BC/AD

Here's a question about time to start the new year.

I received this question in my e-mail a while back.

"OK, think about this.....The politically correct terms now are CE (Common Era) and BCE )Before Common Era. I know it was done to get Christ's name out of it, but if the time is the same and 1 CE was at His birth what was accomplished by the change. We are still acknowledging Him, right? Or am I missing something? (worth discussing on your website? or am I the only one
"not getting it"??)"

There does seem to be a trend among the academic circles to change the method for numbering
the years from B.C..  (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini i.e. "The Year of Our Lord") to the less religious B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era.)

One thing to remember is that the numbering of the years is completely arbitrary. Instead of using
the birth of Christ as a reference point, any event in history could have been used. For example, the Hebrew calendar bases its number on the years since creation, making this year 5768. The early church did not originally use the current system either.  It was not invented until the sixth century. Most early Christians continued to use the calendars of their particular cultures.

Arguments in favor of changing are usually based on the idea of religious neutrality. "How would Christians like it," they ask, " if the years were numbered since the birth of Buddha?" People who
work with others of many cultures and religions prefer the new system because it supposedly eliminates cultural bias. However, this does not change the fact that the years are still numbered from the supposed year of Christ's birth. (He was actually born around 4 B.C. There was an error in the in the initial calculations.) When future schoolchildren question the origin of the calendar, the secularists would still have to admit that the turning point from BCE to CE was based on the birth of Jesus.

Actually the fact that this is how the years are numbered actually attests to the fact of Christianity. If Jesus wasn't anyone important then why would most of the world change their time system to honor him?

By the way, many people think that AD stands for "After Death" referring to the death of Christ. I always like to point out that if this is true then what about the years between his birth and death. AD actually stands for the Latin "Anno Domini (the year of the lord.)" That is A.D. 2014 (the A.D. should come first) means 2,014 years since the Lord came.