• JoesFrackinJack [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I was in like 11th grade some odd years ago when while waiting for the teacher to show up to class, some people were messing with a globe of the world. I'll never ever forget when this girl pointed to south america and called it Africa, even as it were clearly labeled. idk why I think about this sometimes, it's such a silly, small thing that doesn't really matter. But in that moment I was just thinking about how a person can go 15-17 years through life, still not know the difference between Africa and South America and also not even take a moment to actually read before pointing to it. It literally doesn't matter but it somehow has stuck with me for ages.

      • JoesFrackinJack [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        haha, I've also been in a junior college humanities class when someone took issue with the professor calling BCE, "Before Common Era" instead of "Before Christ."

        • Judge_Juche [she/her]
          ·
          edit-2
          4 years ago

          If the Establishment Clause means anything then schools should also have to start converting all years into Hijra years and years since Creation, if the Christians keep insisting on using BC/AD.

                • REallyN [she/her,they/them]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  tbh, I don't know the actual intricacies of how you make a calendar, but I've always liked the idea of separating history into eras instead of having a converging point. this runs into problems when you consider there wouldn't be a cleat start or end date for say the bronze age, or whatever else and that these things would change depending on where geographically and historically you are talking about.

          • JoesFrackinJack [he/him]
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            1
            ·
            4 years ago

            That's a valid point, but I also think at the same time it is rude to people who aren't subscribing to the idea that the world revolves around Christianity still. I don't think it's whitewashing as much as it is just letting go of an old tradition that can be phased out to be more inclusive to everyone. People can still call it, "before Christ" but I know just writing that has got to bother a lot more people than it does to just call it BCE.

              • Amorphous [any]
                ·
                4 years ago

                That said, bite the goddam bullet and change the origin point of the timeline.

                Or, you know. We could just not do that (people would literally be killed by angry christians if there were a serious movement to do so) and instead start referring to it as Common Era / Before Common Era instead of referring to the time period before this calendar starts as "Before Christ." You know, like people are already doing. Seems much simpler to me.

            • REallyN [she/her,they/them]
              ·
              4 years ago

              I mean it's a bit like Lady Antebellum changing their name to Lady A. Like...we all know what the A actually stands for still.