. I also see it as a non issue, you use whatever you like.
As a christian, for me the proverbial "0" marking the birth of Christ isn't really significant since theological and archeological studies point to Christ probably being born on 4 B.C. (ironically). Still, B.C. and A.D. are my preference because 1- I dislike the idea of 2 existing fating systems existing, and BC/AD is more used, so stick with it. 2- I genuinely dislike the illuminist presupposition of total neutrality and denial of the past being good and possible 3- most important of all, A.C./D.C. (Antes de Cristo, Depois de Cristo) is the system we use in Portuguese, and it translates to BC/AD, so it's obviously my preferred one.
The point about there being no year zero is that neither the ancient Romans nor the ancient Jews had the concept of zero, so there couldn't have been a year zero built into the calendar when this system was adopted. (The system of Christian eras was adopted around A. D. 525. It was calculated by Dionysius Exiguus.) Even today, many Jews still use this system culturally, so a baby is "one" when he is born, and not a year later. I had a Jewish neighbor who always stated his age as one year more than what the surrounding culture would have said. When pressed on this fact, he'd say, "I'm in my ninety-first year of life," or whatever his age was. Still, when he died, his obituary said he was 101, but a lot of people said, "I thought he was 102."
@@bigscarysteve, Okay I know. But remember that AD is the most used year numbering system in the world. Also unlike other systems where they are perfectly fine for starting their years on 1 since it's either based on mythology or on a real event that doesn't need any before era or something like that, the AD era is different. Unlike those other eras it has a few key differences which makes me question why doesn't AD have a year 0. 1) It's based on the birth of Christ which is a real event according to most biblical historians. Also just so you know this comment is not meant to be an attack on people who follow other religions by the way since the key word here is "biblical historians" or just the people who follow the bible so if you're not a follower of the bible that's perfectly fine. So anyways moving on, because it's not known on when Jesus was born it was decided to be an arbitrary date which was around the year 753 AUC. Also by the way AUC or Ab urbe condita for short was a dating system that scholars of Roman history in both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance used to figure out the years of when such Roman events took place before the creation of the AD era and before when it became popularly used around the world. This also means around the end of the year 1 BC. 1 week after the suppose first christmas the AD era started. But modern evidence decided to put the birth of Christ around the years of the mid-late 740s decade of AUC or around the years of 7 BC to 1 BC. 2) It has a before era thing in this case BC. However no one recorded those dates back then. So instead it was retroactively added into the calendar during the middle ages. So it should be common sense that the year before AD 1 should be 0 right? And 3) It's obvious that AD is the most used one in the world. So if it is the most used one then why don't we just add some improvements here and there into the system to make christians, non-christians, and mathematicians happy? So with all of those reason why it doesn't make any sense for AD to not have a year 0 in my eyes at least.
@@lucabralia5125 Oh in Finnish Ekr = Ennen Kristusta Jkr =Jälkeen Kristuksen (Before and after) Eaa and Jaa are such word monsters when opened.... but their short version is easy and smooth
The most radical change of calendar was made during the French Revolution: 1792 became Year 1 and all the months got new names like Fructidor and Brumaire and the weeks were turned into ten day periods. It lasted until Napoleon decided to turn things back.
I may be a bit of an atheist. But, I still say, you can not replace BC-AD as those terms have been used in global society for many centuries and generations. Trying to kill those terms is like trying to kill Christmas or New Years. It’s simply not done. So thank you Metatron for following the traditional terms of BC-AD. :)
I couldn't agree more. I'm secular, but I always thought changing BC and AD to BCE and CE was very silly, for all the reasons you cite. It's still the same calendar.
We shouldn't use either. I prefer the Holocene Calendar. Was proposed by an Italian Scientist in the 90s. It takes as origin the start of the Holocene period 12000 years ago as start (end of the Glacial Period). Interestingly enough this date coincidentally is simultaneous with the construction of Göbekli Tepe one of the oldest stone constructions on Earth. This system gives a better impression of deep time and how human civilization is actually older than we think. Simplify dates as we don't have to think on negative dates anymore as isn't Eurocentric. By that counting we are in the year 12021 HE: Human Era. There's a Kurtzgesagt video that explains this system nicely: ruclips.net/video/czgOWmtGVGs/видео.html
@@marlonbryanmunoznunez3179 There's nothing wrong with it being Eurocentric. Other cultures have other calendars. Why can't we have our culture here without having to change it to accommodate for people who usually don't even ask for us to change it?
I think the most relevant points to use BC-AD are 1: to piss the kind of people that think that a small group of people should be able to dictate how a society should work (as long it match their specific beliefs, naturally) and 2: the gregorian calendar is a extremely refined dating system that took the greatest minds of its time to develop (it can work for tens of thousands of years without a single day of error) and if you are going to use it you should at least honor their decision to call it BC-AD.
“Even by changing the letters, the whole calendar is still based on a Christian principle; the birth of Christ, as a point of reference. If you just change the letters but keep using the Gregorian Calendar it’s not religion-free. In fact, the name of the calendar is named after a Pope, Pope Gregory XIII, who is the one who made it.”
Also to add, imho - "common era" makes no sense because what does 1 CE have in common with 2021 CE? Nothing. And what defines the "era" to begin with? Why do we not have several eras? Why, after 2000 years, are we still in the same common era? I'm a BC - AD guy all the way. Sounds cooler and actually makes sense. And if using BC-AD is enforcing religion on people, then using BCE and CE is enforcing atheism on people. I would support switching from BC-AD if we used a Lord of the Rings method. So we could say something like this- Years 1 - 1000 are the first age. Years 1001 - 2000 are the second age. Years 2001 - 3000 are the third age. So we're in the year 21 of the 3rd age. That makes way more sense than "common era."
The Lord of the Rings method as you outlined still falls afoul of using the same "start" point as AD-BC and CE-BCE. To properly shift to the "Age" format would require a much earlier "start" point as a reference. I.E. When Earth reached the point of being able to sustain life as the start of the hypothetical "first age".
@@corwinhyatt519 not really, we could denote first age of humankind as when civilization began or something the like, so it would have nothing it common with BC/AD
@@FrenchLightningJohn Would work, though the difference between my hypothetical and yours is which type of milestone should be considered the starting point and what should be emphasized. Life or civilization. "First age" doesn't necessarily need to denote a homo sapiens milestone.
Joking aside, I came across another calendar last friday: someone who forwarded an email sent 64-05-20. Stressed and tired as I was, I kind of asked what the f#'k that was supposed to be. Turned out it was sent from a server in the persons home country, Thailand. According to their calendar, they live in the year 2564 now and the server uses that calendar. I apologized and felt like the stupid ass I had been.
Yup, if I recall correctly, its a Lunar Calendar to the date of Buddha's Enlightenment, the start of the Buddhist Era, (which differs by sect and country, and like you said, would be the year 2564 by the Buddhist Calendar.)
I prefer the Holocene Calendar. It takes as origin the start of the Holocene period 12000 years ago as start (end of the last Glacial Period). Interestingly enough this date coincidentally is simultaneous with the construction of Göbekli Tepe one of the oldest stone constructions on Earth. This system gives a better impression of deep time and how human civilization is actually older than we think. Simplify dates as we don't have to think on negative dates anymore as isn't Eurocentric. By that counting we are in the year 12021 HE: Human Era. There's a Kurtzgesagt video that explains this system nicely: ruclips.net/video/czgOWmtGVGs/видео.html
There are actually about thirty different calendars in use throughout the world today. However, most places use the Gregorian calendar alongside the local calendar because of globalization. I'm surprised a Thai computer system would use the Thai calendar, being connected to the internet.
Well said, it’s pretty sad that some people are willing to go out of their way to hate you just because you use B.C-AD, such a minor thing to get worked up about yet I guess in current times people look for the most benign things to get worked up about because they haven’t got anything better to do
My main issue with the Common Era dating system is that's just a reskin of AD/BC for, when I first heard of it, I expected it to be a different dating system relating to a scientifically significant historic date, like the first usage of mathematics among humans or when humans first came into proper being or even when Mesopotamia was founded. Hell, the discovery of fire would be a good place to start.
I will use the stuff I have learned in school . Translated from German to English would the BC and AD stuff. I have never seen these dating methods as offensive. But I am just a silly European. The American way of social justice is totally foreign to me. It is silly that almost everything in America these days is considered as offensive. My only problem with the BC and AD "haters is that they are hypocritical. Why did not they acknowledge the calendars of other cultures. The year would be different if you would use another calendar. Live and Let Life would be the perfect approach for that. Everybody should use their prefered terms they like.
@@shinobi-no-bueno You can imagine how annoying it was to deal with this growing up in California my whole life. Though in the end I think even here most people stop caring the moment they need to worry about something productive, like doing your job or even just not failing your real classes. It's just the silver spoonfed people who were sheltered for so long they need to invent things to be uncomfortable over. They don't need to worry about money (yet), everybody around them supports their views and identities (for now), and they have zero stakes in school because all the classes they take are free As anyway.
@@Canev821 It's because this is a phenomenon that is driven by American academia and occasionally trickles elsewhere into our general culture. It's not really an insult, but if a Euro ever decides to actually insult America I have no qualms with stooping to their level :P
Good point. Kinda absurd to change the system for the sake of religious neutrality but still use the same religious event as reference for the whole calendar haha
@@myusername2607 It's called consistency. If you're using a calendar that is based off a religious event, then you stay consistent. But to modern "enlightened" people, I guess it's fine to be inconsistent, contradictory, and hypocritical.
@@Yarblocosifilitico We could base it of the projected date of the Neanderthal extinction in which case we'd be in roughly the 41st century...where are my Astartes and Sororitas?
As a Roman Catholic I use BC and AD. I use them because: >I can annoy those squishy types which hate BC/AD. >It's both 2 letters and all different. >Directly correlates to Christ and doesn't cope out like the BCE/BC does. >Sounds better.
I use BC/AD and, tbh, had never even heard of BCE/CE (and now I've heard of it, I will never use it) and to hear that you've been subjected to personal attacks because of your use of a dating system is ... intolerable! Really people?? Is this what we've been reduced to?? Jesus wept .... (I'm agnostic) ;-) Metatron, your answer makes me proud and shows the way one should behave - listen, try to understand, analyse and then make your own decision whilst respecting others' opinions and do not try and force your opinion on others. This is the example we should aspire to, not pointless personal attacks and insults. You are the man, Metatron, this is why I love your channel. Keep fighting the good fight, and don't let the b-----ds grind you down.
We should restart the years counting in 1970. 1. First year after the first moon landing. The first landing of humans on another celestial body is an objectively major, world changing, culturally neutral event. 2. Unix computers already start their date counting with 1970, so we are already using it. (We should also switch to base 12 and use highly composite numbers like 240 and 360 as our major collection values, but that's a harder battle.)
I liked the idea of BCE/CE when I heard of it, rebelling against the catholic school I was in in the most pathetic way possible, but I always forget that it exists as BC/AD comes so much more naturally. I also don't recall do many of the papers and books I have read being in BCE/CE, but at the same time its not something I really looked out for. Either one works and variety is the spice of life so what the hell, why not have two options.
I... don't care. Christ wasn't even born in December, both are human conventions... So I'm with you, "anno domini" is much cooler than "common era" (well, until you find out that Kepler - the german astronomer - used "annus aerae nostrae vulgaris", which is way cooler than "anno domini" or "common era").
I agree with you, I do pretend to be triggered by BCE/CE for humour though. I prefer BC/AD. Lindybeige has a good method if secularisation of necessary without changing BC/AD. He recommends Backwards counting Ascending dates Pretty much an argument stopper if everyone is being genuine.
YYYYYEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!! Dude, as soon as I heard the use of BCE/CE, I instantly brought up the EXACT same argument you used in the beginning. The French Revolution's calander, whose aim was to disconnect mankind from the superstitions of the past are terrifyingly similar to this pointless modification. Love the channel brother, and keep up the good work! As juvenile as this all is, as long as no one insists on correcting me, I have no issue provdidng the same courtesy to my fellow man- even if I personally think it sounds douchey. :P
This was very frustrating for me going from high school into college. In middle and high school I was taught BC/AD everywhere, no other options. Then all of a sudden in college the 'correct' way to use dates is BCE/CE, which were just 'politically correct' replacements and needlessly confuse things. I actually lost points on papers because I naturally used AD, even if the sources I cited were in AD. Maddeningly frustrating subject.
Great video. You forgot to mention the months both named after Roman gods and June, July and August named differently and how it screw up the original meaning of months - like September being related to the number 7, but now it's the 9th month, same for October etc. :P Funfact: Here are the week days in Danish and what they mean: Mandag (Monday) = Moon's day Tirsday (Tuesday) = Tyr's day Onsdag (Wednesday) = Odin's day Torsdag (Thursday) = Thor's day Fredag (Friday) = Frigg's day Lørdag (Saturday) = Washing day/ laundry day Søndag (Sunday) = Sun's day
I had a genuine belly laugh when you pointed out the origins of the names of days! Fantastic point that I will need to remember. Also, BC/AD here. Always felt that BCE/CE was overly intellectual to the point of harming actual communication.
In Hungary, we use 2 ways to express this. The first one: Kr.e. 30 - Kr.u. 30 ---> Kr.e. stands for "Krisztus előtt" which literally means "Before Christ", while Kr.u. stands for "Krisztus után" which is "After Christ". The second one: i.e. 30 - i.u. 30 ---> i.e. stands for "időszámításunk előtt" which means something like "before we started counting our time(refering to years) " and i.u. is the same but with "after". So in my language there is also a neutral way of saying this. However, since both of these expressions have exactly the same starting point where the counting of years begins, it is literally just a matter of personal preference. It's really hard for me to understand why would some people find something like this offensive.
The offense is due to the political and cultural situation in the English-speaking world, which isn't found so much in other Western countires. Anti-Christians are offended by any reference to Christianity and want to obliterate it, while Christians push back against this bigotry.
I find CE and BCE useful as warning signs. "Beware, users of these terms are likely to twist history and diminish Christianity." So yes, please let's keep both.
Watching your videos is like tiresomely sifting through useless debris and then suddenly finding a nugget of gold. You have such an artistic and intelligent way of educating and getting your view across that watching your videos I can literally feel my IQ go up a couple of points. I especially liked this video but all your content is great. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise. 💫
The whole idea of changing the letters but not bothering to make a new calendar came as a reactionary response from people that just hated Christianity, and jewish people who were offended by the rest of people calling Christ Lord. It had nothing to do with being "religiously neutral" thats just an excuse (even if now some people use it out of a genuine concern of neutrality, it just wasnt the origin). Before that nobody had a problem using AD for the gregorian calendar.
Until 200 years ago nobody outside Europe used Gregorian. Is an imposition as many other things, normalized because is "the way things has always been done". Personally I prefer the Holocene Calendar. It takes as origin the start of the Holocene period 12000 years ago as start (end of the last Glacial Period). Interestingly enough this date coincidentally is simultaneous with the construction of Göbekli Tepe one of the oldest stone constructions on Earth. This system gives a better impression of deep time and how human civilization is actually older than we think. Simplify dates as we don't have to think on negative dates anymore as isn't Eurocentric. By that counting we are in the year 12021 HE: Human Era. There's a Kurtzgesagt video that explains this system nicely: ruclips.net/video/czgOWmtGVGs/видео.html
@@marlonbryanmunoznunez3179 I'm aware of the Holocene one and I can respect it. But before Gregorian, revised Julian calendar was the norm in Europe and outside of it, and AD was also used. Gregorian may be seen as "eurocentric" but I'd argue otherwise, since its a correction of the old Julian calendar. But we can agree AD certainly is not eurocentric.
It would be interesting to know your opinion on the Holocene/ Human Era Calendar since, as far as I remember, exists partly to put human history into a clearer perspective. Kurzgesagt has some interesting videos on it.
Is a wonderful system. -Coincides with a meaningful change in the history of Earth itself (End of the Glacial Period) - Gives a better impression of how time deep is human civilization. - Coincide with a meaningful event in human history (construction of Göbekli Tepe possibly first stone building). - Makes comparison of dates and other calculations easier as we don't have to use negative numbers as much. Happy 12021 HE (Human Era, that sounds kickass!).
Personally, I don't have a preference either way. BC/AD or BCE/CE. Either works. If I could have my way, I would have a calender system based on the age of human existence, or human civilisation, or something. The comments here I've read have convinced me of that. The disadvantage of both BC/AD and BCE/CE is that people tend to believe that there's an important difference between both eras, and also that things that happened before 1 AD (no, I'm not going to write it in front, that's not how it's used today) or 1 CE aren't as important. The problem there is being exact. We know around about when the Indus valley civilisation started, but we can't know the exact year. And that's a problem. Same with the start of human existence -- you can' really put a date on that, even if you knew every last detail of how and when it happened, since the change from non-human to human was a gradual one.
Whaddya know, someone who actually researched and thought through his opinion and explained it in a respectful way. This is how you properly have an argument.
Yeah I agree. I am Christian and have always been using AD, BC, so I feel like I may have come from a biased perspective. I suppose most people have a biased perspective on this sort of thing, though. I mean, everyone has an opinion on religion, so it is a hot topic intrinsically.
It’s refreshing
No it isn't!
You're wrong, making a thread in Twitter is the ultimate way of making a difference.
Metatron is a linguist and historian so whoever was attacking him picked the wrong guy to start this argument with because it just gave Metatron a chance to have fun flexing some knowledge
*Alien arrives on Earth*
- What year is it, earthling?
- 2021 CE. I use CE to be religiously neutral.
- Oh, ok. What happened 2021 years ago that marked the beginning of your common era?
- ...
🤣 nice👍
Exactly.
The Year of Lentulus and Piso.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened at AD 1. All serious historians agree Jesus was born somewhere between 8 BC and 4 BC. You can blame saint Dionisius for that.
Lol
I liked the reference to the Christian Era joke... I made that joke often when they first started pushing BCE/CE in High School... Got me into lots of trouble, but personally worth it to point out the hypocrisy of the new designation.
I always thought that was the real meaning 😂
The thing is, the changing of the name still considers the birth of Jesus as the pivot between the 2 eras... so does it really matter that you are changing the designation? I don't believe in religion but historically BC-AD has been how the dates have been calculated, so I have no issue with it. If you wanted to change it by choosing a different historical moment and re-work the calendar around it, that would be a different matter. But keeping all the dates and just changing the acronym makes very little sense to me.
@Cristofer Wolz-Romberger In the future, we will be using star dates. We should switch now and be done with it ;)
@@Calendyr On another comment thread someone suggested the year that to me sounds like the transition from humans be nomadic basic tool using pack animals to settled agricultural based villages. They gave a better description why, but to me it was the nomad pack hunter vs agricultural society.
@@Calendyr So how do we measure Star Dates. Do we start when we first have a Permanent Extraterrestrial Outpost or Extrasolar Outpost? By what measure will a Work/Rest Cycle be measured? How many Work/Rest Cycle before a Full Cycle of Rest except in States of Emergency? Will there be people Devoted to Working during States of Emergency or will everyone be on a Rotational Schedule for such Events? Will we have Regular Public Memorial Days for Landmark Events in our Interstellar Travels?
I'm used to the portuguese language version, "antes de cristo" "before christ", and "depois de cristo" "after christ". It makes for a lot of AC/DC band jokes.
Nice.
Huf, i was Close to destroy the 66 Likes :/
Greek has a similar thing: "before Christ" is προ Χριστού > π.Χ., but π.χ. means παραδείγματος χάριν, literally "exampli gratia."
🤣🤘
Just like Spanish "a.C. = antes de Cristo", and "d.C. = después de Cristo".
BCE/CE using the same event to measure time is the best point that could've been made against it.
If we change the point of reference to big bang, we wont need any before and after. Much simpler
@@AndreasSweden It's a bit hard to remember the date is 13,738,483,931 (or whatever the accurate year is). Also we don't know how long it's been exactly since the big bang. Also what if one day we found out something happened before the big bang? Also, how are we going to have new year's glasses with all those numbers? Your idea is pure chaos. And i love it.
But BCE/CE convey the idea of a convention better than AD/BC, since AD 1 wasn't the year Jesus was actually born.
@@drogadepc "Before the Conventional Era/ Conventional Era"??
Muslim asks, "What convention?"
Secular person whose ancestors were Christians replies, "Uh, ....er, ...the convention of counting from when we thought Jesus was born."
Muslim then replies, "Who cares about Jeezy, he was just a minor prophet -- far less profound than the last one!"
Secular person whose ancestors were Christian replies further, "Well, uh, could you use this system anyway -- and let's all pretend that it doesn't put Jesus' birth at the hinge point of everything, shall we?"
Can we just take the beginning of agriculture as a starting point? A rather important point in human history that would count from where we started "owning" land and thus property and nations, etc became a thing.
I have seen historians using both of these. I use BC-AD myself. I learned it much earlier than I learned of BCE-CE.
As a kid my own meanings were Before Christ and After his Delivery.
I take the reactionary approach: instead of saying AD 2021 I say "in the year of our lord 2021"
Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well
King
Cringe
@@jimboonie9885 In the best way possible
BASED
You guys have no idea how well prepared the Metatron is. He spends most of his time studying and researching. I really like this video!⚔️👊
I completely agree, mainly for one reason: "Common Era" has no logical meaning, just ideological. I'm not a religious person myself, but if we take Christ out of the equation, than there's really no reason to put emphasis in those years. Why would we start the "common era" there? What's the event that we use to decide that year 1 is the starting point? of what? I mean, we could start counting from the first written word (but than that date may move), from the invention of the printing press (but isn't that still European-centric?), from the steam engine... My point is that any time we'd chose to start counting from would be an arbitrary one. So why make a mess where there's absolutely no need to?
Heck if your worry is being Eurocentric the entire dating system based on the Julian and Gregorian Calendars is a European thing. In the Islamic Calendar the current year is something like 1453ish IIRC. Japanese and Chinese years are totally different for the current date.
Technically, we have a scholastic watershed line; Ancient Era and Modern Era, with the third Gothic sacking of Roma (or the removal of the last seated Roman Emperor of Latinum)
@@BigWillyG1000 I don't worry really, I was just underlining that if one goes down that road, one can always find objections to something that is arbitrary :)
@@dark_fire_ice that's interesting. But at the same time, that would also be an arbitrary point. So asking for a massive effort to shift from a convention to another, doesn't seem to be worth it. :)
@@Denien82 well there's no such thing as non arbitrary when it comes to human inventions so that point is a bit moot. I wasn't arguing for it to replace, the current and very modern dating system, I was just pointing out there is another generally accepted scholastic point.
To be honest, either the Trinity test, or Apollo 11 would be better watershed moments for the species; the creation of a man made star, or the first step on another celestial body.
"You're forcing Christianity on people!"
Dudes name is Metatron my guy
That's from jewish fable i think not Christian, and no that's not the same.
@@ungeimpfterrusslandtroll7155 obviously for example the 13 core principles of faith according to Maimonides.(although not all Jews will agree with them being the core principles or even necessarily being all correct)
Compared to the philosophical holdings of Thomas Aquinas.
Obviously they're not the same .
And contrast that with the Almohads (Arabic for those who affirm the unity (/being one indivisible) of God. That influenced Maimonides.
@@ungeimpfterrusslandtroll7155 please define what the “Old Testament“ of the Bible is if not the Jewish Torah?
@@Nitro1000 It has nothing to do with what it is but doing what it commands, following and believing in it.
Jews don't follow the OT they follow the Mishna.
@@ungeimpfterrusslandtroll7155 I’m confused since I was under the impression that the Torah aka Old Testament includes the mishna
Embrace the glory of Rome, use AUC
What is the current year in that system?
@@AleksandrPodyachev 2774
@@gavinbrennan4787 Hey! This makes us closer to THE FUTURE!
Or turn drastically feelzishly left and say, "AOC".
@@jeremiahshine you understand the difference between religion and politics right?
I prefer BC/AD, even though I'm not Christian. Reasons: as you mentioned, no commonality of letters for less confusion; two letters each, better formatting; millions of documents from two centuries using the older format. Some of those documents have the date in the title, meaning that if you use BCE/CE in your article, by mentioning the name of the quoted document you would be using BOTH systems in the same piece!
Is the west even Christian anymore?
@@baldwintheleper8290 No
Im proud atheist and I dont care if someone use BC/AD instead of BCE/CE. Not a big deal at all. P.S. Im not liberal btw, Im moderate conservative. Many people think atheist always = liberal, but its not.
I prefer AC/DC
@@jus_sanguinis It's literally not about religion at all, we've changed the various christian calendars a lot to create a comprehensible calendar that can be used interchangeably; it is dumb however to try and change the fact that our literal anchor point is the birth of Christ.
Using CE is nonsensical, calendars are based on important historical dates - just as the Romans used the battle of Actium for their calendar, or the dates of the inclusion of different provinces to form a provincial calendar.
When I went to college in the 90s academic trends were starting to go towards the CE, BCE (Common Era, Before Common Era) route.
Since then, I've noticed AD and BC (Anno Domini and Before Christ) are as common as before, while BCE and CE are relatively rare.
Really? Almost everything I see and read is ce/bce. Granted, I've been out of uni for a good 5 years now.
I think how often you see CE/BCE or BC/AD really depends on your field and what you read. In history books and articles I read it varies which one you'll see, often by who it's written for. If an article intended for an academic journal I almost always see CE/BCE, but if it's written for the general public then I see BC/AD used a lot, maybe even the majority, of times. If I'm reading something from a scientific journal regarding geology, my former field, it's CE/BCE nearly 100% of the time. Very, very, occasionally I'll read something written by a proponent of the Holocene calendar (HE), which is a calendar based on the start of the neolithic revolution.
@@adorabell4253 I think it depends very much on the academic discipline and country where you studied. I literally never ever heard of CE/BCE before now and I thought I was both pretty educated as well as a history buff. You never stop learning, I guess.
@@adorabell4253 Finished my history degree last year, CE/BCE is still pushed, although you do get SOME profs and teacher's assistants who are fully self aware of the hypocrisy of the whole thing lol/
@@luxinvictus9018,
That is very interesting.
As a rather convinced atheist I remember when the bce/ce convention became popular and how horribly stupid and self important its proponents seemed to me. It always made me suspect that they had nothing worth publishing and needed something to attach their careers to.
The only people getting butthurt about BCE/CE are indeed Christian conservatives, who can not think otuside their narrow minded world view. It is a sad sight to see. So much bitterness, and unironically, hypocrise in their hatred.
The only people getting butthurt says the man getting butthurt under half the comments in the comment section. Log in the eye and all that.
@@vorynrosethorn903 why so butthurt? It's extremely entertaining watching bigoted BC/AD tools squirm trying to justify their stupidity.
@@kokko9507 Dude, I hope you’re just trolling and not genuinely oblivious to how ironic everything you say is.
@@vorynrosethorn903 I hope some day you can live your life, instead of CE/BCE living rent free in your head.
I love how Lindybeige made B.C./A.D. non-religious for those who want it.
B.C. became "Backwards Chronology"
A.D. became "Ascending Dates"
We can still use B.C./A.D, it can to some be non-religious, and we will all be merry.
Although it still revolves around the birth of Christ
Renaming it to appease the PC activists will never erase the reference point. If these PC pushers want another dating system, then they should start a new one based on their perceived reference point. But they are too lazy to do that so instead they just rename, censor, deplatform, or destroy existing systems (linguistic etc), historical references, literary masterpieces, and even cultural norms they disagree with.
I refuse to ever use anything other than BC and AD.
Why
I hope some day you can live your life, instead of CE/BCE living rent free in your head.
@@kokko9507 I live my life all right. And apparently rent free in YOUR head. 😀
Me too. But I might start stepping it up, going forward, to "in the year of Our Lord" just to turn the knife on on anti-Christian bigots even further.
for me, it is for religious and it sound badass
I’m pretty sure its AC/DC 🤘🏻
Yes
In Italian it's actually right: Avanti Cristo/ Dopo Cristo.
So yeah, our history rocks
@@Aliraldd992 huh, I’ve always thought it’s alternating/direct current.
Bri'ish
@@daruween1398 AC/DC are Australian tho
BC-AD. I'm not even some hardcore religious person. I just think doing CE abd BCE to denote the exact same thing borders on pettiness.
Could not possibly in a million years agree more with this.
@@kungfuman82 1million AD :)
@@mykulpierce AD 1 million. ;)
1 million ce
@@mykulpierce know what, we'll make it an even two million and start in 1 million BC when the Isu were the dominant species lol
I like the old Samurai saying " Some people will attempt to convince you that a white Crane is a black Crow, ignore them. But ! if they continue to annoy you kill them swiftly ". Very pragmatic approach, lol.
So BC/AD ?
It's all "you do you" until someone breaks out Imperial Units, then the hate comes in Metric tons.
Only Americans need worry about metric tons of hate, because they use the weedy short ton. The true Imperial ton, the long ton, laughs at the metric ton.
Americans would be the first to hate it if every country in Europe had kept their pre-Metric system.
Metric system is globalism
in not Hate, is justified Rage ! How dare they !
Because the Imperial system is just barbaric!
I think the best thing is to embrace all these funny cultural artifacts in dates.
- days named for Nordic gods
- month named for roman emperors
- month shifted around so the seventh month is now the number nine
- dates based on a made up date for the birth of Christ.
That's why I say you can't be an historian without a good sense of irony
We could drop the years.
Use the Holocene Calendar instead: 12021 HE (Human Era).
"month shifted around so the seventh month is now the number nine"
This is backwards. The 9th month is named "seventh month", the way you said it implies the reverse.
@@marlonbryanmunoznunez3179
The Holocene calendar is pretty flawed
What if another more older structure was uncovered?
October 8th month, November 9th month December 10th month before July was added in honour of Julius Caesar and August for Emperor Augustus.
Bro your so charismatic you could talk about a stick on your backyard and the life that stick had and i would still watch
Thank you I appreciate
@@metatronyt no bro thank you for making videos on gladiators, armors, weapons, the debunks and the numerous other topics you went over. It was entertaining and i learned a bit too
Is this a big issue or just some random internet people hating on things?
Coming from very atheist country, and people here use christian-related expressions all the time and nobody seems bothetred by it.
Depending on where you live/study/work the professional pressure and institutionalized bullying to enforce new naming standards can be very overt.
@@oxwagon I mean being male is now seen as toxic....so I believe you
@@shinobi-no-bueno Lol by who? The left lives in your head rent free LMAO
@@shinobi-no-bueno if you can't see the difference maybe you should reconsider it
Religious conformism can be so strong and suffocating that generates an equal nasty pushback.
I personally found the BCE/CE thing rather pretentious. When you think that outwardly atheist historians who are perfectly willing to use BC/AD why use something different?
History major here. We used BCE and CE, but I always felt it didn't make that much sense to rename it, because it is still based on the same thing (so there is an additional step for people who learn using BCE and CE to make that connection: it is called CE but it still effectively the christian dating system). Rather than rename it, I think just having students understand there are a bunch of different dating systems, often based on religion, and this is the one historians adopted. I would rather have had a section on dating systems around the world and throughout history than trying to address any concerns people had by simply changing the language used
BCE/CE is English, BC/AD is not. BCE/CE is mainstream and will continue to be. It is of course important to remember ALL the dating systems, but nothing will replace BCE/CE, unless it's a new calendar in the future.
@@kokko9507 My point is BCE and CE are just BC/AD by another name, so in my view the shift only created confusion, it didn't really solve anything. I was a history student, we used BCE and CE because that was the standard. But I could see the flaw in the change, that it created this problem where older history books used BC and AD, and newer ones didn't. A minor point of confusion but still a point of confusion that needs to be explained. So it adds an unnecessary step without really adding anything useful to the mix. My argument is we would have been better off sticking with AD and BC, and just explaining why. I think the idea that you can fix any social concerns by adjusting the language is misguided (and in many ways a bit pernicious)
Everyone should use BP calibrated to 1950. The archaeologists way!
@@kokko9507 where is BC/AD from, I thought it’s the same as BCE/CR?
I don’t follow the logic either. Why will BCE/CE be mainstream forever? Seems reasonable to think another system could appear not based on religion.
You can also see it this way our modern world, Gregorian Calendar is a measuring system like the Metric System. Would you change "cm" because you feel that you are being forced to use French.
Replacing BC/AD with BCE/CE wouldn't change the fact that major point in this Calendar is still the year when Jesus was born (doesn't matter if it is historical figure or not). So it is like useless virtue signaling. And I am atheist, btw.
Use BCE/CE so people who don't use the same calendar anywhere don't feel offended. Wait what?
I was thinking that. Like, the calendar still revolves, theoretically at least, around the birth of christ even if it isn't named so. Changing the name just puts a bandaid on the fact that our entire timeline is based on Christianity.
I propose the usage of AUC. Even if it is based on the mythical founding of Rome, atleast nobody can deny the actual existence of the city itself.
I just love how we all are troubling ourselves with Anglophone problems.
In my language AD isn't used. So switching to BCE/CE is for my more "natural".
I hope someday Anglophones will discover 24 hour clock...
And different cultures use different calendars, which makes the virtue signaling people look stupid as usual. They are very Eurocentric and usually have no clue about other cultures. I am not a Christian but in our culture we count time from the birth of Jesus Christ. It's what we do. Chinese, Muslims and Jews have other calendars.
Your critics won't ever recognize the hypocrisy because they have a problem, not with religion, but with Christianity itself.
Lol who cares its not 1341 its 2021
*CE* 😏
@@jimboonie9885 omg you're so goddamned cool i can't believe it
As usual with these people. They love to criticise and ridicule Christianity, but never criticise other religions.
@@HlewagastizHoltijaz Yes. While they feign "neutrality," it's not about neutrality at all. It's about the destruction of Christianity and everything associated with it.
A pleasant and scholarly way to tell people to "Go Pound Sand".
I use AC/DC
Dynamite!
That's in portuguese lol
BIG BALLS!
@@pinarppanrapir9489 Also in Italian
I think Lindybeige said it best:
BC stands for Backwards Chronology
AD stands for Acending Dates.
By the way, AD should always be italicized because it's Latin. A lot of people don't do that but in upperworld medieval studies circles it's expected and you'd lose points on your thesis if it wasn't italicized.
Same with taxonomy (not because it is Latin, since it's not quite, but rather to distinguish it) - e.g. you are supposed to write: “The European magpie, _Pica pica pica,_ is a subspecies of the Eurasian magpie, _Pica pica,_ having a trinnomial tautonymous name and a binnomial tautonymous name respectively.”
@@RaspK _Pica pika chu_ ?
@@jonpradini6555 Mag-pichu is evolving!
I liked when people parsed out the entire year, ie "In the year of our Lord, one-thousand seven-hundred seventy seven".
What if he isn't my lord? I don't believe in gods. Should I say "In the year of an imaginary lord"?
Me too.
@@adorabell4253 no. He is your Lord and always will be. He is real! He is alive! He is God whether you like it or not! And He is your Lord!
@@adorabell4253 nice troll, watch the video and stop picking pointless fights
@@servantofaeie1569 Lol, no.
I think of it in terms of how Neil deGrasse Tyson talked about saying 'Godspeed' to astronauts. Even if something loses it's religious significance later in time, rewriting something for modern sensibilitites is a denial of history. It's the worst sort of revisionism. BC - AD all the way.
Yeah and we atheists aren't exactly giving up on "goodbye" (god be with you)
@@shinobi-no-bueno Meh
BCE/CE has also been in use for centuries too - especially by people of other religions and by other countries.
those who advocate to remove religious word only advocate it to remove christian word, they are perfectly fine with any other religious word, they are just a bunch of hypocryte and false atheist, especially since they are the first to defend islam against any form of criticism by saying we are islamophobic but are perfectly fine with criticising christianity.
so for me since its mostly done in such a disingenuous way, i will keep BC/AD especially since we are keeping the gregorian calendar, which btw the pope did an excelant job to correct and even include bixetile year and the like, i see no real need to change imo
@@Intranetusa That doesn't change the fact that the common era began with the birth of Christ.
Fully agreed! The only problem I have with AD is it having to come before hahaha
But Anno Domini is such a gorgeous expression.
It really Is, particularly when properly pronounced with the long final vowels.
i'm more bother by BC being in english and AD in latin why don't have both latin, it's kinda weird imo.
Yes, I find that odd too. I wonder why that is. Maybe BC also means something in Latin and people simply translated it and it stuck?
Don't worry is common in Italian too since we have A.C. (Avanti cristo)... many countries have their translated form
In portuguese its AC/DC, AC=Antes de Cristo(before Christ), DC= Depois de Cristo(after Christ), but i love saying Anno Domini
That disconnect is the reason I preferred BCE/CE over the traditional form. OCD kicked in whenever I would look at a single system using two different languages within its terminology. Similarly, if I'm talking to you about the forces on a lever, I wouldn't use 扭力 in the conversation instead of using torque.
@@Alex_Fahey false equivalency, English is full of Latin words has it's a Latin+Old German+ Norman French(which was still Latin and wasn't really anything like modern French, which comes from the Parisian dialect of the 19th century), there isn't any disconnect by using Anno Domini, plus Latin was the official language for the most part till the high middle ages when the languages you know now in many parts of Europe started taking permanent form, if you have OCD then the entire English language should be a problem for you because it has a multitude of adopted words, and terrible grammar.
I am an engineer, I work in R&D. The thing that I consider most, when implementing new systems is, will it increase efficiency? How many errors will it initially lead to? Is it idiot-proof?
In my opinion, if it's not systematically defective, then there's no need to replace it.
I’ll stick to BC and AD mostly because I dislike most of the pretentious people who use BCE AND CE
Even if it wasn't already my personal preference, I would choose BC/AD just to stick it to the people who are doing it to remove every little vestige of religion from the public. (Which, in and of itself, is advancement of non-theistic religion, whether they are being honest with themselves or not.)
And, imho, something like "1240 AD" or "The year is now 878 AD" Or "in 50 BC" sounds more dignified than ""1240 CE/878CE/50BCE"
That's a stupid thing to think and do and a bad attitude to have (no offence, not saying that you're stupid). Not using something (and in more extreme cases, not your case shaming/insulting people for using something) just because a specific minority of people use it in a specific way is stupid. If it doesn't hurt anyone, generally you should be allowed to freely do/use it, regardless of who it's associated with, and you shouldn't pick things just based of off who it's associated with.
You should pick things, even things like BC/AD or BCE/CE based on more objective factors, like functionality, or maybe factors like personal preference of a specific system, not the personal preference of the people who use it, that stuff doesn't matter really.
@@richard6133 Speaking as an atheist here, I can't recall ever meeting anyone who actually cares about this. You can certainly find a few idiots in any demographic, but that hardly amounts to any real erasure of Christian culture.
For the record, I prefer BC/AD.
@@ozzyp97
Noted. I have met only a few, all of them spent more time in the halls of academia than out in real life. Most people I run into have about an elementary school level of retained historical knowledge, and by that reason, they couldn't possibly care less about this issue. As a Christian, I honestly don't care which one a person chooses to use, any more than I care whether a person chooses to use Imperial or metric units of measure. Accuracy in the measure and expression of that measure are what I care about, same as with time.
Speaking of such things, do you have any opinions on the proposed idea that the Late Bronze Age Collapse might have been significantly shorter than originally thought? Since we base our estimation of time off of Egyptian history and records, it could mean that our entire system might be off by about a couple hundred years. What's your take on that?
Who else but the Metatron could bring us this knowledge? You’re the greatest historian and RUclipsr on earth Metatron! I await your next clapping of historical cheeks!!!!
Not while bill wurtz's "history of the entire world, i guess" is still around
Who else? Well, Lindybeige made almost exactly the same video years ago. I love them both!
@@KalonOrdona2
Remember that argument: what if you have to shout it in a battlefield while being bombarded? “Sorry sir, did you say BCE or CE?”
@@KalonOrdona2 I came here to say the same thing. I just rewatched Lloyd’s video, and most of the arguments are the same. I think maybe Metatron saw it years ago, forgot about it and thought he was creating new content.
@@MessihippiWhy would you presume he watched this other person’s video? This is a very old debate in history-related circles, and the arguments haven’t changed. Heck, I was making much of the same arguments 40 years ago.
Over here in the Netherlands, we usually skip it entirely when it's 'after christ', so just 2021, we only use it in case of BC.
yep, in argentina the same
I would assume it's the same everywhere unless it's an history book or some place that could have date both before and after BC/AD 1. Here in Canada I only see dates with the designator if it's BC as well.
It’s only really a problem pre-AD 1000; three digits just doesn’t look like date. Standard convention is then to use AD upon first use, say “AD 793” - always with AD preceding the numbers; then to just use 793.
In Portugal the same, our equivalents are a.C. (BC) and d.C. (AD), but no one uses d.C. only the year is stated. Only when it's a.C. it's it ever used.
Also a fan of the BC/AD ammendment involving Backwards Chronology/Ascending Dates for those who would rather mute connotation without creating new acronym paradigms.
Huge fan of your content - long time subscriber, but I have to say:
As a native in English speaker, I wish I were as eloquent you 😅
Loved it: "Before Christian Era" & "Christian Era", sounds like a Tolkien book
Maybe we should split our history in the Tolkien fashion instead of using BC/AD e.g.
I era - prehistory (preliterary times)
II era - antiquity and middle ages
III era - modern history (humanism, scientific, industrial, technological revolutions)
:D
Tolkien got his idea and terminology from the many calendars in use throughout the ancient world.
BC/AD for lyfe. It was good enough for the historians of the past, it's good enough for the historians of the future. Why should we have to change it? Because some pearl clutching busybodies think it's not inclusive enough? Nuts to them.
I can't wait for some out-of-touch academics to request we change the names of July and August because of some irrational dislike of the Roman emperors.
Me, an intellectual before watching the video: we should obviously use the Holocene Calendar, so we live in 12,021HC.
Advantages:
• No random inaccurate starting date (Jesus wasn't born at this date anyway even if he indeed existed in the way he is portrayed)
• No bloody minus anymore or missing year (since the year 0 was missing and thus counterintuitive creating mismatching)
• Finally bridges the gap between historic timelines and geological timelines
• Gives a definite framework from which to build a calendar agreeable to all
Disadvantage:
• IT people will hate you forever for even suggesting changing the dating system
▪︎Secret bonus advantage: we'll get closer to the year 40,000.
Actually this is exactly the point I wanted to make with BCE meaning Pleistocene and CE Holocene. Would make sense.
This should be the real alternative to BCE/CE designation. Start the Calendar at what is possibly when humans started forming agricultural based villages.
IT people will have to change the dating system anyways: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem
@@qwertyuiopzxcfgh Right, I forgot about that one. That being said, I'm unsure how going to HC directly would complicate or simplify this particular problem. I'm out of my league when it comes to IT stuff.
You'd still need negative years when you're talking about events further in the past. Although then it's often just "x years ago".
Love your bonus fact.
I personally love how prefer how Polish counterparts are self-centered: it's simple n.e. ("our age") and p.n.e. ('before our age"). No direct reference to religion whatsoever, but it is apparent who the age supposed to belong to...
I found it somewhat ironic that English uses clearly Latin AD alongside a.m./p.m. for hours...
Thats not really different from B.C.E / C.E. Also the reason we use them now is that communists forced it when they ruled.
@@saluteadezio7893 You’d think they would have set year 0/1 to be the year of some communist revolution, instead of leaving it as the same as AD. I guess they wanted to be taken somewhat seriously.
@@keoghanwhimsically2268 The French tried that during the revolution and the following Terror, and if the history I've read is correct, the Soviets did too at the same time they outlawed money. None of those things worked out well, for the despots or the ruled, and so were abandoned.
I agree with you completely. I am 75 and grew up with BC AD and I see no reason to change.
Thank you for sharing your opinion
Always happy to be early when a new metatron video drops!
Raf once again picked an interesting topic and made a great looking video
I personally like using BC and AD as a Christian
I'll stick with BC AD because that's what I'm used to
BC/AD gang ftw
Btw im not a christian and the idea that it is pushing christianity onto people is silly at best
As a non-christian it is very annoying when people assume that only Christians support BC/AD. If anything it should be changed to BC/AC (before and after christ) just so that's its all in English, still acknowledges the arbitrary reference point, and doesn't say "lord".
I hope some day you can live your life, instead of CE/BCE living rent free in your head.
Hello Metatron! I would like to give you my thanks for the 5 years of wonderful content you have produced on your channel. I pray for your health and for the future success of the channel. Lastly, I would like to suggest an idea for a video concerning the culture during the Meiji Period of Japan.
“You’re pushing Christianity on people who doesn’t want it”
How many people were ever baptized by the mere mentioning of a date? I just went to an Arabic website and over there the day is 16 Shawwal 1442. I’d have to be an utter idiot to feel offended by this.
Its the internet, a place where utter idiots get to have opinions that are heard.
I am an utter idiot and I'm still not offended!
It’s not about idiots, it’s almost always people who are perpetually offended on someone else’s behalf.
I prefer BC-AD, as the other date naming convention is just the "Politically Correct" way of saying the same thing.
Why do you prefer it?
@@mrmoth26 mainly because it is what I grew up with. Also I find it easier to say BC than I do BCE (but I could just be weird in that respect).
@@mrmoth26 BC/AD-separate letters/words
BCE/CE-more easily confusable
@@shinobi-no-bueno true, but BCE and CE have more consistent usage methods, are more easily translatable to other languages while remaining elegant (to most languages) and might be prefered by non Christians for not carrying Christian connotations/being linked to Christianity.
@@mrmoth26 The Gregorian Calendar is, by definition, a Christian Calendar. Imagine trying to erase judaism from the Hebrew Calendar or islamism from the Islamic Calender.
Why are people on the western world so eager to erase their own culture or heritage just to feel "tolerant" to others...
I think if edgy atheists don't like the references to Christ they need to invent their own calendar
They tried. It never really works because no one uses it.
They tired it during the French Revolution
They tried that during the Terror of the French Revoution, and, after the Terror ended, it lasted about a decade. Nobody liked it.
@@julianhermanubis6800 wasn't that the metric abomination? I'm amazed that it lasted that long.
@Fishy Vagina lol.
Careful not to cut yourself.
I personally use metric time, but since no one wants to change with me, I spend a lot of time translating to whatever it is all these Philistines speak. 😆😆😆
The only rational system is to use seconds since the Big Bang
Isn't Philistine a religious reference?
@@b1laxson I mean, that was kind of the joke. A lot of common terminology has evolved from religious terms, and acquired or lost meanings as contexts change. Unless we all decide to switch to some entirely new con-lang (including a constructed calendar system like metric time) there's going to be religious artifacts in our vernacular.
Great video! I agree with your explanation and may use you as a reference. I am a Christian, so I use BC & AD, but people have told me to switch to the more religiously ambitious terminology. I like your reasoning and response to this issue and I find it encouraging that other contemporary historians also prefer the BC/AD dating system. Thanks for the video.
I find BCE to be an extra unneeded syllable, and before this video I never heard anyone use CE, most people I watch seem to use BCE with AD. Being a bit older I used AD and BC as in the 80's and 90s when I was in school nobody used BCE. While it is not a deal breaker, BCE is just grating enough, that I will be less apt to watch videos that use it vs ones that use BC. Also since the use of BCE seems to be newer and more politically motivated I am less apt to trust that someone who uses it are not letting their own ideology tarnish the history they are presenting. I like my history as true and non-biased as possible. If I can't trust the presenter I am going to go elsewhere.
I've got a phylosophic dictionary printed in the URSS back in 1952, it uses BCE and CE only.
@@Kriegerdammerung Alright? Though clearly I was thinking along the line of English and more American sources, as I was like 20 before the internet was able to connect me to more foreign sources.
@@colmortimer1066 The Soviet Union used a lot of material from Oxford and Cambridge in their publications.
I actually think it's even more biased towards Christianity to call it the "Common Era". Yes, it may be the most common calendar in the world now, but that may change. The fact that it's based on the birth of Jesus* will always be true, regardless of your faith or lack thereof. Common Era sounds like you're taking Christian hegemony for granted, to the extent it doesn't even have to be stated out loud.
*Even though the year AD 1 is widely regarded as the wrong year for the birth of Jesus as he is generally known, the idea was that the calendar was based on his birth year.
I connect it with the type of atheist that is too rectionary against christianity. The type that always argue against the Christian concept of God and never address any other religions. Similar to pagans and satanists that do the same thing. All they do is attack another religion rather than focus on their own ideology.
I'd be really interested in a video explaining when dates starting being written using BC-AD, rather than the old Roman way
It was about A. D. 525. A monk named Dionysius Exiguus was tasked by the pope with determining when Christ had been born, since that date was a bit uncertain. Today, it's believed that Dionysius was probably a bit off in his calculations, and that Christ was actually born in the year we would call 4 B. C.
@@bigscarysteve, Or around that time during the mid-late 740s AUC which by the way AUC or Ab urbe condita for short was a dating system that scholars of Roman history in both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance used to figure out the years of when such Roman events took place before the creation of the AD era and before when it became popularly used around the world. Put those dates in the BC era and you have the birth around the years 7 BC to 1 BC (or also in this case the years -6 AYN to year 0 AYN since the astronomical year numbering system or AYN for short puts a year 0 in it's chronology unlike the AD system which doesn't really do that exactly because of the time it was made in with AD being made in the 6th century AD where no 0 was used and AYN being made in the 18th century AD when 0 was indeed a thing in everybody's minds).
I will be royally pissed if somebody tried to compel my speech in that way. In my language both forms are used but I never even tried to think about correcting someone. It's not my business, since both forms are accepted. Like seriously, these modern tendencies in the West are just not healthy
that's circular thinking. Why are both forms accepted? Should you accept both? That's what we're aguing about.
@@tafazzi-on-discord This is human language. Languages have synonyms. All attempts to create fully optimized/normalized languages have failed (see Esperanto). The rule of thumb - do not compel speech
@@georgiyyamov5827 We no longer accept the term "coloured" to refer to a black person because it went from neutral to racially charged.
I agree that compelled speech is bad, but you can't write "coloured" in a newspaper article.
The question at hand is: should we let BC/AD have the same fate as "coloured" or not? I stand with the "no" crowd, but this discussion has nothing to do with compelled speech.
@@tafazzi-on-discord As I wrote in my initial post - I dislike current policy in the West to compel speech. So yes, despite what you put as an example - I disagree with whole concept. Let people use "coloured" as they used to do, let people use BC/AD as they used to do. Even if someone deem usage of certain words offensive - it's essentially not their business. Language is fluent construct, if something falls out of fashion - it will be natural (and welcome). If you enforce rules in language - it's tyranny, plain and simple. Sorry if I was unclear
@@georgiyyamov5827 Oh alright I didn't get your point then, thanks for being more clear.
I politely disagree, in my opinion the language we use for making legislations should be handled by experts instead of the whims of the crowd, while common people are left speaking dialects between themselves, if they don't like the official language. That said, since english is a global lingua franca I don't think that regulating it sensibly is even possible.
I agree that compelled speech is conceptually disagreeable, if I don't want to participate in the cringey roleplay of an alphabet-individual I shouldn't have to, but language needs fixed points.
Fun fact about the days of the week in portuguese is that they were actually changed for religious reasons. To leave behind any reference to the old gods the days of the week were renamed to:
Domingo, which comes from Dies Dominicus, Day of the Lord;
Segunda-Feira, which comes from Secunda Feria, Second Free Day;
Then this pattern repeats all the way to the sixth day, Sexta-Feira;
And finally we have Sábado, from Hebrew Shabbat, then Sabbath/Sabatum in Latim, which means Rest.
Funny, I've been in the opposite position, where people have given me crap for using BCE/CE. They were trying to claim that it's excessive political correctness, when for me it's just a more scientific term that I grew used to in my university studies.
Either way it's pretty ridiculous to me that people get their panties in a bunch over this. Just use whatever you prefer and let others do the same. Everyone understands what's meant, so it's a non-issue.
Partner, you forget that if someone doesent have a reason to bitch about something they think of a reason to be offended. If we last long enough to not wipe out our civilization these times will probably be joked about as the offensive years as everybody is offended over everything at all times.
What's scientific about it? Is the thing that makes it a "common" era even defined? What scientific observation separates 1 BCE and 1 CE as separate eras, and unites 1 CE and 2021 CE as the same era? How does the scientific method apply?
Question is sincere, not rhetorical.
@@oxwagon The goal of science is to get as close to objective observations and theories as possible. A neutral, non-religious term seems more appropriate in that regard.
Although I should probably have said something like "more scientific sounding". It is just semantics after all.
@@Skallagrim Out of interest, then, do you apply the same standard of religious neutrality to the likes of Wednesday and July, which are also explicit references to non-neutral figures of religious significance?
@@Skallagrim Yes, it's more about avoiding value-judgements about the status of Christianity relative to other systems of faith so the usage makes sense in academic publications at least. I also see it as a non issue, you use whatever you like.
As a christian, for me the proverbial "0" marking the birth of Christ isn't really significant since theological and archeological studies point to Christ probably being born on 4 B.C. (ironically). Still, B.C. and A.D. are my preference because
1- I dislike the idea of 2 existing fating systems existing, and BC/AD is more used, so stick with it.
2- I genuinely dislike the illuminist presupposition of total neutrality and denial of the past being good and possible
3- most important of all, A.C./D.C. (Antes de Cristo, Depois de Cristo) is the system we use in Portuguese, and it translates to BC/AD, so it's obviously my preferred one.
The point about there being no year zero is that neither the ancient Romans nor the ancient Jews had the concept of zero, so there couldn't have been a year zero built into the calendar when this system was adopted. (The system of Christian eras was adopted around A. D. 525. It was calculated by Dionysius Exiguus.) Even today, many Jews still use this system culturally, so a baby is "one" when he is born, and not a year later. I had a Jewish neighbor who always stated his age as one year more than what the surrounding culture would have said. When pressed on this fact, he'd say, "I'm in my ninety-first year of life," or whatever his age was. Still, when he died, his obituary said he was 101, but a lot of people said, "I thought he was 102."
I rather like the AC/DC system. Has a nice ring to it.
Also same in spanish, and if you sum spanish speakers and portuguese speakers, it's even more used!!!
@Velstadt Hekkleson I actually don't know anything about JJBA, aside from the occasional meme. So uh, it is a JoJo reference if you want it to be ;)
@@bigscarysteve, Okay I know. But remember that AD is the most used year numbering system in the world. Also unlike other systems where they are perfectly fine for starting their years on 1 since it's either based on mythology or on a real event that doesn't need any before era or something like that, the AD era is different. Unlike those other eras it has a few key differences which makes me question why doesn't AD have a year 0. 1) It's based on the birth of Christ which is a real event according to most biblical historians.
Also just so you know this comment is not meant to be an attack on people who follow other religions by the way since the key word here is "biblical historians" or just the people who follow the bible so if you're not a follower of the bible that's perfectly fine.
So anyways moving on, because it's not known on when Jesus was born it was decided to be an arbitrary date which was around the year 753 AUC. Also by the way AUC or Ab urbe condita for short was a dating system that scholars of Roman history in both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance used to figure out the years of when such Roman events took place before the creation of the AD era and before when it became popularly used around the world. This also means around the end of the year 1 BC. 1 week after the suppose first christmas the AD era started.
But modern evidence decided to put the birth of Christ around the years of the mid-late 740s decade of AUC or around the years of 7 BC to 1 BC. 2) It has a before era thing in this case BC. However no one recorded those dates back then. So instead it was retroactively added into the calendar during the middle ages. So it should be common sense that the year before AD 1 should be 0 right? And 3) It's obvious that AD is the most used one in the world. So if it is the most used one then why don't we just add some improvements here and there into the system to make christians, non-christians, and mathematicians happy? So with all of those reason why it doesn't make any sense for AD to not have a year 0 in my eyes at least.
In English I use BC/AC
But in my mother tongue I use BCE/CE
Mostly because bc/ac is so rough lettercombo in Finnish.
"Ekr/jkr"
Bce/ce = eaa/jaa
In Italian we say "AC" and "DC"
AC is "Avanti Cristo" while DC is "Dopo Cristo"
@@lucabralia5125 Oh in Finnish
Ekr = Ennen Kristusta
Jkr =Jälkeen Kristuksen
(Before and after)
Eaa and Jaa are such word monsters when opened.... but their short version is easy and smooth
@@jarskil8862 Interesting
And this is how the Metraton defeated cancel culture with a hand tied behind his back
Best comment so far. Most are good, but this is the best.
@@C0untFapula Thanks :D
The most radical change of calendar was made during the French Revolution: 1792 became Year 1 and all the months got new names like Fructidor and Brumaire and the weeks were turned into ten day periods. It lasted until Napoleon decided to turn things back.
I may be a bit of an atheist. But, I still say, you can not replace BC-AD as those terms have been used in global society for many centuries and generations. Trying to kill those terms is like trying to kill Christmas or New Years. It’s simply not done. So thank you Metatron for following the traditional terms of BC-AD. :)
I couldn't agree more. I'm secular, but I always thought changing BC and AD to BCE and CE was very silly, for all the reasons you cite. It's still the same calendar.
Good to see there are still people with common sense. 👍
We shouldn't use either.
I prefer the Holocene Calendar. Was proposed by an Italian Scientist in the 90s.
It takes as origin the start of the Holocene period 12000 years ago as start (end of the Glacial Period).
Interestingly enough this date coincidentally is simultaneous with the construction of Göbekli Tepe one of the oldest stone constructions on Earth.
This system gives a better impression of deep time and how human civilization is actually older than we think. Simplify dates as we don't have to think on negative dates anymore as isn't Eurocentric.
By that counting we are in the year 12021 HE: Human Era.
There's a Kurtzgesagt video that explains this system nicely:
ruclips.net/video/czgOWmtGVGs/видео.html
@@marlonbryanmunoznunez3179 There's nothing wrong with it being Eurocentric. Other cultures have other calendars. Why can't we have our culture here without having to change it to accommodate for people who usually don't even ask for us to change it?
I used to use CE BCE back when I was an edgy atheist teenager. Now I'm an agnostic adult and realise how childish my fear of Christian symbols was.
I wouldn't use BCE/CE even if it were more convenient
I think the most relevant points to use BC-AD are 1: to piss the kind of people that think that a small group of people should be able to dictate how a society should work (as long it match their specific beliefs, naturally) and 2: the gregorian calendar is a extremely refined dating system that took the greatest minds of its time to develop (it can work for tens of thousands of years without a single day of error) and if you are going to use it you should at least honor their decision to call it BC-AD.
“Even by changing the letters, the whole calendar is still based on a Christian principle; the birth of Christ, as a point of reference. If you just change the letters but keep using the Gregorian Calendar it’s not religion-free. In fact, the name of the calendar is named after a Pope, Pope Gregory XIII, who is the one who made it.”
Also to add, imho - "common era" makes no sense because what does 1 CE have in common with 2021 CE? Nothing.
And what defines the "era" to begin with? Why do we not have several eras? Why, after 2000 years, are we still in the same common era?
I'm a BC - AD guy all the way. Sounds cooler and actually makes sense.
And if using BC-AD is enforcing religion on people, then using BCE and CE is enforcing atheism on people.
I would support switching from BC-AD if we used a Lord of the Rings method. So we could say something like this-
Years 1 - 1000 are the first age.
Years 1001 - 2000 are the second age.
Years 2001 - 3000 are the third age.
So we're in the year 21 of the 3rd age. That makes way more sense than "common era."
The Lord of the Rings method as you outlined still falls afoul of using the same "start" point as AD-BC and CE-BCE. To properly shift to the "Age" format would require a much earlier "start" point as a reference. I.E. When Earth reached the point of being able to sustain life as the start of the hypothetical "first age".
@@corwinhyatt519 not really, we could denote first age of humankind as when civilization began or something the like, so it would have nothing it common with BC/AD
@@FrenchLightningJohn Would work, though the difference between my hypothetical and yours is which type of milestone should be considered the starting point and what should be emphasized. Life or civilization. "First age" doesn't necessarily need to denote a homo sapiens milestone.
I use BC/AD - but I know it rubs some people the wrong way.
fuck em
@@ponti5882 I second this
Baconbaron I fourth this
Joking aside, I came across another calendar last friday: someone who forwarded an email sent 64-05-20. Stressed and tired as I was, I kind of asked what the f#'k that was supposed to be. Turned out it was sent from a server in the persons home country, Thailand. According to their calendar, they live in the year 2564 now and the server uses that calendar. I apologized and felt like the stupid ass I had been.
Yup, if I recall correctly, its a Lunar Calendar to the date of Buddha's Enlightenment, the start of the Buddhist Era, (which differs by sect and country, and like you said, would be the year 2564 by the Buddhist Calendar.)
I prefer the Holocene Calendar.
It takes as origin the start of the Holocene period 12000 years ago as start (end of the last Glacial Period). Interestingly enough this date coincidentally is simultaneous with the construction of Göbekli Tepe one of the oldest stone constructions on Earth.
This system gives a better impression of deep time and how human civilization is actually older than we think. Simplify dates as we don't have to think on negative dates anymore as isn't Eurocentric.
By that counting we are in the year 12021 HE: Human Era.
There's a Kurtzgesagt video that explains this system nicely:
ruclips.net/video/czgOWmtGVGs/видео.html
In that case you are right to be "wtf is that?" as that is not a common calendar.
There are actually about thirty different calendars in use throughout the world today. However, most places use the Gregorian calendar alongside the local calendar because of globalization. I'm surprised a Thai computer system would use the Thai calendar, being connected to the internet.
@@marlonbryanmunoznunez3179 that doesnt work, because the universe is only about 6600 years old.
Well said, it’s pretty sad that some people are willing to go out of their way to hate you just because you use B.C-AD, such a minor thing to get worked up about yet I guess in current times people look for the most benign things to get worked up about because they haven’t got anything better to do
My main issue with the Common Era dating system is that's just a reskin of AD/BC for, when I first heard of it, I expected it to be a different dating system relating to a scientifically significant historic date, like the first usage of mathematics among humans or when humans first came into proper being or even when Mesopotamia was founded. Hell, the discovery of fire would be a good place to start.
I will use the stuff I have learned in school . Translated from German to English would the BC and AD stuff. I have never seen these dating methods as offensive. But I am just a silly European. The American way of social justice is totally foreign to me. It is silly that almost everything in America these days is considered as offensive. My only problem with the BC and AD "haters is that they are hypocritical. Why did not they acknowledge the calendars of other cultures. The year would be different if you would use another calendar. Live and Let Life would be the perfect approach for that. Everybody should use their prefered terms they like.
*The American Coastal Elites' way...
It's foreign to most of US too 🤦
@@shinobi-no-bueno You can imagine how annoying it was to deal with this growing up in California my whole life. Though in the end I think even here most people stop caring the moment they need to worry about something productive, like doing your job or even just not failing your real classes. It's just the silver spoonfed people who were sheltered for so long they need to invent things to be uncomfortable over. They don't need to worry about money (yet), everybody around them supports their views and identities (for now), and they have zero stakes in school because all the classes they take are free As anyway.
Go back to gaul roman
That’s a stereotype most Americans do not feel that way I don’t group all Europe together but why can Europeans insult Americans?
@@Canev821 It's because this is a phenomenon that is driven by American academia and occasionally trickles elsewhere into our general culture. It's not really an insult, but if a Euro ever decides to actually insult America I have no qualms with stooping to their level :P
Given that the years are based on Christ's birth, then BC/AD is correct.
Good point. Kinda absurd to change the system for the sake of religious neutrality but still use the same religious event as reference for the whole calendar haha
@@myusername2607 It's called consistency. If you're using a calendar that is based off a religious event, then you stay consistent. But to modern "enlightened" people, I guess it's fine to be inconsistent, contradictory, and hypocritical.
@@Yarblocosifilitico We could base it of the projected date of the Neanderthal extinction in which case we'd be in roughly the 41st century...where are my Astartes and Sororitas?
@@kfeltenberger Ever heard of the Holocene Calendar? If you look for consistency, that would be it I think. 🤔
@@lucofparis4819 Perhaps...though I think it would be appropriate if we lived in 40k... ;-)
As a Roman Catholic I use BC and AD.
I use them because:
>I can annoy those squishy types which hate BC/AD.
>It's both 2 letters and all different.
>Directly correlates to Christ and doesn't cope out like the BCE/BC does.
>Sounds better.
I use BC/AD and, tbh, had never even heard of BCE/CE (and now I've heard of it, I will never use it) and to hear that you've been subjected to personal attacks because of your use of a dating system is ... intolerable! Really people?? Is this what we've been reduced to?? Jesus wept .... (I'm agnostic) ;-)
Metatron, your answer makes me proud and shows the way one should behave - listen, try to understand, analyse and then make your own decision whilst respecting others' opinions and do not try and force your opinion on others. This is the example we should aspire to, not pointless personal attacks and insults.
You are the man, Metatron, this is why I love your channel.
Keep fighting the good fight, and don't let the b-----ds grind you down.
We should restart the years counting in 1970.
1. First year after the first moon landing. The first landing of humans on another celestial body is an objectively major, world changing, culturally neutral event.
2. Unix computers already start their date counting with 1970, so we are already using it.
(We should also switch to base 12 and use highly composite numbers like 240 and 360 as our major collection values, but that's a harder battle.)
I liked the idea of BCE/CE when I heard of it, rebelling against the catholic school I was in in the most pathetic way possible, but I always forget that it exists as BC/AD comes so much more naturally. I also don't recall do many of the papers and books I have read being in BCE/CE, but at the same time its not something I really looked out for. Either one works and variety is the spice of life so what the hell, why not have two options.
Always BC AD for me. I know it’s maybe outdated but hasn’t been picked up on for uni papers or anything so 🤷
I think it's actually... timeless ;)
@@ponti5882 Eeey
I... don't care.
Christ wasn't even born in December, both are human conventions... So I'm with you, "anno domini" is much cooler than "common era" (well, until you find out that Kepler - the german astronomer - used "annus aerae nostrae vulgaris", which is way cooler than "anno domini" or "common era").
Completely irrelevant information incoming:
The dentist of my college is the great great granddaughter of Johannes Keppler :D
@@Glimmlampe1982 What if inseed here
@@Glimmlampe1982 ehat ifi seed her
@@Glimmlampe1982 fleshy cave
I agree with you, I do pretend to be triggered by BCE/CE for humour though. I prefer BC/AD.
Lindybeige has a good method if secularisation of necessary without changing BC/AD. He recommends
Backwards counting
Ascending dates
Pretty much an argument stopper if everyone is being genuine.
YYYYYEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!! Dude, as soon as I heard the use of BCE/CE, I instantly brought up the EXACT same argument you used in the beginning. The French Revolution's calander, whose aim was to disconnect mankind from the superstitions of the past are terrifyingly similar to this pointless modification. Love the channel brother, and keep up the good work!
As juvenile as this all is, as long as no one insists on correcting me, I have no issue provdidng the same courtesy to my fellow man- even if I personally think it sounds douchey. :P
This was very frustrating for me going from high school into college. In middle and high school I was taught BC/AD everywhere, no other options. Then all of a sudden in college the 'correct' way to use dates is BCE/CE, which were just 'politically correct' replacements and needlessly confuse things. I actually lost points on papers because I naturally used AD, even if the sources I cited were in AD. Maddeningly frustrating subject.
Great video. You forgot to mention the months both named after Roman gods and June, July and August named differently and how it screw up the original meaning of months - like September being related to the number 7, but now it's the 9th month, same for October etc. :P
Funfact: Here are the week days in Danish and what they mean:
Mandag (Monday) = Moon's day
Tirsday (Tuesday) = Tyr's day
Onsdag (Wednesday) = Odin's day
Torsdag (Thursday) = Thor's day
Fredag (Friday) = Frigg's day
Lørdag (Saturday) = Washing day/ laundry day
Søndag (Sunday) = Sun's day
Saturday is Saturn's day. I suspect it was changed in the more germany german languages after they associated Saturn with Satan.
I had a genuine belly laugh when you pointed out the origins of the names of days! Fantastic point that I will need to remember.
Also, BC/AD here. Always felt that BCE/CE was overly intellectual to the point of harming actual communication.
In Hungary, we use 2 ways to express this.
The first one: Kr.e. 30 - Kr.u. 30 ---> Kr.e. stands for "Krisztus előtt" which literally means "Before Christ", while Kr.u. stands for "Krisztus után" which is "After Christ".
The second one: i.e. 30 - i.u. 30 ---> i.e. stands for "időszámításunk előtt" which means something like "before we started counting our time(refering to years) " and i.u. is the same but with "after".
So in my language there is also a neutral way of saying this. However, since both of these expressions have exactly the same starting point where the counting of years begins, it is literally just a matter of personal preference. It's really hard for me to understand why would some people find something like this offensive.
The offense is due to the political and cultural situation in the English-speaking world, which isn't found so much in other Western countires. Anti-Christians are offended by any reference to Christianity and want to obliterate it, while Christians push back against this bigotry.
I totally agree with your perspective!
Common Era is a literal rename of the Gregorian calendar, I always prefer the original.
I had no idea that AD is meant to be placed before the year, I've been writing this wrong my entire life.
Same! And I'll keep doing it because i like it.
I find CE and BCE useful as warning signs. "Beware, users of these terms are likely to twist history and diminish Christianity." So yes, please let's keep both.
BC AD, of course.
Greetings from Netherland
Watching your videos is like tiresomely sifting through useless debris and then suddenly finding a nugget of gold. You have such an artistic and intelligent way of educating and getting your view across that watching your videos I can literally feel my IQ go up a couple of points. I especially liked this video but all your content is great. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise. 💫
First. BC and AD.
The whole idea of changing the letters but not bothering to make a new calendar came as a reactionary response from people that just hated Christianity, and jewish people who were offended by the rest of people calling Christ Lord. It had nothing to do with being "religiously neutral" thats just an excuse (even if now some people use it out of a genuine concern of neutrality, it just wasnt the origin). Before that nobody had a problem using AD for the gregorian calendar.
Until 200 years ago nobody outside Europe used Gregorian.
Is an imposition as many other things, normalized because is "the way things has always been done".
Personally I prefer the Holocene Calendar.
It takes as origin the start of the Holocene period 12000 years ago as start (end of the last Glacial Period). Interestingly enough this date coincidentally is simultaneous with the construction of Göbekli Tepe one of the oldest stone constructions on Earth.
This system gives a better impression of deep time and how human civilization is actually older than we think. Simplify dates as we don't have to think on negative dates anymore as isn't Eurocentric.
By that counting we are in the year 12021 HE: Human Era.
There's a Kurtzgesagt video that explains this system nicely:
ruclips.net/video/czgOWmtGVGs/видео.html
I'm Christian and hate Jews
@@marlonbryanmunoznunez3179 I'm aware of the Holocene one and I can respect it. But before Gregorian, revised Julian calendar was the norm in Europe and outside of it, and AD was also used. Gregorian may be seen as "eurocentric" but I'd argue otherwise, since its a correction of the old Julian calendar. But we can agree AD certainly is not eurocentric.
It would be interesting to know your opinion on the Holocene/ Human Era Calendar since, as far as I remember, exists partly to put human history into a clearer perspective. Kurzgesagt has some interesting videos on it.
Is a wonderful system.
-Coincides with a meaningful change in the history of Earth itself (End of the Glacial Period)
- Gives a better impression of how time deep is human civilization.
- Coincide with a meaningful event in human history (construction of Göbekli Tepe possibly first stone building).
- Makes comparison of dates and other calculations easier as we don't have to use negative numbers as much.
Happy 12021 HE (Human Era, that sounds kickass!).
Personally, I don't have a preference either way. BC/AD or BCE/CE. Either works.
If I could have my way, I would have a calender system based on the age of human existence, or human civilisation, or something. The comments here I've read have convinced me of that. The disadvantage of both BC/AD and BCE/CE is that people tend to believe that there's an important difference between both eras, and also that things that happened before 1 AD (no, I'm not going to write it in front, that's not how it's used today) or 1 CE aren't as important.
The problem there is being exact. We know around about when the Indus valley civilisation started, but we can't know the exact year. And that's a problem. Same with the start of human existence -- you can' really put a date on that, even if you knew every last detail of how and when it happened, since the change from non-human to human was a gradual one.
I use BC and AD (annis domino).
The Pope didn't make the calendar, he commissioned it, but close enough