posted
And I'd like to point out that in order to draw even that equivilence, Storm had to imply that people (including Christians) who use CE are professing that they don't love Jesus.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I don't see it the same way. She's behaving poorly and being nasty, again. You're trying to make a joke out of it.
I'm tired of having to put up with your clique's crap.
I think you're both reading each other as uncharitably as you possibly can. My joke as an attempt to diffuse the situation, which I would characterize as both of you being nasty* to each other.
As for the whole clique thing, I suppose that you could say that I belong to a clique, in that those of us who frequent sakeriver know each other better than we know many of the people over here, and generally consider each other to be friends. It's kind of an open clique, though, since all you need to do to join it is start posting at a forum with open membership.
In any case, you're wrong in thinking that my comment was motivated by my thinking of kat as being part of my group and you being other. I routinely make jokes, and it's not infrequent for me to use humor to diffuse (or attempt to diffuse) a situation in which two people that I like are tearing at each other. In addition, I don't think of you as being part of an out group. Though I've never emailed you and suggested it, I've often thought that it would be a positive thing if you were to become active at sake.
*I see in the preview pane, or whatever you'd call it, that you've said that you don't think that you've been unplesant in this thread. Take a look at your post in which you were responding to Kate Boots when you thought you were responding to kat. Your tone in that post definitely reads as hostile to me, and I don't think it would have been had you not thought you were addressing kat.
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posted
I'm not tearing at her. It kind of bothers me that you think that this is a superficial spat that is all better if you defuse it with a joke (along with the again equating out behavior). Consider if there were another poster who said something like "You're just wrong about this." and then was proven wrong soon after. Would you expect them to at least acknowledge this and quite possibly apologize? I would. In fact, there are plenty of non-kat examples of this from me. I also make it a point, when I say something wrong, to acknowledge it and apologize. I think this is important and helps keep a productive environment for conversation.
In the past, when kat's done this, she deleted the thread. Here, she ignored it and then responded with insults.
---
I looked but I can't find the post that you are referring to. If you could give me more to go on or link it, I can consider what you are saying.
I also did not say I wasn't being unpleasant. I'm aware that it is unpleasant to not back down when people are attacking you or behaving poorly. I said I wasn't being nasty and I really don't think that I was.
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Squick, you bully me. You verbally pick on me. You're generally nasty to me. I know you don't think you are, and I've despaired of convincing you of how much it hurts me. Since you think that your behavior is impeccable, I don't see any hope of the situation changing from your end. I would rather be nasty than put upon, and I'll defend myself because I have to.
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quote:Storm had to imply that people (including Christians) who use CE are professing that they don't love Jesus.
He had to assert the possibility that some people would interpret it that way. There are question marks after each such assertion, presumably for a reason.
quote:As I pointed out in my edit, people have been advancing differences that don't rely on feelings.
The "profession of another faith" is a feeling. Pix doesn't feel that way. Tom does.
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quote:the phrase as a profession does still exist.
As does Woden's day.
I'm not saying Conservapedia is right about this. I'm saying that the entire offense/negative feeling/whatever arises from someone choosing to interpret the use of the non-preferred system in a particular way.
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Squicky, I know you don't. Considering the considerable effort expended by me and others to convince you and your continued insistence that you are not, I have despaired of the effort. If you would like, you could be charitable and believe me. Or you could insist that you are doing nothing wrong, continuing with your present policies, and this terrible situation must continue.
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kat, I wasn't sure either what you meant when you said my comment made you think it was a "grudge issue". I figured it was just a dig, so I let it pass. Maybe some clarification as to what you meant would help.
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It was not a dig. I read your post as saying that Christians are in more need of apologizing for being the majority than other majorities, which is why I read it as a grudge issue. Since you intended to say, rather, that you think that Christianity means being more accomodating than otherwise, it wasn't.
I have to admit I still don't like it. Tapping on someone's religion as a way to persuade someone makes me very uncomfortable. However, I no longer believe you meant it as a grudge against Christians, as if their actions as a majority are inherently worse than any other majority's.
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No, it doesn't. There are objective differences between a live religion and a dead one.
But whether those differences matter is a subject of interpretation. I know Christians who reject "By Jove!" even though that is at least as dead as Norse pantheon worship.
It's clear that some people don't interpret as a profession of faith. Some do. In light of that, I don't understand how you can claim that the final decision about whether AD is appropriate is subjective.
For the record, I know of at least one Thor worshipper, at least serious enough that he forced a prison to accomodate his religious practice. (That's not to dispute your characterization of Norse pantheon worship as dead - I just thought it interesting.)
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: And I'd like to point out that in order to draw even that equivilence, Storm had to imply that people (including Christians) who use CE are professing that they don't love Jesus.
If you read my posts in their entirety, I think it's clear that I was saying that I *imagine* that that's the way people *might* feel if they use CE, and that is why they might object to using CE.
To me this seems clear, and I have a sneaking suspicion you are trying to straw man me, but I will lay it down to my fault and not expressing myself clearly.
You are ignoring some of what I wrote, I think.
Specifically,
quote: I think an equivalent question is why people care when someone uses 'AD'? What are they professing by letting other people use AD?
I think this speaks to edit: another part of the question of why or why not using both CE and AD in mixed settings is acceptable.
quote: To me, I have no idea why you think the things that you are saying make sense. I'm not saying that as an attack or anything. I jsut can't follow the thread of your thought. You seem to me to be jumping all over the place and the things you say don't make sense to me.
I have no idea what else to say. It seems pretty clear to me.
quote: The way I see it:
AD has a specific historic/religious/traditional value. For some it is a positive value; for others it is a negative value.
CE is value neutral.
It makes sense, to me, that in situations where you don't need the historical/religious/traditional value, one would use the value neutral CE. This seems to have made sense to most of academia as well.
It seems to me that Conservapedia has decided that CE has a negative value because it is "anti-AD".
Don't I get to fall into anybody's arms?
Squicky, you read my posts okay.
The problem is that what CE means *is* subjective. I've tried to illustrate why Christians might interpret it negatively in a couple of my posts.
To me, the issue is whether or not it is acceptable to use AD and CE in mixed settings, or whether CE should be used by everyone. This is what I've been arguing about.
quote: As I pointed out in my edit, people have been advancing differences that don't rely on feelings.
Like what?
quote: Me working on Sunday and someone harrassing me for working on Sunday aren't equivilent even if they both engender the same feelings.
I'm not clear on where you are going with this.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Thanks, kat, for the explaination. For the record, I wasn't trying to "tap" on your religion. Rather I was trying to explain what my religion asks of me. I think it would have been nice to have explained this when I asked earlier, but you are not under any obligation to do so.
Pix, honey, any time! (Do we have swooning emoticon?)
Dag, I can imagine how Christians might feel if expected to say, "By Jove" (in addition to silly). I would not be in favour of asking them to do that.
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quote:Dag, I can imagine how Christians might feel if expected to say, "By Jove" (in addition to silly). I would not be in favour of asking them to do that.
I'm not in favor of making anyone say A.D.
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posted
Storm, I think we maybe really missed each others meanings.
quote:that is why they might object to using CE
I thought we were talking about other people using CE. That's what the conservapedia people were upset about.
quote:I think this speaks to edit: another part of the question of why or why not using both CE and AD in mixed settings is acceptable.
I think there may be some misunderstanding here. I'm not talking about someone using AD in their personal scope, even when that scope is inside an interfaith context, but rather in the group context. That is, let's say there's an interfaith conference that publishes a report. I think it is impolite and inappropriate to use AD for the date.
quote:I've tried to illustrate why Christians might interpret it negatively in a couple of my posts.
Which, as far as I can tell is that they want everyone to use AD. I don't see that as legitimate.
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To me, the issue is whether or not it is acceptable to use AD and CE in mixed settings, or whether CE should be used by everyone. This is what I've been arguing about.
I would like to make a distinction between mixed settings where everyone is still writing their own stuff and collaborative works (like an encyclopedia) that have multiple authors. I think it's perfectly reasonable for the editors of a collaborative work to ask the authors to all use a single convention when it comes to labeling dates.
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quote:I think there may be some misunderstanding here. I'm not talking about someone using AD in their personal scope, even when that scope is inside an interfaith context, but rather in the group context. That is, let's say there's an interfaith conference that publishes a report. I think it is impolite and inappropriate to use AD for the date.
Thanks for the clarification. That definitely changes things.
I think in that case, it would be legitimate for everyone to use CE. (This is to both you and dkw.)
quote:I've tried to illustrate why Christians might interpret it negatively in a couple of my posts.
Which, as far as I can tell is that they want everyone to use AD. I don't see that as legitimate.
I am not arguing that anyone should use AD or CE on an individual basis. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I'm not tearing at her.
It reads like both of you are willfully misinterpreting each other's posts. If someone said that to me when I didn't feel like I'd been doing that, I'd want them to post examples of my doing so. I may go back through and do so later, but right now I'm trying to post a quick something before I leave work.
quote:It kind of bothers me that you think that this is a superficial spat that is all better if you defuse it with a joke (along with the again equating out behavior).
I think that you guys seriously dislike each other. Short of your joining sake, which would force the two of you to actually get to know each other well enough to see that the negative impressions you have of each other aren't the whole story, I don't see much chance of that changing. Given that, I thought I'd throw in a joke to try to diffuse the immediate situation. I didn't think that it was terribly likely to succeed, but hey, you never know.
quote:Consider if there were another poster who said something like "You're just wrong about this." and then was proven wrong soon after. Would you expect them to at least acknowledge this and quite possibly apologize? I would. In fact, there are plenty of non-kat examples of this from me. I also make it a point, when I say something wrong, to acknowledge it and apologize.
Of course I would. And kat's not doing so in this situation is something that I viewed as poor form on her part. You seem to think that I don't see any problem with the way kat is conducting herself in this thread, but you're wrong; I just don't have the impression that you're conducting yourself much better (note that I'm not saying that you're both behaving in exactly the same ways--you both have different styles of fighting dirty). It's possible that I'm wrong, and that my impression is colored by past interactions between the two of you. When I have more time I'll reread this thread and see if I can point out any examples to you.
quote:I looked but I can't find the post that you are referring to. If you could give me more to go on or link it, I can consider what you are saying.
Kate's post is the second from the top on the third page. Yours is directly below it. You aren't being a horrible jackass in your post, you do come off as somewhat hostile, and the second line seems to make it clear that you're confusing the two posters.
quote:I also did not say I wasn't being unpleasant. I'm aware that it is unpleasant to not back down when people are attacking you or behaving poorly. I said I wasn't being nasty and I really don't think that I was. [/QB]
I wasn't referring to your not backing down. Although I really don't look forward to it, I will make a point of going through this thread and seeing what examples I can turn up of your behaving poorly. It'll be later, though, and may even be tomorrow. And I should probably respond to Stormy before I do this, as I've been promising that I'd do so for days now.
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posted
I freely admit that it was rude to not respond to Squicky's request for an explanation. That was a deliberate choice as being the best for the situation as it is. I wasn't talking to him in the first place, didn't want to start, and I shouldn't have aknowledged his post in the first place. Once I did, the best I could was try to not engage further at all.
Man, I did try. Did you see how many times he had to post begging a response? I am trying to avoid the inevitable blowouts.
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posted
FWIW, I largely support the Squickster in this tiff. kat, if you didn't have largely unexplainable blowups with so many people here for the last 5 years or so, I'd take your side. Between your inexplicable behavior toward me in the past, and your weird oversensitiveness....Squick once posted this to you:
"Princess, you're going to have to deal with the fact that you don't actually give orders that people have to follow around here."
I sort of agree. I myself wouldn't have dignified the post he was responding to with a reply, but that's not my call.
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quote: I wasn't referring to your not backing down. Although I really don't look forward to it, I will make a point of going through this thread and seeing what examples I can turn up of your behaving poorly. It'll be later, though, and may even be tomorrow. And I should probably respond to Stormy before I do this, as I've been promising that I'd do so for days now.
Don't worry about it. Really. If it's something you want to do, do it. If not and you have better things to do, that's fine. I may very well respond by just saying 'Neat!'
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I don't have any problem with people using AD and BC on a personal level. But if it's something for general contributions, like a journal, it should have BCE/CE as a standard. Otherwise, it excludes people.
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It would never have occurred to me to consider insisting that someone else use CE instead of AD privately. That seems bizarre. I assumed we were speaking of formal public joint usage.
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I don't understand the whole problem with using CE instead of AD or backwards. What, to be politically correct? Give me a break, we're just confusing ourselves because after all every single textbook at every single public school I ever attended, used A.D. and you want to know something funny about that? I always thought it meant After Dead.
So what if our dating system has some religious background? It's not like everything in our society isn't somehow related to religion in some way.
The A and the D aren't in your face with a Bible saying stuff like, "You believe in the Lord, right? You believe? Oh! Hallelujah! Alabado sea el Senor!"
In fact, I didn't even know until now that there was such a thing as CE and BCE, and now that I think of it, they're still pointless because they all start at the same time which like it or not is linked to the Christian belief in Christ. Deal with it.
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I've heard enough arguments from the "This is a Christian nation" ilk to the effect that the Framers of the Constitution used "in the year of our lord" specifically to establish a Christian nation, so I know that there are those out there that use A.D. to rub non-Christians' noses in it.
That's not to say that the innocent use of a dating convention is intentionally offensive, especially within a religious context, as Dana notes. I don't have a problem with that. If you want to use A.D. that's fine with me.
The thing that I find offensive is the fundy claim that using C.E. is insulting to Christianity, when it's used by people for whom Anno Domini is simply meaningless. It's a great calendar. We use it because it works, regardless of where the zero point was set.
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: Don't worry about it. Really. If it's something you want to do, do it. If not and you have better things to do, that's fine. I may very well respond by just saying 'Neat!'
Cool. In that case, I'll probably post something eventually, or maybe email you (assuming your emailable through the forum; haven't checked). On the plus side, your asking me to go into more detail has spurred me to think more about this than I have in a long time, and to go on a Ken Wilber reading binge.
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"Somehow, I doubt your statement when, in fact, you are commenting on it right here. Way after the fact, you're commenting on it." No, my usual response to people acting afraid of me is to not interact directly with them.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: Don't worry about it. Really. If it's something you want to do, do it. If not and you have better things to do, that's fine. I may very well respond by just saying 'Neat!'
Cool. In that case, I'll probably post something eventually, or maybe email you (assuming your emailable through the forum; haven't checked). On the plus side, your asking me to go into more detail has spurred me to think more about this than I have in a long time, and to go on a Ken Wilber reading binge.
Just post something here. I'm sure everyone would like to read it. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
See, "deal with it" doesn't strike me as a particularly "Christian" response to someone who is being excluded.
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Me too. Up until about three years ago. I guess that's a testament to how much it doesn't matter to agnostics like me.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: See, "deal with it" doesn't strike me as a particularly "Christian" response to someone who is being excluded.
For one thing, I support removing "Under God" from the pledge of allegiance. I'm a very devout Christian. Oh yes, *goes back to her 'Hail Marys'*
Ahem, ahem. What I meant to say here is that even if it was Muslim, Buddhist, Taoist, or of Scientology, it wouldn't make a single difference.
Heck, most of the words in Spanish that start with Al- are from the word Allah. After all, the Moors were in Spain from 711 A.D. (in your face) to 1492 when they were kicked out along with the Jews. So what? I'm going to invent a new prefix just because AL isn't Christian enough? To hell with that, I just stick with what I have and deal with it. It's not beating my face with a Koran...
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quote:Originally posted by steven: "This is relevant to this conversation how, exactly?"--take it easy, guy. It isn't.
Because, it relates to the fact that people want to change something just because it's origins are not of their own belief/non-belief systems when it's not something that really makes that big of a difference and changing it would just confuse everyone for sake of political correctness.
EDIT: If those Spaniards and their inquisition could bear the AL in their words, why the hell can't we just deal with the AD?
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First off, I was heartily amused by the website's explicit self-profession of bias on its front page. Well, now Colbert has two sources for his information.
As for AD vs CE, the suggestion that the use of CE is "anti-Christian" is worth another laugh. And as has been pointed out, Jesus was most likely not born in 0 BCE/BC/AD/CE, which makes the indignation towards the use of a different acronym seem rather petty.
I use CE, but I don't consider it an important detail. I'd still be using a calendar of Christian origin. I'm okay with that; its become so standard, and in many cases detached from any religious origin. I treat 0 CE as a purely arbitrary zero point.
On the other hand, if there was a movement to change the calendar zero point to a different date celebrating something more inclusive of humanity and not dependant on a particular creed, I might support it. But I doubt there will be much interest in a change or any consensus on an appropriate date during my lifetime or that of my great great [...] great grandkids.
If it were up to me, I'd pick August 9, 1945. Then again, maybe that's my Pacific bias speaking. And we might have to change the calendar again if another bomb was dropped. Obviously the switch-over would come at a spectacularly inconvenient time.
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My favorite line is: Pirate Brotherhood of Treehouse Hill, There are lots and LOTS of idiots to kill. Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I think she's not referring to the word "al" which is a contraction, but to the prefix "al-" as in "algebra."
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I'm slow so I'm going back a couple pages to address something...
quote:How about this, we change to CE because we can and because it's kind/
I don't think it is kind to give people the idea that they have right to expect others to change for them whenever they get offended by something. It would be much more kind to get them to understand that they are much better served if they only get offended by things that merit it.
There is a larger problem here. In truth, the difference between C.E. and A.D. is mostly irrelevant. But the larger problem is the misbelief that one can be offended by whatever one wants and that the offender has a duty to change their ways to accomodate you. This is a problematic attitude, not just because it makes other people mad when you expect them to change just because you personally find something they are doing offensive, but also because it makes yourself needlessly unhappy. There is no legitimate reason why anyone should be bothered or made unhappy by the usage of something like A.D. or C.E. There are plenty of valid reasons people become unhappy in life; there is no good reason to add unimportant issues like these to the list. It is better to be happy. Yet the "I have a right to be offended" attitude fosters almost exclusively anger and unhappiness.
Thus the truly kind thing to do would be to make it clear to people that they do NOT have a right to be offended - that they do NOT have a right to expect people to change if they get offended by something - and that they should NOT be offended by things that aren't actually harmful in any significant way. And the way to do that, in this case, is to let people use whichever of the two abbreviations they want to mark A.D. or C.E., to not make anyone change one way or another, and to recognize that it really doesn't make much difference whatsoever. Perhaps this is something that needs to be taught to children, that adults are no longer capable of learning - but I'm inclined to believe they are capable, if we as a society hold people to that standard.
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Me too. Up until about three years ago. I guess that's a testament to how much it doesn't matter to agnostics like me.
Out of curiosity, how did you two think the years during which Jesus was alive were referenced?
Yeah, I used to think about that, but then I'd remember that I don't care that much and I know what year it is, so :shrug:
Edit: or you could just substitute that with something snarky refering to how I don't necessarily believe the Jesus was ever alive, so the question didn't seem important.
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