Friday, June 15, 2007

B.C. Not P.C.


At my new job I am the newest employee there. So everyone has more of a say in what we listen to during our work than I do. Every once in a while I get to listen to what I want. Most of the time we listen to thrashing heavy metal or talk radio. Not a big fan of metal so I don't complain much when it is a talk radio day. Well while going about my work one day something caught my attention. It said that many departments of education, mostly in Europe but around the world and even in the united states, are pushing to change the term B.C. to B.C.E. in history books and on government documents. B.C. of course meaning Before Christ. B.C.E. Meaning Before Common Era. They also want to change A.D. to C.E. A.D. Meaning Anno Domini which is Latin for "In the year of our lord." And C.E. of course meaning Current Era. I found an article talking about the same thing. I am including it. I have bold the part which I thought made a great point.


In what's perceived as a case of political correctness trumping history and everyday usage, students in Australia are now seeing the calendar term B.C. – which stands for "Before Christ" – being replaced with BCE, meaning "Before Common Era."

"This is political correctness gone mad," Shadow Education Minister Jillian Skinner told the Sydney Daily Telegraph. "You ask the average mum and dad out there how they refer to time and calendars, they will use Before Christ [B.C.]."


The change by the Department of Education was first noticed during this week's English Language and Literacy Assessment test, as 157,000 students in New South Wales were presented with the new term.

A history portion of the test described an ancient flooding problem this way:

"A government surveyor stood beside the Nile River looking worried. Beside him stood his assistants, carrying his equipment. The year was 590 BCE."

A footnote was included to explain to students that BCE means "Before Common Era" (also known as B.C.).

"This is a case of history being rewritten and abandonment of the use of a calendar which has been around for centuries on the basis that the term might offend someone," Skinner told the paper.

She says she's spoken to parents and other educators who are extremely angry over the move.

The headline in the Telegraph declares: "'Mad' bureaucrats censor Jesus Christ."

"They probably replaced an imagined potential controversy – the use of the term B.C. – with a real one," Steven O'Doherty of Christian Schools Australia told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "The fact that they've taken it away has now generated the very controversy they may have been hoping to avoid."

While B.C. is used in normal language as a historical and scientific chronology guide, BCE is often footnoted in international academic, scientific and museum contexts.

New South Wales Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt admits her department changed B.C. to BCE, but says it was done without her consent.

"The point I've made to the department is that both terms are in usage," Tebbutt told ABC. "I'm completely comfortable with that. But if a text actually has B.C. in it, then we should be leaving it as B.C. We shouldn't be changing it to BCE."

The case is reminiscent of a December 2002 controversy in North America.

As WorldNetDaily reported, the Canadian museum displaying an ancient box purported to be the ossuary of Jesus' brother James was no longer using the Christian designations of B.C. and A.D. to mark the calendar, opting instead for more "modern and palatable" terms.

After a long internal debate, the Royal Ontario Museum decided to change "anno Domini" – Latin for "in the year of our Lord" – to C.E., referring to the "Common Era." It also shelved B.C. in favor of BCE.

Well I am going to take a purely historical standpoint on this one. Million s of people do not accept Jesus as Christ. But Most of those people accept him as a Historical Figure. Lets pretend that the bible isn't full of things that he did. He is a historical figure and obviously he must have done some pretty important or influential things in order for people to want to make a calender, in which the focal point was the birth of Jesus and extended forward and backward from that point. Not to mention that calender is called the Gregorian Calendar which is the most widely used calendar in the world. They didn't just one day decide to pick a random day and base a calendar around it. No we counting to an event and from and event and that event is the birth of Jesus Christ. It isn't 2007 years since we decided to call this the Current Era. It is 2007 years since the birth of Jesus Christ. So in turn any time before that would have to be.....um...um.... Before Christ. Yeah I think that's what it is. Let take some of the People that are important to the united states and look at them. Christopher Columbus. He is the historical figure credited with discovering America. Some people refer to the time before Columbus as Pre-Columbian and the time after Post-Columbian. Well you know what? I don't accept Chris Columbus as anything other than a historical figure. So lets not say Pre and Post Columbian. Lets say Pre- that guy who thought the earth was round and really wasn't even looking for America he was looking for a good trade route to India and Post- that guy who thought the earth was round and really wasn't even looking for America he was looking for a good trade route to India. Or we could just cut the BS and give us BC not PC.