Back when I were a callow young student of some fifty-seven summers, I was approached by a professor who wanted to chat with me about the paper I’d just submitted.
He/She* told me that I would have got an A+ for the paper, except that I’d committed the unpardonable offense of using B.C. and A.D. therein instead of (the stupid and unnecessary) B.C.E. and C.E. All I had to do was re-submit the paper with the terms changed, and I’d get my A+.
“What if I refuse to do that?” I asked.
“Then you’ll get a C,” was the response.
“Then give me the C,” was my response. “And then I’m going to appeal the grade, loudly, especially after you’ve just told me that my work is of A+ standard.”
“You’re refusing to change it?”
“Yes. And I’m expecting to see an A+ for it, too.”
“Why don’t you just change the terms?”
So I launched into an explanation that was more or less the same as the one that David Marcus published here., stressing, though even an atheist myself, I had to acknowledge the role of the Judeo-Christian influence on our history and culture. At the end of it, the professor seemed somewhat stunned by what I’d just said. And I happened to know that this professor, unusually, was actually quite conservative, just by observing the general tenor and terminology used in the lectures.
I ended up getting an A+ for the (unchanged) paper, and for all the rest of the papers** and exams in that professor’s course.
A small victory, perhaps, but for me an important one.
*used not because of their “chosen pronouns”, but because I prefer to keep their identity anonymous.
**For one paper, I got a 100% grade, because my argument was not only irrefutable, but the professor admitted later that it had caused them to rethink their whole position on the topic. Under those circumstances, clearly, the “BC/BCE” silliness was irrelevant.
Would the professor have dared challenge you if you’d used the Muslim dating system?
Or the Hebrew. LOL
Made me grin. Widely!
Bravo! Asking the prof “What event occurred at the switch from BCE to CE?” might have caused him or her to rethink their position.
It’s woke stupidity that has crept in over decades. Saw a program where officials had a prof out (and he looked just as one would expect) to verify some mosaics found in a storage place…he used CE and the Mrs asks, “What’s that?” Having little to do with academia I had to look it up…then said to her “Consider the source, these profs are so arrogant and demented they use made up “special codes” that affords stupidly rewriting history, including THE one event…he’s an idiot.”
BCE and CE are utterly foolish. we use BC and AD. It’s been that way for quite a while and does denote a significant date. CE and BCE should be tossed onto the ash heap of other failed ideas that today’s leftists embrace
Dear Woke Bastids:
Your stupidity is showing. Again!
While very few of us uneducated clods ever use BC or AD for anything these days, I’d bet we NEVER use BCE or CE. Of course, we don’t have that driving need to show the world that we’re educated! For us, life goes on quite well without such snobbery. It’s like when the TV Weather Heads try to call our local dust storms “haboobs”. We Desert Rats have a good laugh, then go round up the patio furniture that blew down the block.
Just tell him (“him” being the default third-person singular pronoun to use when the sex of the individual is unknown or unstated) that the “C” in CE/BCE stands for Christian. Who else uses that calendar? Jews? Nope. Muzzies? Nope. Chicoms? Nope. Just the Christian West and those parts of the world colonized thereby. (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about any of that)
And I, too, am an atheist who respects my cultural history and recognizes the contributions of Christianity thereunto.