if the calandar is based on the supposed birth of Christ...

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-12-31 08:58am

then why isn't christmas and new year's celebrated on the same day?

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2003-12-31 09:02am

cos its not based on christ....

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-12-31 09:08am

Zac Naloen wrote:cos its not based on christ....

but it was for centuries... before we started using the "common era" bit.

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2003-12-31 10:45am

That's only the year, not the date. The only reason Christmas and New Year's are even close together is that the Catholic Church put Christ's birthday on the 25th to coincide with "heathen" winter solstice festivals. This was to help convert various non-Christian peoples. They could have decided Christ's birthday was in fucking July, and it wouldn't have mattered to the reckoning of years.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2003-12-31 10:54am

Its one of the reasons people talking about the commercialisation of christmas are so fucking funny, the entire thing was a marketing strategy from the get go.

Setzer · Post by **Setzer** » 2003-12-31 10:54am

"Common Era" never made sense to me.
What do they mean by common? If they mean commonly experienced by people, then 1986 was 1 CE for me and Mom, because it's the first era we had in common, so to speak.

Bob McDob · Post by **Bob McDob** » 2003-12-31 11:10am

As I understand, the AD system is a few years off, as well.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-12-31 11:15am

Well, things got tweaked a bit in the Middle Ages.

The Church calendar (which used the Julian calendar, like the rest of the world at the time) placed the new liturgical year in September. September also happened to be the original date of Christmas. So, at one point, the two dates did intersect.

However, a few brilliant emperors and pontiffs decided that they'd change things. First, one of the Roman Emperors moved the date of Christmas to coincide with the celebration of the winter solstice, to hopefully Christianize it. It did, sort of. It also wound up paganizing Christmas. Then, Pope Gregory decided that the Julian calendar was fucked-up, so he made his own variant of it.

Post by **Dalton** » 2003-12-31 11:21am

I thought it was one of the popes in the fifth century that moved Christmas.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-12-31 11:27am

Dalton wrote:I thought it was one of the popes in the fifth century that moved Christmas.

I can't remember specifically. All I know is that some people who'd let the power go to their heads decided that they'd jack around the dates a bit.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-12-31 11:44am

Pope Gregory something or other changed it because Caesar's calendar was not exactly aligned with the solar year, which he at the time did not see much of a problem with. However, over the centuries it added up to something like eleven days off, so Pope Gregory shifted the calendar eleven days forward. However, the Protestant nations, such as the Netherlands and England, did not adopt the Gregorian calendar for some time and thus were 11 days behind the Catholic world for some time.

In that in a thousand years our calendar too will be a few days off.

The Aliens · Post by **The Aliens** » 2003-12-31 01:25pm

I saw a show on Discovery channel about how they figured out the patterns of the stars and figured it happened in either 5 B.C.E or 7 C.E., but I don't remember which.

Common Era is just secularising the Christian calender, without starting again at 1.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-12-31 01:33pm

I say we move the 1 date back to Roman Republic year 1, in honor of the founding of the worlds first true Republic and the ancestor of modern free nations.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-12-31 01:51pm

I say we move the 1 date back to Roman Republic year 1, in honor of the founding of the worlds first true Republic and the ancestor of modern free nations.

The Roman Republic was hardly the first of its kind and hardly the ancestor of free nations. It was the most successful, but it also became the most oligarchal until it eventually collapsed and gave way to the empire. Thebes is a much better example.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-12-31 02:18pm

As far as I know, Greek democracy was little more than mob rule, literally. Tell me more of Thebes.

Lt. Dan · Post by **Lt. Dan** » 2003-12-31 03:22pm

Lets face it. Jesus, wether you like it or not, is the only reson for our date system. The whole B.C.E. thing is just the ACLU saying that Jesus isn't the reason for this calender. They are in fact trying to change history. The world would not be the way it is if it were not for the birth of Jesus. I'm not getting into the whole "He is God. No he's not." debate because that's changing the subject. I'm just saying that one man(and I do say man) changed our form of dates. B.C.E. is just a bunch of crap. Take away the E and what do you get? B.C., Before Christ.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2003-12-31 05:31pm

I use BCE and CE because I prefer not to conceede anything to the christians.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2003-12-31 05:37pm

New Years also used to be at a different time of the year. That's where April Fool's day comes in because it was the fools who were still celebrating the New Year then.

Not that starting a New Year in the spring time wouldn't be a better idea than in the middle of the winter.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/aprilfools1.html

http://wilstar.com/holidays/aprilfool.htm

The Aliens · Post by **The Aliens** » 2003-12-31 05:37pm

Only reason they changed it is that most religions have their own date system, so C.E. was used to eliminate debates dealing with dating between people of different religions.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-12-31 08:21pm

Lt. Dan wrote:Lets face it. Jesus, wether you like it or not, is the only reson for our date system. The whole B.C.E. thing is just the ACLU saying that Jesus isn't the reason for this calender. They are in fact trying to change history. The world would not be the way it is if it were not for the birth of Jesus. I'm not getting into the whole "He is God. No he's not." debate because that's changing the subject. I'm just saying that one man(and I do say man) changed our form of dates. B.C.E. is just a bunch of crap. Take away the E and what do you get? B.C., Before Christ.

The abbreviation for CE has two meanings. It can be used in the secular way if one wishes, as well as one if you want to stick Christ in there.

CE- Common Era or Christian Era

The Aliens · Post by **The Aliens** » 2003-12-31 08:23pm

Don't Christians general use Anno Domini if they wnat to use dates in a religious fashion? I was under the impression C.E. was entirely secular/politically correct.

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2003-12-31 08:26pm

neoolong wrote:The abbreviation for CE has two meanings. It can be used in the secular way if one wishes, as well as one if you want to stick Christ in there.

CE- Common Era or Christian Era

I've never seen anyone use Christian Era. In my experience, it's always been Anno Domini.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-12-31 08:32pm

That's the way it is listed in "The Abbreviations Dictionary."

Lt. Dan · Post by **Lt. Dan** » 2003-12-31 08:35pm

neoolong wrote:
Lt. Dan wrote:Lets face it. Jesus, wether you like it or not, is the only reson for our date system. The whole B.C.E. thing is just the ACLU saying that Jesus isn't the reason for this calender. They are in fact trying to change history. The world would not be the way it is if it were not for the birth of Jesus. I'm not getting into the whole "He is God. No he's not." debate because that's changing the subject. I'm just saying that one man(and I do say man) changed our form of dates. B.C.E. is just a bunch of crap. Take away the E and what do you get? B.C., Before Christ.
The abbreviation for CE has two meanings. It can be used in the secular way if one wishes, as well as one if you want to stick Christ in there.

CE- Common Era or Christian Era

Never thought of it that way. Cool. Now I can argue with my history teacher...thanks.

The Aliens · Post by **The Aliens** » 2003-12-31 08:35pm

So it isn't a common usage then, just something to re-assure the Fundies that we haven't moved to a 'heathen' dating system. I'll keep to Common Era, thank you very much.