The Common Era

Can writers, academics, and other nitwits please stop using the abbreviations "C.E" (for common era) and the even dumber "B.C.E" (before the common era)? You think you sound more intelligent or enlightened for using these terms instead of A.D. (Anno Domini, "the year of our Lord") or B.C. (before Christ), respectively, but it's actually quite childish.

I realize that acknowledging the importance of the birth of Christ hurts your multicultural soul or scientific mind. Or, for that matter, even acknowledging the importance of Christianity in western culture is like receiving a 3 lb splinter in your neck. So do you think that basing your dating system on the Incarnation of the Lord but pretending it's not based on said event is any better?

Look, if you hate Christ, Christians, and western culture so much, then just stop using His birth (or whatever approximation of it we base our system on) as a dating reference point. Maybe you'd prefer to base your dates off the publishing of The Origin of Species, or Das Kapital. I say, go for it. You'll be happier and I'll be happier. I won't know what year you are referring to, but at least we'll all be happy.

Or you can grow up and use the system the rest of the world uses, while acknowledging its basis. It's OK - No one will believe you are a closet Christian, or that you don't hate capitalism or religious people or America or whatever.

And, yes, I know the system is actually off by a few years on the actual event (or so historians currently believe). And yet somehow I still manage to get by and use it, and still properly refer the to eras as B.C. and A.D.