User:JimWae/CE

Competing substitutions
CE notation is not the only notation being proposed to replace AD/BC. Astronomical notation and the similar ISO8601(?) notation also do not use religious terminolgy for year eras. Both of those include a year zero, which is the same year as 1 BCE, and both use the traditional year for the birth of Jesus as the marker for the era. The year numbering in these two systems is identical for years CE, but yers given as BCE, need to have 1 aded to them to convert to either of these two systems. Thus 4BCE becomes the year -0003. If either of these two systems were to prevail, books that contain dates BCE would need to be revised.

Following the French Revolution, a... Other candidates for era markers are ... All of these systems would necessitate year conversions in books, not only for years BCE, but also for all years CE

Support
Supporters of common era notation promote it as a religiously neutral notation suited for cross-cultural use.

Arguments given for standardizing common era notation include:
 * The calendar used by the West has become a global standard — one built into every computer's hardware. It should be religiously and culturally neutral out of consideration for those cultures compelled to use it out of necessity.
 * It has been largely used by academic and scientific communities for over a century now, and is not a completely unfamiliar dating system.
 * Dating years according to Christian theology has the potential to be culturally divisive in worldwide use. Dating months and days based on Roman and Norse gods, however, is of little concern because the Roman and Norse religions are virtually extinct, and because the names can just as easily be seen as coming from the names of the planets and other celestial objects. People in other cultures are free to name the months and days of the week as they wish in their own language, but years are just numbers and it is quite easy to make them less overtly culturally specific.
 * It promotes ecumenical standards and Christian Era is an interchangeable meaning for the acronym CE.
 * It is simple to change BC/AD to BCE/CE terminology, since the years are exactly equal, regardless of which terminology is used. No conversion of the numbers is required. Documents with years that do not have AD designation do not need to be changed. (example:  1066 remains 1066 in AD and in CE systems)
 * The label Anno Domini is likely inaccurate because Christ's birth probably occurred no later than 4 BC, the year of Herod the Great's death.
 * It avoids confusion over whether "AD" should come before or after the year. (This is important for the in-house manuals of style of periodicals.)
 * Stylistic rules which require that AD precede the year are justified by saying that "In the year of our Lord 2005" is correct syntax, and "2005 in the year of our Lord" is incorrect. Such statements belie the claim that AD has lost its religious meaning.
 * The intensity with which some Christians protest any switch from BC/AD to BCE/CE indicates that, despite any claims to the contrary, BC/AD has not become "removed from its religious connotations".