Re: BC/BCE

["Mark L. Levinson" <mark -at- MEMCO -dot- CO -dot- IL>]

Arlen (& others), as a non-Christian I'm bothered not so much by
the Christian significance of the baseline date as by the Christian
allegiance implied by the abbreviations.

BC doesn't mean just "before the once-accepted date of Jesus'
birth," it means "before Christ," i.e. before the Messiah.
(Christ wasn't his family name, you know.)

AD doesn't mean just "after the once-accepted date of Jesus'
birth," it means "anno domini," i.e. the year of the Lord.

Since I'm not a Christian, this is not the 1997th year of the
Lord in my personal opinion, nor in my personal opinion was the
year -1997 the 1997th year before the Messiah.  And since
religion is rather a matter of conscience, I think it's
wrong to expect me to declare years in that fashion.

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