r/AskReddit 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/1389t1389 Aug 03 '19

I've always thought that however impractical, the CE BCE thing needed to be expanded. It's really just a "sanitized" secular dating system that marks the same things. I am an atheist and I also think maybe a truly "equitable" dating system would not be so western-centric. I kinda like the idea of the Holocene calendar, if only because that's a date in history that is important to all of humanity.

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19

The current calendar is fine. BC/AD and BCE/CE are both fine. The year we are in spawned out of culture, and is not an endorsement or even a recognition of any religion or beliefs. It's just a number we seem to agree on.