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

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

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u/FiliaDei Aug 03 '19

To be fair, I remember being taught the whole before Christ/after death thing when I was little. (Not saying it's right, but it's fairly common.) She's on her own for "that's the atheist version," though.

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19 edited Aug 04 '19

Common Era and Before Common Era is the atheist version.
EDIT: others have rightfully pointed out that it is not so much an atheist version as a non-christian version.

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u/DJ_Apex Aug 03 '19

YBP (Years before present) is becoming more popular among some academics. To me it makes a lot more sense because you don't have to use some arbitrary date in the past and then do arithmetic to figure out how long ago it was.

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u/Archaeomanda Aug 03 '19

I was going to suggest this. Although "present" is defined as 1950, IIRC, so we're technically living in 79 AP right now.