Common Era: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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Some oppose the Common Era notation for explicitly religious reasons. Because the BC/AD notation is based on the traditional year of the conception or birth of Jesus, some [[Christians]] are offended by the removal of the reference to him in era notation.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20061202/ai_n16891064|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012132926/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20061202/ai_n16891064|url-status=dead|archive-date=12 October 2007|last=Whitney|first=Susan|title=Altering history? Changes have some asking 'Before what?'|newspaper=The Deseret News|date=2 December 2006|quote=I find this attempt to restructure history offensive," Lori Weintz wrote, in a letter to National Geographic publishers.... The forward to your book says B.C. and A.D. were removed so as to 'not impose the standards of one culture on others.'...&nbsp;It's 2006 this year for anyone on Earth that is participating in day-to-day world commerce and communication. Two thousand six years since what? Most people know, regardless of their belief system, and aren't offended by a historical fact.|access-date=2011-05-18}}</ref> The [[Southern Baptist Convention]] supports retaining the BC/AD abbreviations.<ref name=SBC /> [[Roman Catholic]] priest and writer on interfaith issues [[Raimon Panikkar]] argued that the BCE/CE usage is the less inclusive option as, in his view, using the designation BCE/CE is a "return... to the most bigoted Christian colonialism" towards non-Christians, who do not necessarily consider the time period following the beginning of the calendar to be a "common era".<ref name=Panikkar>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9-vYAAAAMAAJ&q=Panikkar,+Raimon+(2004).+Christophany:+The+Fullness+of+Man.|last= Panikkar |first=Raimon |author-link=Raimon Panikkar |title=Christophany: The Fullness of Man |location=Maryville, NY |publisher=Orbis Books |year=2004 |page=173|quote=To call our age "the Common Era," even though for the Jews, the Chinese, the Tamil, the Muslims, and many others it is not a common era, constitutes the acme of colonialism.|access-date=2011-05-18|isbn=978-1-57075-564-4}}</ref>

There are also secular concerns. In 1993 the English -language expert [[Kenneth G. Wilson (author)|Kenneth G. Wilson]] speculated in his style guide that "if we do end by casting aside the AD/BC convention, almost certainly some will argue that we ought to cast aside as well the conventional numbering system [that is, the method of numbering years] itself, given its Christian basis."<ref name=Wilson /> The short-lived [[French Republican Calendar]], for example, began with the first year of the [[French First Republic]] and rejected the seven-day week (with its connections to the [[Book of Genesis]]) for a ten-day week.

== Conventions in style guides ==