Talk:Smythe's Megalith

BC or BCE
At the invitation to open a discussion as to why change (from BCE) per one of the edit summaries - here it is. Not many people in the UK are familiar with BCE, so that in itself is a good enough reason to change. Silas Stoat (talk) 13:33, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * See MOS:BCE. For good or ill, this article has used the (increasingly common) BCE/CE system and should not be changed without a Talk Page consensus. Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:11, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * And that is the purpose of this discussion. I've stated my reason above, now if we get a consensus to change then we can do so. Silas Stoat (talk) 18:07, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Just pulling from the BCE article, "In 2002, England and Wales introduced the BCE/CE notation system into the official school curriculum." Also either way, I feel like that's probably not enough reason to change it. BCE/CE are pretty self explanatory even if you don't immediately recognize them. Norvianii (talk) 18:15, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * It might be worth a link to the BCE article from the first appearance beneath the lead though. Unless the MOS says not to.
 * Fantastic article btw. Great job done here. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:31, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The article does indeed make that assertion, backed by a reference. However, it seems like the idea maybe didn't take off. See this and look at any of the example examination papers. I didn't check them all, but the ones I did check were all using BC/AD. Incidentally, the Evening Standard article used as a source has some excellent comments, many of which neatly summarise reasons for not adopting this PC notation. Silas Stoat (talk) 21:00, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Comments such as "if it weren't a rule then the whole regiment of antichrist would not work. If you do not believe in the end times, you better now, beacuse the end times are comming. If you don't believe in the antichrist then you will be doomed. - God bless you!"? Now I appreciate I'm picking out a particularly bizarre example here, but it nicely underscores my point that we probably shouldn't be basing our decisions (in whole or part) on the online comments of a web article from a decade ago. More broadly, I would take this opportunity to defend the BCE/CE terminology: it's been in use for centuries; its the norm in many scholarly fields; its very popular in areas of the world where Christianity is not and has never been dominant; it doesn't entail making theological assumptions about the divinity of Jesus; and it is growing in usage all the time. Chances are, in a century or two it will only be historians who will know what "BC" and "AD" even mean. As far as I can tell, the only reasons people raise for retaining the Christian system are that a) Christian norms should be upheld throughout society because Christianity is the one, true religion and deserves global promotion, and b) changing BC/AD for BCE/CE represents some form of nefarious or sinister "political correctness" imposed on the unwilling majority by lefty do-gooders and for that reason alone must be resisted. To my mind, those aren't really compelling arguments. Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:45, 6 June 2019 (UTC)