Common Era

The Common Era (CE), also known as the Current Era and sometimes the Christian Era, is the period beginning with the year 1 onwards. The term is used for a system of reckoning years that is chronologically equivalent to the anno Domini (AD) (Latin for "in the year of Lord") system, but with less overt religious implications. Although common era was a term first used by some Christians in an age when Christianity was the common religion of the West, it is now a term preferred by some as a religiously neutral alternative. It has its equivalents in other languages. For example, Chinese uses its literal translation, g?ngyuán (??), for date notation.

Support

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

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Arguments given for standardizing common era notation include:

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• 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. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A3176345
• It has been largely used by academic and scientific communities for over a century now, and is not a completely unfamiliar dating system. http://www.answers.com/topic/common-era
• 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. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A3176345
• 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)