History is History

[God Conquers]

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com


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.


Royal Ontario Museum abandoned Christian dating system for James ossuary

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.

''A lot of people accept the reality of Jesus as a historical figure but don't accept him as Christ, and to use the words 'before Christ' is really quite ethnocentric of European Christians," Dan Rahimi, the museum's director of collections management told Canada's National Post. "And to use 'the year of our Lord' is also quite insensitive to huge populations in Toronto who have other lords."




What's cool here is that a priest friend of mine in the Legionaries has begun using BCE and CE... but in a slightly different way:

BCE: Before the Christian Era

CE: Christian Era

YES!

[Cathurian]

Christian Era and Before the Christian Era? That's GREAT

[azaelia]

Dumb people.

[1337 k4th0l1x0r]

Why don't they just call it the "not so common era?"

[Paladin D]

I think we should rename all the planets in our solar system, they're named after pagan gods!

[azaelia]

Stop using the Lord's name in vain...oooh there's a concept. If we're going to eradicate every semblance of Christianity from society, let's start with cursing. Watch them reason their way out of [b]that[/b] one.

[Carnanc]

we had to use BCE, and CE in AP World last year.

[Antonius]

You had to? What, the teacher would give you a bad grade? That sounds a little harsh.

[Paladin D]

[quote name='azaelia' date='Mar 4 2005, 09:48 PM'] Stop using the Lord's name in vain...oooh there's a concept. If we're going to eradicate every semblance of Christianity from society, let's start with cursing. Watch them reason their way out of [b]that[/b] one. [/quote]
[devil's advocate]

But that's freedom of speech, dear.

[/devil's advocate]


Sad isn't it?

[ForHimAlone]

Our Religion textbook refers to all dates as either C.E. and B.C.E.

[MC Just]

[quote name='ForHimAlone' date='Mar 5 2005, 08:55 AM'] Our Religion textbook refers to all dates as either C.E. and B.C.E. [/quote]
Ok Here's my thought on all this..

Christ made a Church that is suppose to convert the world, nations, races..etc...

But, It seems that the devil also has his own church converting the world right now.

In the names of: Secularism,(Atheism) Liberalism,(pretty much atheism too) Modernism, Hedonism, Americanism, (I like to call these "Garbageisms" )all the anti-catholic "isms" you can think of.

The Two clash and there can be no peace between the two. They are not going to stop until they change the world into a Eutopia of non-sense.(without God)

nice huh?

[God Conquers]

Use Before Chritsian Era and Christian Era.

It doesn't make sense... the year used to demarkate the two "eras" is still the birth of Jesus Christ.

History will FOREVER be divided by His life.

[Myles Domini]

Yup, thats what I do. Before Christian Era and Christian Era. Makes sense too since we cant decide when the Man Himself was born. Those secularists they've given us a nice English equivalent to BC and AD. We should thank them once we've converted them all

[God Conquers]

[quote name='Myles' date='Mar 5 2005, 11:49 AM'] Yup, thats what I do. Before Christian Era and Christian Era. Makes sense too since we cant decide when the Man Himself was born. Those secularists they've given us a nice English equivalent to BC and AD. We should thank them once we've converted them all [/quote]
hahaha so true.

[raptor13]

i say that we ditch January, February, March, etc since most of them are named after Roman gods and emperors. Its so ethnocentric. Someone might get offended.

Thermidor, anyone? ( only history geeks will get this reference )