BC/AD or BCE/CE?
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- čas přidán 4. 06. 2024
- In this video I look the the controversy surrounding the two dating notations of BC/AD and BCE/CE. BC/AD is the traditionally Christian termonoloy, whereas BCE/CE is the more modern, "politically correct" termonology.
I look breifly at the history of how these both came to be and try to view some of the criticisms are the newer system. I try to raise valid points from both sides of the argument.
As I non-Christian myself, I don't really feel the need for the change. I think BC/AD works just fine. But that's just my opinoin, I'd love to hear yours.
Lindybeige video: • B.C./A.D. or C.E./B.C....
Music by Epidemic Sound: epidemicsound.com/creator
2 videos in the same month, what's going on?! In this video I look a topic which is surprisingly controversial: BC/AD or BCE/CE? As stated in the video, I received backlash for using BCE/CE in a video in 2017. While some of the comments were needlessly insulting, many also raised some interesting points. The more I looked into the subject, the more I began to come around to the opinion that BCE/CE seems unnecessary, and doesn't really do what it set out to do - remove reference to Christianity.
I'm interested to hear some of your thoughts and opinions on the matter. I know many think that this is a complete non-issue, and yeah, that's fair. I don't really think it's all that big of a deal, but I thought it was interesting topic at the least.
Link to orginial video that made me aware of this whole controversey: czcams.com/video/nx4VdNPhV-4/video.html
Thanks for watching!
I use bce:ce
I think people should use BCE and CE, I'm atheist, why on Earth would I agnolage some fake wizard named Christ, nor should I be forced to use it, just because old people are used to always being able to boss around other people with their religion.
Think of it from my perspective, if I don't believe in "Christ" then what on Earth would I be saying if I say before Christ or in the year of our Lord.
I'm just surprised with the quality of videos and the dedication you put in, I just want to say thank you, keep it going. :D
@@theart-theist6049 Fuck your perspective.
The Art-Theist Your entitled to your opinion but us Christians really have much proof of Jesus Christ, I don’t have it in my mind right now but search up some debates and preaching and the evidence are substantial. Let us use our only way to talk to atheists by having a way to show them the years. Also if us christians are forced to learn evolution then why don’t you guys just accept using BC/AD
I propose a compromise. We should use either:
BCE/AD or BC/CE
That way we piss off everyone and we can all be miserable together.
Lol
HOW DARE U MIX THE TWO!!
Get this man a fucking happy meal 👏👏👏
You sir are a genius
Let's do the last one so be have to type less letters then.
In Russian it's simply "before our era" and "our era", if directly translated.
wait OH GOD DAMN IT THIS WAS AN UNINTENTIONAL COMMUNIST JOKE
It is our era comrade!
Let me guess we’re in year 102 of our era right now
"Common Era" ❌
"OUR Era" ✔️✔️☭☭
am i the only one still looking for his joke
It's the same here in Poland. Despite our image as super conservative Catholics (which I don't think is 100% true, but that's another topic). So yeah, I don't really see the issue too.
nah. -2019 and +2019. easy.
This man is the only wise one in a sea of fools
Nani!?
Now this guy gets it
Unfortunately, that's perhaps a bit misleading, as the next year after 1 BCE is 1 CE, there is no year 0, unlike the integers.
Make a year zero.
Just waiting for everyone else to catch up to my level and use BBY/ABY.
Totally agree!
I understood that reference!
(Star Wars)
I use this on all my history papers and I get points off, smdh when will colleges catch up to Galactic Imperial Units? I also convert dollars to the Galactic Credit Standard like ₹300 for a good wookie fur coat, and I use the Standard Galactic Coruscant Calendar (10 months a year, 7 weeks per month, 5 days a week, plus the 3 festival weeks and 3 holidays for 368 days total). People think I'm weird but I'm just ahead of the game amirite?
@@beph13 👆 this guy gets it!
But how do you know how to convert to that system? You would have to know when the Battle of Yavin took place, and the movies and books never tell us, except to say that it was "a long time ago."
My gut tells me you would need a _really_ high number for the year.
Everyone at 8:35, "Who writes the letter E that way!?"
Me at 8:35, "Hey you idiot, Henry VIII had six wives, not seven!"
I noticed the 7 with a tick next to it as well.
The teacher needs to learn history
Teacher couldnt even write sentences right. Who are Napoleon's last defeat and battle and how did the latter lead?
7 wife's is ok but bc is not, get out of here lol
@@estren4 I'm definitely on team BC/AD, not a big issue really but that's what I learnt, and new ones always trip me up. 😂
"Just look at the days of the week. Most are named after Roman or Greek deities."
Norse gods: Am I a joke to you?
He meant the planets and not the days.
Germanic gods are here only becouse English just switched Roman gods to their Germanic counterparts.
Iike Day of Venus = Day of Freya = Friday or Day of Jupiter = Day of Thor = Thursday
@@vladprus4019 What do you mean? It is not only for the english but also here in germany that the days are named after the germanic gods. But yes, the roman god counterparts also play a role in that somehow. Like monday the day of Tyr or Mars.
@@MaceLupo Well, I should say "Germanic people" instead of "English".
I do not know German.
@Matteo Tironi Which is the original week and how do we know?
8:35 who tf writes an E like that lol.
Must be a Chinese or a Japanese. They usually write the horizontal strokes first then the vertical ones.
@@AndrewVasirov that makes zero sense, considering that the entire paper is in english
Hype Ninja
So what? The entire comment section is in English. It doesn't mean that we have to use the same writing techniques like what people use in the UK or other English-dominant country. There are even more ways to write the cursively Latin alphabet too!
I also make the E like that and something similar happens with my t, T and + (plus sign). When learning their writing systems, I began using this method and honestly my writing is more beautiful than what it used to be and people have an easier time to understand it. But that is beside the point, what matters is that he got the answers right!
People who feel the need to correct something that’s right either way
@@hypeninja4786 Have you ever taken a foreign language test? It's not uncommon for them to be written entirely in the target language.
I propose:
Before Ya Boi(B.Y.B)
After Ya Boi(A.Y.B)
Can't we just short it to BB and AB?
@@randomguy263 : No.
Use BYOB and hum System Of A Down tracks at the same time. :-)
@@randomguy263 But what would the year Ya Boi be then?
"Backwards Chronology" and "Ascending Dates" is actually really clever! Names the years AND explains the separation in one.
"Before Counting" and "Advent of Dates" ;-)
Lindy Beige is fantastically clever
Gotta love his unchecked English bias in regard to the French. Very amusing videos
that sounds even worse
It allows two sides to consider their themselves to have won with nobody actually changing the letters.
2 videos in 2 weeks?? Wonderwhy is on a roll!
I... WonderWhy?
@@joseph-sj5qj you've ruined my day
.
@@ShadoZP stfu puns are life
Neil degrass Tyson talks about this on Joe Rogan. He uses BC/AD because the Catholic church created it and that's what THEY used. He also recognizes that it is an impressive marvel of science (the calendar) and so the people who created it should get credit
Scout i just use the academic notation because I always try to use academic notation :/
@John Toas just because god might not be real doesnt mean we should take away the achievements of the church
John Toas Man U sound angry. Calm down bud. Just because Roman Catholics created one of the most important inventions of human history that we STILL USE TO THIS DAY UNCHANGED doesn't mean you have to get super butt hurt
@John Toas lol ok edgelord, "because Amazing Atheist told me so grrrr"
@John Toas Don't cut yourself on that edge.
As a dinosaur person, I'm more familiar of MYA.
Million years ago?
@@boilledwater_3306 yes
elmohead
Or you can use
MB/BM
MB = Memes began
BM = Before memes
Emperor Of Wall
2000
My Yummy A*s
I personally prefer AC/DC
Alive Christ / Dead Christ?
After Christ / Dead Christ
Anti-Christian Era / Decent Christian Era
@@josephang9927 doomed
I only like it when I am drunk... But still works...
We're ALL "... on the highway to hell"
Particularly those snowflake "Christians". SMH
!!! REMEMBER Matthew 25 !!!
selfish, self-diluted, jerks.
I use AC⚡DC because Im Thunderstruck
Well played!
That's literally what we Brazilians do. "Antes de Cristo" (before Christ) and "depois de Cristo" (after Christ).
Dave
I’ve been looking for this comment.
@@kaioocarvalho I want to move to Brazil now
Music⚡Band
One point I'm glad you brought up is how saying BCE/CE repeatedly can trip someone up, while there's little confusion when someone says "BC" vs "AD." There's also the fact that BC/AD flows better. By contrast, while saying "BCE" or "CE" the speaker has to make an awkward voice stop between the "cee" sound and the "ee" sound.
If you're going to use Christ's birth as a starting point, you might as well use BC/AD and refer to Christ.
I think you missed the point. Using Jesus’ estimated date of birth to establish eras is an explicitly Christian idea that has become widespread due to the influence of largely Christian nations over recent global history-prior to wide-scale globalization, BC/AD was common only in Europe and European colonies. Would surprise you to know that the first 8 months of the year 2020 are year 5780 in the Jewish calendar, and the last 3 months will be 5781? Muslims also have a different year, based on Mohammed. The Mayan calendar has a different year-and yes, descendants of the Mayans do live in Mexico. The Gregorian (Christian) calendar is just used a common, international reference, in the same way that English is the international language of aviation.
Finally, maybe you didn’t hear the part about “Christ” not being a name, but a title similar to “Messiah.” Non-Christians do not deny that Jesus lived, preached, and was killed. We’re just not sold on his divinity. So maybe you could take BC/AD and make it “Before Jesus and “After Jesus.” This has exactly the same meaning, but leaves the subject of human divinity out.
@@cmconley33 I mean why does it matter BCs time isn’t even right considering Jesus was born in 6 BC and no one even knows what AD means so I wouldn’t understand how that could offend people
Colton Moore I’m not sure anyone *really* knows when Jesus was born; Roman Empire record-keeping in Judea were a bit sketchy-as they were in all outlying areas of the empire. As to your second statement, AD means “Anno Domini,” or “year of our Lord” in Latin. So I can see how AD is not exactly neutral; that said, I’m Jewish but am not offended by it. AD was thought up by historians from largely Christian cultures. So it is nothing more than a reflection of their culture.
@@cmconley33 that’s kinda what I meant BC isn’t even the right time and ask people on the street what AD means they won’t say that
@Sean Gibbons, This means that Jesus was born a few years before Jesus. Yeah this is why I just don't agree with this system at all and just go with either astronomical year numbering where the current year is +2020 and it has a year 0 on the BC year 1 BC or the Human Era which is based on the start of the Holocene era in the Holocene calendar which has a year 0 and that the current year is 12,020 HE.
And then Kurzgesagt tries to popularize the holocene era calendar.
Edit: popularize is a better term than introduce.
Angus Yang Easier to use than the backwards counting system!
@@GuiSmith thats the one thing i hate about BC.
@@TheBabaloga yeah, popularized would be a better term, I used "introduce" because kurzgesagt is such a huge channel, so they have a prominent presence on youtube, and I think that's probably where many people here learned about the holocene era system.
It's not an era..
As of 2021 there is a good chance we officially move to the Anthropocene.
I thought it was about Tesla and Edison rivalry and AC/DC
BACK IN BLACK. I HIT THE SACC.
BACK IN BLACK. I HIT THE SACC.
Why would an electric car company have a rivalry with a utility company? Wouldn't you need Edison to supply power to charge a Tesla?
In spanish it actually is "Antes de Cristo y Después de Cristo" so it actually is AC/DC
@@pepsdeps In Portuguese too! Antes de Cristo e Depois de Cristo.
Little kids: learn positive and negative numbers in elementary school
Grown ups: still debate over BC/AD or BCE/CE as if it was even important
Even more grown ups: Still debate whether or not should we count from 0 or 1.
Lmao I was taught that BCE and CE also meant Before Christ Era and Christ Era.
Lol
LMAO
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
AC/DC in portuguese!!! ("Antes de Cristo"/"Depois de Cristo").
'cos we rock, of course!
Ok, that's the best one by far!
🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘Does Portuguese have an equivalent to BCE/CE as well?
Best system!
@@kaziiqbal7257 No, we only have AC/DC, so this debate doesn't even exist here in Brazil.
That’s ãmãzing
BC can just mean "Before Common (Era)" and AD can just mean "After Dat"
ad means anno dominni
r/woooosh
@@joel7647 wooooooosh
@@inactive6200 Okay.
@@joel7647 Big L
Thanks for this! great voice too! LOVE your accent! Could listen to you for hours
I always went with BCE/CE in high school (despite being a religious school) as a pretty secular person myself, but honestly this video made me realise just how unnecessary and forced that change is. It does seem incredibly disrespectful of the early Christian scholars who devoted their lives to historical records, with the only motivation to change being Jews and modern atheists (like myself for that matter). Seems like a similar issue to saying 'Prophet Muhammad' when talking about the Muslim prophet, I'm not a Muslim but it still seems like a necessary sign of respect for history and religion.
@PuraguCryostato,
I'm (mostly) an atheist and I capitalize God when referring to the Abrahamic God, for several reasons
Not to mention both Christians and Muslims both believe Jesus is the messiah. This change had no purpose what so ever and really annoys me at times, because the only reason they are doing this is to remove the back ground which in turn just throws someone’s life work in the bin. Personally I’m Christian, I have no problem with BCE or CE, but as the points brung up in the video, there is no point, they are to similar, a bit to long when reading all day. Honestly, they got it right the first time with BC/AD it ain’t broken
@@IcejjfishTbone If a non-Muslim doesn't want to say "Prophet" Muhammad then he doesn't need to because he doesn't believe him to be a prophet. It's a similar issue with AD as it implies your saying Jesus is your Lord. I know it seems trivial but for some people it really has a big meaning if what you use contradicts what you believe.
@@mhk6943 atheists use the Lord’s name in vain by saying “oh my God” all the time even though they don’t believe in him
@@JackDSquat That's an Atheist. I'm talking about the perspective of a Jew and Muslim.
What year is it?
356 BC?
What BC mean?
Before Christ
Who's Christ?
I don't know
Checkmate atheists! :D
pretty rad pony
This is so shitty without the pictures
What year is it?
356 BCE?
What BCE mean?
Before Common Era
What's Common Era?
I don't know
@@Niom_Music ikr
junhao Wang checkmate christians?
I wrote a paper that switch between them my teacher got angry and said "just use one I dont care witch one but one!" It was pretty funny.
I would have give you a 0% grade.
@@alejandropinedarojas48 a little dumb. he wrote the rest of the paper
@mPky1 yeah, and if he wrote witch in his paper we should even burn the paper! Burn all the witches!
If I was a teacher and had seen that you did that, I would begin to suspect that you plaigerized the paper. I'm not implying that you did in reality, but if I was a teacher I would be concerned because using two different dating systems like that could lead me to think that you took the words directly from your sources including the preffered terms.
My homosexual sociology professor marked me down for using BC.
Here in Israel we use them but call them after counting and before counting
Why?
Isn't it "to Christian counting", not "after counting"!?
@@iloveyoushima4953
Because to Jews, Jesus was just a guy, not the son of God.
@@fds7476 I know that, not sure how that answers my question.
"the days of the week... are mostly named after roman or greek deities."
sunday, monday, thursday, and friday: am i a joke to you?
Really it’s only Saturday that’s named after a Roman deity. Monday and Sunday are named after the Moon and Sun, respectively, while Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are named after ‘Norse’ gods.
Tuesday - Tiw’s Day
Wednesday - Woden’s Day
Thursday - Thor’s Day
Friday - Freya’s Day
@Matteo Tironi "civilized" and "barbarian" are extremely subjective
@@h-Qalziel oh i didn't realize that for tuesday and wednesday! thank you so much!
I had no idea about the use of "christ/Christ" as a title as opposed to a name. Fascinating
His name was Yeshua (Jesus). Christ was a title... Since he didn't had a last name... people identified him with the name of his father, Yeshua ben-Yosef (Jesus son of Joseph), or where he was from... Yeshua haNotzri (Jesus of Nazareth). Like people say Leonardo da Vinci, da Vinci is not a last name... just the city he's from... Vinci.
Later people called him HaMashiach Yeshua (The Christ Jesus or The Messiah Jesus), Like "The King Edward". Christ meaning "the anointed one". BTW... Christ and Messiah are the same thing. Just that Christ is Greek and Messiah is Hebrew.
Christ comes from the Greek title to describe the Messiah afaik
Both the Hebrew Messiah and the Greek Christos mean “anointed one”.
Mateus Bittencourt: Very good & accurate explanation. To me & to my generation, all that you wrote is & was "common knowledge", since this was something all of us (and our ancestors) grew up learning
& just knowing, whether we were very religious or leaned secular. But now we live in a much more secular, hedonistic, and increasingly ignorant world (ironically so), so I find more and more that this has to be explained, most especially to Millennials & those younger.
That would be why there is a such thing as "Anti-Christ" much like Anti-Popes and Anti-kings. This is why there is no one "Anti-christ" but rather anyone who seeks to represent themselves as "Christ" instead of Jesus being the Christ. A lesson within the text of christianity is to always be ware of those who proclaim themselves as the sole arbiters of god or existence.
I only use BC/AD because it's what I originally learned, and I actually agree with the sentiment that BCE/CE is a poor attempt at fixing a problem I think doesn't exist. That being said, I have no problem with others using BCE/CE, just please don't yell at me for using BC/AD.
Love your vids KhAnubis. I agree 100%
I agree its not really a big deal if you use BC/AD or BCE/CE .
This is my sentiment. I would also add “also don’t pretend your more intellectual than me because you use BCE/CE”.
@@markpapenfuss1111 And don't get mad at people for using BCE/CE, then. At the beginning of this video, most of the comments shown were opposed to BCE/CE, calling it "heresy" and "revisionist" like idiots.
@@MatthewTheWanderer
I personally have never gotten mad at people over it, it irks me and annoys me to high hell sure, but honestly I don't see why we should take Christianity of a system made by Christians, it is never going to get anywhere and we just end up with a slightly more annoying system that has the same religious origin but with a slightly less pretty coat of paint. XD
If we're honest, the only way of counting time that really matters is milliseconds since the unix epoch
Bro wyd after 2038 CE?
@@jeffirwin7862 don't worry about something `long` away
Or the GPS epoch. I wouldn't object to having that made official either.
@DeadLink 404 Y'all are `floating` on thin ice.
The only correct solution is to use a UINT128 to store nanoseconds since the big-bang. That gives us high resolution and plenty of time to move to 256-bits. Duh. ¬_¬ (If you're hurting for space, you could just use 80 bits and microseconds. 🤷)
Ahhh Lindybeige! Also, when I first heard 'Common Era' about 5 years ago, it was BCE and ACE, eventually they must have removed the A.
Wow what an upgrade in your editing. Great video as always Wonder Why.
Ikr
Taking advantage of Skillshare most likely ;)
BC/AD or BCE and CE.Forget that the year is 2772 AUC. Long live the Roman Empire.
Death to the Empire! Restore the Republic!
@@TU-mf2ut Death to the dictatorship! Restore the Soviet Empire
@@boilledwater_3306 a few centuries too early, chap
@@TU-mf2ut yeah I know, *chap*
Hah!
HOW. COME. i'VE. JUST. COME. ACROSS. YOUR. CHANNEL? DAMN, I GOTTA HIT THAT SUBSCRIBED BUTTON!
Wow you are quite good with potentially touchy subjects. 👍
Great job presenting the info fairly and thoroughly.
Is a year like, a week now?
BTW in case you're curious about the days of the week:
Sunday - Obviously, Sun day.
Monday - Moon day
Tuesday - Tiw's day (Norse god)
Wednesday - Woden's day (Odin's day, Norse god)
Thursday - Thor's day (Norse god)
Friday - Freya's day (Norse goddess)
Saturday - Saturn day (Roman god)
Thanks! Didn’t know so many days were based on Norse gods.
didn't know Tyr was also called Tiw
knew all this besides Tuesday
Maybe Jews should get on changing the days of the week too.
I am sure people would be foolish to object.
Thank you Danish Vikings for giving the unbelievers danish weekdays. Mandag, Tirsdag (God tyr) Onsdag (God Odin) Torsdag (God Thor) Fredag(God Freja)
I'm an atheist and couldn't care less about the Christian reference.... I'll choose BC/AD every time.
My mother is an academic historian and archaeologist and she uses BC/AD in both her teaching, academic and other work. She finds the use of the phrase "common era" troubling (and has written about that) and thinks the BCE/CE thing is a ridiculous attempt to politicise a system that doesn't warrant it.
Last time I was this early, WonderWhy uploaded twice a year.
I use them interchangeably and I really don't care at all.
Yo
I just use BC/AD all the time since I’ve always done that, but I don’t really care which one I end up using either.
Same!
Yeah you would if you were expected to say the Year of Mohammed Peace be Upon Him wouldn't you?
@@osric1730 No itll pretty much stay be the same. But keep strawmening
I'm surprised you got so muchflack, appreciate this video. I am Jewish, and use BCE/CE, also built the habit in college and grad school as both my degree are in the social sciences. Curiously when I was studying anthropology, many in the field used a Before Present (BP) system, so if you were talking about something in 11,000 BCE, it was 13,000 BP. Granted then everything is just so many years before today. Personally I am a fan of the human era calendar, as it begins counting at the very beginning of the development of settled life, so encompasses all of human civilization, but still has a weird backwards chronology to deal with. I am a proponent of changing that, as that's not how we count, and I feel it makes it easier for people to kind of ignore everything which happened before some arbitrary date because those times were leading up to it, and people seem to value it less. All of history is important and should be celebrated. Anyway these are my thoughts, and I encourage people to use more inclusive language, but mostly to question why things are as they are, don't blindly accept something "because it's always been that way." Trust me, it hasn't .
You Jews are snowflakes. Just use BC and AD instead. First and foremost the Gregorian calendar is based on Jesus.
Great video, very nuanced view and extremely informative. Earned a sub for that.
AC/DC in Italian - Avanti (before) Cristo/Dopo (after) Cristo.
Or just get back to use Rome's foundation as the beginning.. 753 BC.
ilFrancotti
Me: What's your favorite year?
King David of Israel: 1000 BC. What's yours?
Me, an intellectual: 2772 AUC
David: What's AUC?
Me, an intellectual: It stands for "from the Founding of the City"
David: What city?
Me: It's Rome. You know, that city in central Italy.
David: What's Rome? And what's Italy?
Me: ...
That's Dopo man. Dope.
actually i think i prefer "third year of the presidency of Donald Trump"
@@tacokoneko Yeah, but then let’s also write our dates as: “2 days before the 5th day of January”. That would solve all the problems.
It's also before Christ and after Christ in Greek (Προ Χριστού, Μετά Χριστόν)
Just sharing, reading a book on fashion history brought me here. Who knew. Thanks for sharing and educating.
AD does get confused with After Death. When I was young I had a teacher give us a math problem. How many years between 10 BC and 10 AD. I answered 20. The answer she wanted was 53 as Jesus lived 33 years. I disagreed and this led to a discussion with the Principle who didn't know the teacher was teaching this. This was in a public school.
You mean Principal.
i'm gonna go out on a limb and assume this was an american school because that definitely sounds like something an american school would do
@@hotdatedave Yep, I lean on spell check far too much.
@@jk-jl2lo Toronto.
We just casually have 33 years in hustory that is unmarked by a number
I prefer B.C. and A.D., but I don’t mind B.C.E. and C.E., because it’s just the same numbered years with different names for eras.
Yeah, same here. I'm just tired of people trying to push BCE and CE on me.
I'm with BBY/ABY.
Nicholas McKay wE LIvE iN A sOCieTY
@@fios4528 I'm an atheist. I just think that it's completely unnecessary to change it. Besides, BC/AD is strategically better, because BCE and CE sound similar anyways.
@@ergegr8210 I agree and I'm also an atheist
I prefer BC/AD because I'm lazy and it requires less effort to say or type.
If you say C like SEE then you can just say B SeE and SeE. That's make make things even more controversial.
Ironic, using the Christian way because you're indolent. Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins, cousin.
Andrew Vasirov and so? Some of us ain’t Christian.
Should just do B/ A
Before
After
I believe we should have kept PUC/AUC or "Pre urbe condita" and "ad urbe condita" which means before and after the foundation of the City (or Rome)
When you pointed out that BCE/CE doesn't remove us from christianity since we use the same numbers, that reminded me of one of my earlier professors, who wanted the system to change so that we are now in the year 10019. This would make more sence in the view of an historian, and still be easy to remember and get used to, since still using the last part of the old system (the "19" part). Is this a good idea maybe, or just crazy/stupid.
lmao people really have nothing important to worry about?
Mateusz Kotowicz it’s more about the erosion of judeo-Christian culture by multicultural “inclusivity”
@@Clandsom the "erosion"? Seems a little strong there...
MN purp it’s really not a big deal, and not everyone is Christian, so it makes sense to use BCE and CE because it makes no mention to religion.
@@Clandsom good riddance
@@Clandsom what are you on about? The "Judeo-Christian" culture is still very much prevalent everywhere, even here in the Muslims parts of Southeast Asia... Even two of the most important things to humanity - our standard calendar system and the "weekend" are still very much based on the "Judeo-Christian" culture.
It's interesting. Where I come from (Ukraine), we say 'our era' and 'before our era'. There is, however, a pretty outdated way to say anno Domini in ukrainian, but it is not used widely (especially after soviet years).
In schools we are taught to use BC/AD in English. So it was a bit confusing for me to see BCE/CE for the first time:)
BC/AD even tho im not religous im just used to it
Also remember for a while some European nations used their own calendar that was completely separate from their neighbors and it was a long while before the Julian calendar (and the Gregorian (Russia was the last to switch and that was in 1918!)) were widely used.
*Changing the initials but keeping the numerical division barely makes a dent on the calendar's connection to Jesus Christ of Nazareth.*
I was reading a particular history book where the author said that using BCE/CE seemed pointless to change, because you're still basing it off of the Christian dating system.
Seemed to make sense to me.
What the hell do you want?Change it to holocene era?No thanks
If you’re going to use BCE/CE you may as well throw out the entire Gregorian calender.
@@LucidFL Never! We have been using the designations for 1500 years and the calendar for 500 years.Too late to change.
I mean... the change was just so that people don't have to refer to Jesus as their lord, not so that the actual basis would change bases.
Alternately, just use negative numbers for BC/BCE.
There is no year 0 though
@@muhammadfaruqabdrazak5981 In the international standard date format (ISO8601) dates prior to year 1 can be signified with a negative sign. In this situation, the year 1 BC is represented by +0, and 2 BC is -1, etc.
@@CheCheDaWaff oh no
Best idea so far
Muhammad Faruq Abd razak> There is no year 0 though
So? 🤨 Dates aren't numbers, they're dates. They don't have to follow the rules of integers. They can go from -1 to +1. No problems.
Great video! You’ve obviously done a lot of homework, and I agree with your opinion 100%.
I personally agree with the "changing the names doesn't change the fact that it's based on Christ" school of thought. That being said, I am Catholic, so I may have some bias
I agree and I’m also a Catholic. The new nomenclature just begs the question what major event ushered in the common area. That being said, I think using CE instead of AD makes sense because it’s not in Latin and of course CE also means Christian Era (which is English)
Im probably the least religious person and I agree. Its just a name, I think changing it to b.c.e/c.e. is just unnecessary and overly p.c., lets just leave it as bc/ad
Not christian, but that's the way I've always looked at it.
The problem wasn’t that the calendar is based on the birth of Jesus, it is that he is called Christ (Messiah, Anointed One) of Domini, our Lord). The Jews were mentioned. Just remembering how Jewish people have been treated in Europe, because they didn’t accept Jesus as Messiah or Lord, should make any believing Christian embarrassed. Jesus, for sure, wouldn’t want any of that persecution in his name.
@@6zeekoe9 I'm not defending what happened to the jews but the jews did start it.
Honestly B.C and A.D are just to classic for me to give up.
Julius Memer I’m disappointed that you’re not using the Roman calendar.
If we really want to fix the system, we've simply got to do one thing: embrace negative numbers. 2019 AD would simply become 2019, and 2019 BC would become -2018. Why is it off by one? Because year 0 needs to exist for the system to make sense, and it doesn't currently exist. So 1 BC becomes 0, and 2 BC becomes -1, and so on. Then, figuring out how much time there was between dates would get a lot simpler - you just subtract them, following the normal rules of arithmetic that when you subtract a negative number, you add a positive number. And figuring out date ranges that include the BC/AD crossover would become a lot easier: instead of remembering a special rule that you add them together and then subtract 1, you just follow the same arithmetic rules you've learned in elementary school. And this would also strengthen and connect our intuition about both negative numbers and BC/BCE dates, since they both count "backwards" as you go forwards in time.
This also easily admits any kind of offset in the zero point we want to choose; it has been suggested (and I think it's a good idea) to add 10,000 offset so that the year zero is approximately coincidental with the Agricultural Revolution and the dawn of the earliest human civilizations, such that 2019 AD becomes 12019. And for prehistoric times, we've got negative numbers. Seems like it works pretty well to me!
Is it really exacyly 10.000 years?
That's how we do in French, the battle of Actium happened in -31, of course you can say "avant Jésus-Christ" too, but the minus works pretty well for numeral dates.
There was no "Year Zero" nor would there have to be. 1 BC was followed by AD 1. One year BEFORE Christ and then come the years OF Christ, "Anno Domini". 1 year before, and then you start the FIRST year. Year AD 1 means you are IN the first year but have not completed it yet. Just like we are in 2019 but have only completed 2,018 years + a few months (as of this writing). Come New Years Day 2020 we would have finished 2019 years. Remember how people kept reminding you in 1999 that the year 2000 is still in the 20th Century because in 2000 we were working on completing the 2,000th year, which we did only on Jan. 1, 2001, the start of the 21st Century.
BTW, for birthdays it is the opposite. We celebrate someone COMPLETING 21 years on their 21st birthday. The next day they are still 21 but in their 22nd year of life (such as "21 and one day" or "21 and a half", etc.).
DontMockMySmock
Kurzgesagt would like to know your location
@@volvok7749 The Battle of Actium happened in -30, though, unless you're using some sort of broken number line where -1 and 1 are one unit apart.
I suggest BC/AD over BCE/CE because it saves one letter, which in the larger scheme of it all saves a lot on inkt and digital storage. Which would be better our resources.
Could divide the years by Eras. Like, Prehistory, go up to a number, then stop there, and start a new Era when one rises, like the Iron age or something.
For example, we'd count the Information Era years since the fall of the Soviet Union. Then, when we start to advance further, we'd go into a new Era.
Just use BC and AD. We all know why and when BC starts and BC starts.
The fact that this apparently consists as a controversial topic is, to me, baffling and a waste of breath. Barry's Tea vs Lyons Tea is a more worthwhile argument, and they are both black Bengal tea
WonderWhy isn't Christian. Dislike and unsub.
@@decem_sagittae Lmao that's pathetic.
@@BlueFury2577 no respect for apostates, heretics and unbelievers!
11:23 Lol read the comments where people say BCE/CE is an attempt at historical revisionism or how they stopped watching midway because WonderWhy used it. Peak snowflakery.
EDIT: OH SHIT I DIDN'T REALIZE I USED THEY PLEASE DON'T KILL ME
@Proud Bangladeshi গর্বিত বাংলাদেশী okay.......
Do yee sell tea to Ireland?
When it comes to videos on other religions I propose displaying both BC/AD as well as the year in that religions calender. This gives an insight to how that religion sees time.
I prefer BC and AD because there are fewer syllables and sharpness to get around.
If the years hit the quintuple digits (Or WWIII destroys everything), we should have a new dating system that abbreviates to EY or something.
I cringed when i saw someone commented you being heretic for not using B.C./A.D.
A heretic to what?
A heretic to Christianity or a heretic to who worship globo-homo mutliculti soyocracy?
Heretics, send in the Adepta Sororitas! :)
@@randybentley2633 i prefer Rogal Dorn's angry boys though but not the Imperial fisting kind but more of the Templar kind
It sounds like a sarcastic reply honestly.
I'm Muslim and I don't mind using Christian era. On one hand I'm not saying a blasphemy by saying its the "year of our lord" but on the other hand I'm acknowledging where this calendar comes from.
It would be retarded to change it. Why not change the names of the months or the days of the week then?
@@decem_sagittae Just throw the whole thing out and make a new calendar.
Constantine's Revenge FRENCH REVOLUTION
Didn't muslims consider Jesus to be a prophet too?
@@paulwalker2412 We do, but we don't consider him a lord or above human or something, he is just like Moses or Mohammed: a human.
Here in Egypt though (and probably other Middle-Eastern countries), we use (along side the Hijri calendar) what I can consider BB (Before [the] Birth) and AB (After [the] Birth) which is a much better solution in my mind. it refers simply to the year of Jesus' birth without other implications (like calling him a lord or something) an event that happened just like the Founding of Rome or the Hijrah (immigration)
My main thing with this issue is the fact that BCE/CE is secular, academic notation while it still acknowledges a religious event as the one point of human history important enough to split human history into two distinct eras. I say, either find an event that all academics can agree was important, and set that event as Year Zero for BCE/CE notation, or just go back to using the religious notation of BC/AD. That's what I like about the Holocene calendar. It sets Year Zero at an event that marked a monumental achievement which all people can appreciate as part of their history, while also maintaining relative consistency with Western religious calendars by simply adding exactly 10,000 years to the calendar date. For example, AD 2020 on the Gregorian calendar is 12020 HE (human era) on the Holocene calendar. Likewise, 11000 BC on the Gregorian calendar is 1000 BHE (before the human era) on the Holocene calendar
BC Before Civilization CE Civilization Era
Changing the term AD to CE and yet still basing the system's zero year on Jesus is mental.
That's my problem with changing it. If its BC and BCE then why should it be based on that certain date
@@nicholasrose8173 Precisely - the sheer arrogance of saying to the world "oh we are going to call this the "common era" but obviously it is based on a cultural/religious event that is of no important to, say, most Chinese or most Maori, etc. and is central to the development of our culture, but we are going to claim it is central to all cultures". It is like if the Japanese calendar kept all its dates the same and just changed its name to "the modern world calendar". Bizarre.
@@DavidSharpMSc exactly and it's not like the whole word uses AD/BC either many muslim nations will prob always use their calendar based around Mohammad and places like China use their own along with not using time zones. The calendar we use is based on a religious figure that like it or not is a major part of the bases of our culture
haha, yes well, next time someone starts hassling you to use "2019 CE", just politely inform them that actually the current year is "reiwa 1", and see what happens!
In the video he did say that Jesus’s birth date is disputed. So it might be that neither system is actually based around him.
Wow, did you suddenly learn Adobe After Effects? This video has a lot of nice animations and there is a very noticeable improvement in the general video editing quality here.
Probably through Skillshare.
I say BC and CE because BC is easier to say than BCE and CE because I actually know what it means
Pretty sure that's literally the only way you could possibly say it incorrectly
@@henryeaton8515 no, no. There is one other way. Use BCE and AD. I mean, its wrong for the same reason, but its still a different way of being wrong.
@@laurencefraser Even better, use BCE and Bc
In my language is pretty basically "Before count" "To count" to say before we started counting and now as we are counting (the years).
If you ask me this year is 27 AF (after formation) and "1991" is 1 BF (before formation) referring to Blink-182!
That’s funny AF
I usually use AD instead of CE because, despite it being the "Common Era," it's not as common as people make it out to be. There are still cultures which use different calendars with different epochs to our own. We use Anno Domini to distinguish it from other epochs, like Anno Mundi, Anno Hegiræ, and Anno Urbis Conditæ, among others.
Why do people care?
The "common era" is still based on Christianity. It's literally impossible to avoid the religious aspect of it. So it doesn't matter. You can't make this Politically Correct.
Why get salty if its said either way? The two term sets are interchangeable.
Christians are just looking for an excuse, they're salty AF that people are tired of bowing to them and can't handle that people in any way want to move away from their omnipotent sky-daddy, especially in the US.
If it doesn't matter, why are Jews pushing BCE so hard? Of course it matters. We are in a cultural war, and we either "get salty" fight back against the Jewish media or they destroy us.
You can use either, it doesn’t matter really. It’s just your choice both are correct. But in my school we use bc and ad. So yeah either is right. Great video by the way.
6:52 why is the ם so long?
The what?
The letter used to represent /m/ at the end of words.
Tom Peled it’s just a calligraphic style that’s very common among ancient Hebrew writings
There is a perfectly viable solution to this, called negative and positive numbers. I find it way easier to understand the year "-100" than "100 BC"
This doesn't really solve the problem if we want inclusivity because even in the +/- system, we will still have to use the birth of Jesus as the demarcation point between + and -.
@@noahdominicsilvio2472 That's entirely fine, I just like the simplicity of +/-.
the only person i've seen so far that uses -/+ is bill wurtz but ngl is pretty genius
We here say Old Era and New Era
I wear new era hats.
Next video you can talk about BP/AP (before Present and after) used mostly my the archaeological community.
And, also, how to pronounce Latin: an-no dohmeenee, the I sounds always the same (lile in big) and the double letters are... well... two letters.
I think that BCE / CE is good to teach with in public schools as it feels less ‘political’ but students should also know about BC/AD to understand the origin and the meaning behind the dates and how we record history in the way we do
Except, of course, that the issue only becomes political at all when someone decides they don't like the existing arrangement. The status quo may or may not be a matter of politics (apathy or contentment are equally or more likely to be driving factors), but change (especially enforced change) is Always political.
I'll give you another two good reasons to keep using BC and AD.
1. Before watching this video I really didn't know what BCE and CE meant or stood for.
This may have something to do with the second VERY good reason to stick with BC and AD
2. BCE and CE are abreviations of English terms!! I've been living in France for 20 years and hardly anyone you'd ask would know what these terms mean HOWEVER EVERYONE would know the term AD which is a Latin derived term. I'd say this would be the case in nearly all non English speaking places.
SO to stay truly international (and understood for that matter) KEEP USING AD ;).
Makes sense but as an American jew I didn't know what AD meant or what it was derived from for a LOOOOONNNG time. Anyways, for me it makes sense to use BCE/CE
@@blaki0108 I bet it does rabbi, talmud has alot to say about christ and goys in general
What about BZ and AZ, for Before Zero and After Zero, referring to the zeroth year, i.e. the year before AD 1
It really does not exist
Yeah, but all we have to do is shift BC back one year to make a year zero, so 12 BC becomes 11 BZ, and AD and AZ are the same. Or Zero could just refer to a singlular point in time, like the first second of the first year, or something like that.
@@Mr.D.C. Shifting every BC year by one would be an overly confusing and error-prone change. AZ/BZ could be a neat format though if you just say zeroth time instead of zero year. That way it refers to the same instantaneous switching point that AD/BC and CE/BCE has. Then again at that point, it's just a different way of saying the other two and doesn't really have any distinction from CE/BCE.
I'm really surprised no one mentions the possibility of - and + as a viable solution. That's what we already do for temperatures! However, why not, considering the calender we use has missing years anyway... Although I feel like it still adds unnecessary letters we could suppress all together!
@@Radiorobot1, But no one knew in ancient times that they were living in the time before Jesus Christ and just used their own systems instead. So it won't be that confusing to have to shift every BC year by one even though no one knew they were living in it.
It'll be easy to adopt pair of two digit acronyms. Similar to AM/PM (time), AC/DC (electricity), AM/FM (radio), etc.
So BCE/CE cause the last letter in all those acronym pairs is the same...
In German, there is a similar thing going on but hardly anyone uses the non-christian version. We either have a v. Chr/n. Chr (vor Christus/nach Christus) system and the non-religious v. u. Z / d. Z. (vor unserer Zeitrechnung/der Zeitrechnung) which was as far as I know mostly used in East Germany for obvious reasons. However, we tend to leave the letters away if were talking about AD-years except if we're talking about e. g. emperor Augustus (reigned from 11 BC to AD 14). We even tend to leave away the letters if it's clear from context that we're talking about BC-years, in Ancient Greek class we just say the numbers and everyone knows that the year numbers count backwards.
in my language we just use for example -1200 when we talk about years before our calender
Hunter Rodrigez
Reference point for the calendar?
Don't tell me it's AD otherwise your calendar is fake (sarcastic, duh)
CE/BCE is just the secular version of BC/AD. Many cultures have their own calendar and it's fine to make a universal one, but don't erase a cultural calendar to do it.
But noone is telling anyone to stop using BC/AD. This is simply debating whether it should be standard.
@@anders9748 oh no, plenty of people do just that. It's where half the arguments start. (The other half, of course, the same issue from the other direction)... With some small margin for error, of course.
Indonesia use SM (Sebelum Masehi, mean. Before Messiah) and M (Masehi, mean. Messiah). "After" in out language is "sesudah", which would be confusing to abbreviate.
Ty for clearing that up for me
As a non native english speaker I prefer BC/AD sicne anno domini is more of an international term (can be seen on old buildings for example). I actually hadn't even heard about BCE/CE before this video.
@deeiks12 What country are you from?
Lmao. It's in no way international. Outside the Western world it is not used, and in the modern Western world most modern textbooks, scientific papers, academia in general, wikipedia and governments use BCE/CE.
@@marcusbierman5310 Estonia.
@@asdsdjfasdjxajiosdqw8791I said it is _more_ international, which it IMO is. Understanding BCE means you have to know the meaning in English, but understand AD is at least in my opinion a bit more intuitive because as I said at least in Europe you can see the phrase written all over the place.
asdsdjf asdjxajiosdqw
I’m pretty sure Asian countries wouldn’t use an English term for their dates. Many historic European text contains BC/AD as well as early North and South American colonial buildings.
I always thought BCE was Before Christ Existence and CE was Christ Existence :/
@Emir Mohamed Al-Bergha My man
Thank you for very educational video
Who's for converting it all to the Chinese calendar? There's only 12 years to remember there (although knowing me I'd still be writing "Monkey" on my checks when we're already two months into the Year of the Rooster). : /
When I was learning my history from empire earth, whenever I saw BCE or BC, I just added a minus in front of the year, and called 3000 BC just the year -3000. I think that is just a way nicer solution, however I can see the issue that as far as I know we didn't have AD 0 year, because we went from 1 BC to 1 AD. This is the reason the numberline is not that practical. I could be wrong about it though.
As someone who studied ancient history, I was frequently reading "the x-th year of the reign of King such-and-such." Since Jesus became "king of mankind," I noticed the system of kings and years eventually disappeared. Although Jesus is not my king, using AD/BC is a much simpler system, and I don't have a problem sticking to that. (As a side note, big thanks to all the people who somehow converted that old system to AD/BC.)
I have not been swayed from my long-held position that this whole debate is pointless and caring about it is stupid
_Poor me who wasn't born in a english contry so I had no Idea of the existence of BCE or CE_