[Aztlan] AD or CE?

[michael ruggeri]

Mario, AD means Anno Domino or "In the year of our Lord." CE means  
Common Era. Some folks believe that dating archaeological finds should  
be free of any religious designation and should be more scientific in  
its dating. Every culture has archaeologists and obviously, many of  
them are not Christian. So there should be a dating mechanism which is  
common to all people. CE or Common Era takes the religious term out of  
it and makes it more neutral.

BC means "Before Christ," and again, this makes sense for Christians  
but all archaeologists are not Christian in the world. So BCE means  
"before the common era," thus making it more neutral. Of course, we  
are still using Christ's birth to determine when the common era begins  
and what is before the common era. But at least, it does not sound as  
religious and it is not imposing Christian terminology on non- 
Christian archaeologists.

Mike Ruggeri


On Aug 21, 2009, at 7:12 PM, Mario F. Malo wrote:

> Recently Ive noticed people writing letters to Aztlan and more than  
> once they have posted different initials when writing a specific  
> date,  for instance one article put 450 AD while another put 450 CE,  
> what gives?   Mario Malo
>
>
>
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