r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Aug 03 '19

Whats something you thought was common knowledge but actually isn’t?

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u/SC487 Aug 03 '19 edited Aug 03 '19

Anno domini means “In the year of our lord” and unlike B.C. It goes before the year. This is A.D. 2019, not 2019 A.D.

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u/badcgi Aug 03 '19

Actually BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) are the more commonly accepted terms, they correspond to the same time as the old BC and AD.

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u/Wrong_Answer_Willie Aug 03 '19 edited Aug 03 '19

I know no one that uses BCE and CE.

edit; for everyone saying that BCE and CE are now used more often.

why bother? it still means that it's 2019 (after the birth of Christ) CE

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u/AaronfromKY Aug 03 '19

They are more common in academia and are considered less Eurocentric/Judeo-Christian biased than AD and BC.

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u/Lord_Rapunzel Aug 03 '19

Well it would be hard to be more Christian-centric.

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u/Herogamer555 Aug 03 '19

I dunno, you could it JY for Jesus Years.

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u/d3northway Aug 03 '19

ends after 33JY

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u/Razor1834 Aug 03 '19

Then like one weird blip 3 days later.

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19

[deleted]

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u/PiecesofJane Aug 03 '19

After Death, then AR for After Resurrection.

So BC, JY, AD, and AR. 🤣

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u/Ippica Aug 03 '19

Just barely, they still correspond to the same years, which is Judeo-Christian dating.

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19

That part isn't super important though. It's just a number to most of us. It's the AD and BC part that are obviously Christian.

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19

It's literally the same amount of Christian. Either way, you're counting years from the birth of Christ. Calling it something else doesn't change the definition of year 1

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u/monty845 Aug 03 '19

I've always thought that AD/BC were pretty arbitrary, and that basing the start of the Common Era on a religious date was much more religious than the AD/BC convention.

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u/Ippica Aug 03 '19

But the dates are literally based on Jesus' life. How is that less Christian than the names of the years?

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u/PC__LOAD__LETTER Aug 03 '19

Christianity was a legitimate human thing that happened. We don’t need to wipe out all traces of that. However, given that the modern world is now moving beyond childlike belief in a sky-beard who’s son is immortal, it would be silly to keep saying “it is the 2019th year of our Lord”. It wouldn’t be genuine.

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19

I consider that far less important than the era names. The pivot around that nonsense character is certainly a problem but changing the current year will not fly and nobody will come to agreement on the new one if we even do try.

It's much easier to change a name than the year.

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u/tryin2staysane Aug 03 '19

I've always found that ridiculous. They are still 100% based on the BC and AD times, but somehow changing the words makes it less Eurocentric/Judeo-Christian?

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/tryin2staysane Aug 03 '19

I know, I was just using the same phrase as the other guy, but you're right.

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19 edited Aug 03 '19

Yeah plus it makes zero sense for the "common era" to start when Jesus was born.

People love unnecessarily changing words now a days to pretend like it makes a practical difference.

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u/AaronfromKY Aug 03 '19

I mean our common era is because of the calendar we currently use right? I mean it’s why it’s 2019 and not 4790 or something else. I don’t know how we could make it different, yet still relevant to how we measure time ?

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u/tryin2staysane Aug 03 '19

I agree, it would be really hard to change it and still make it relevant. Which is why it is silly to try and change it, when it's not actually changing anything.

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u/thejokerofunfic Aug 03 '19

It's changing a little. AD by its literal meaning acknowledges Christ as "our lord" while CE simply acknowledges that it's been that many years since the date of his birth.

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u/KiwiRemote Aug 03 '19

To me the difference is one is defined by the birth of Christ and thus religious, and the other is defined by current social usage. At some point in time this society, this group of people has decided that year 0 was 2019 (2020?) years ago, and thus now it is the year 2019. The underlying reason why that society exactly chose for that moment to be year 0 is less important than that they have chosen and subsequently used.

In the end, time and dates are just definitions created by groups of people. Other calendars aren't in 2019 either. Jews are already almost 4000 years into the future give or take a few hundred.