One of my biggest pet peeves when reading a book is when the author uses the metric system of measurement. It's not that I think there is anything wrong with anyone using that system. It's just that, when you read a book, you basically put yourself into the story. When something happens that breaks the flow of the story, it pretty much ruins the experience. And one of the best ways to break the flow of a story for me is to put something in metrics.
The reason for that is, of course, I am a crusty old lady who has NEVER had to learn the metric system, and likely never will. And while I can measure an inch, a foot or even a yard pretty accurately by eye, I can't even begin to imagine how a centimeter or a meter would look. So I have to stop and think what the closest measurement in the Imperial system would be, then go back and re-read the passage using that familiar measurement.
Lately, some of the authors I read have started to date events in their books with the suffixes B.C.E. or C.E. And I had no earthly idea what they were talking about. So, being me and having a tendency to do such things, I looked it up online.
Turns out there has been some sort of movement over the last half century or so to change our system of measuring time away from one that was Christ-centered. The Christian calendar dates everything as either before or after what was, as it turns out, inaccurately determined to be the birth year of Christ. Everything before Christ's birth was B.C., or before Christ, beginning with the year 1 B.C. and moving backward from that date. For example, 400 B.C. is earlier than 200 B.C, and so on. Everything that has occurred after the birth of Christ is said to be in the year of our Lord, using the Latin Anno Domini. So starting with year A.D. 1, the year of Christ's birth (supposedly) everything after would be AD 2015, and so forth. There is no year 0 in the Gregorian calendar.
And by the way, a little fun fact, when we write years before Christ, the correct way is 2015 B.C. However, when we are writing year of our Lord, the correct way is A.D. 2015. The letters go before the year.
Turns out the early calendar makers didn't get the dates quite right. Christ was actually born somewhere between A.D. 4 and A.D. 7, depending upon which Gospel you read or what scholar you listen to. That being what it is, the fact still remains the Christian, or Gregorian calendar, is still centered on the birth of Christ.
So where did this B.C.E.-C.E. stuff come from? Apparently a 19th century Hebrew scholar picked up on a term that has been around since Victorian England, calling the time we live in Christian/current/common time interchangeably. The intent was the same at that point, to refer to the life of Christ as the determining measure for time. However, the scholar began using the terms "before common era" and "common era" to refer to the Gregorian calendar dates. The measurement of time remained the same, still based on the life of Christ, but the new designations left that fact off. The scholar felt the new designations would not be offensive to Jewish and Muslim peoples.
Now before we go any further with this, let me point out that the Jewish people go by a completely different calendar than we do. According to that calendar, this year is actually 5775. The Muslims use a different calendar altogether, and on their calendar the current year is 1436. So why anyone would worry about offending people who don't use our calendar anyway is beyond me.
I think the real reason is that so many people have moved away from God altogether, and they don't want to give any credence to Christ by using a reference to him in the calendar. Call it a move toward political correctness, the true god of the 21st century.
As for me, I can understand why the world would want us to move toward the metric system. As our new country was getting its act together, the Founding Fathers decided to continue to use the Imperial System because it was the primary system of measurement in the world, and using it would help our young country get a foothold in the international trade system. Since then, other countries have all pretty much gone to the metric system, so I feel more emphasis will probably be brought to bear to teach children the metric system from a young age in an effort to convert the whole country in the future.
But this change in the calendar designation makes absolutely no sense. The measurement of time would still be before and after the birth of Christ, so why not go ahead and say so? I don't care if you are not a Christian, you cannot deny that a man called Jesus lived, and that He had enough of an impact on our world that our entire dating system was based around His birth. Changing a couple of letters does not change that fact, and as far as I am concerned it would be ridiculous to do so.
plen@rittermail.com