What's the real date?

Gramm838

Gramm838

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Since there are actually a lot of variations in what certain groups of people think the year is (i.e 2013 is a Christian date even though we use it across the world), does anyone want to take a guess at what the actual year is?

Should it be something like 11,000 plus, if the Sphinx was supposedly built before 9600BC or whatever?

If that's the case, then Star Trek happened in the past lol :cool:
 
I have no first-hand evidence that the world existed before I was about three, so it seems obvious time should be measured from then.
 
Leaving the Sphinx to one side...

Recorded time (in terms of years) presumably started when... you've guessed it... someone decided to record the passage of years. The trouble is, while this may have happened more than once in the past, no current system of recording years from way back when has sufficient continuity to make it both believable and verifiable for use as a basis for the "real" date.

So we're stuck with the various systems we have at present, none of which stretch back convincingly to the beginnings of civilisation.
 
The Romans used to date time from the founding of the ity (753BC, I think).

Actually, Jesus was born between 4 and 6BC, because they got the initial dates slightly wrong (I think the calendar began a century or two after he died).

Quite happy to use the Christian calendar, but the Common Era nonsense irks me. It's not a year determined by a group of diverse people sitting round a campfire, holding hands and singing folk songs, it's determined by the (approximate) birth of Jesus.
 
thaddeus6th said:
the Common Era nonsense irks me.
Click to expand...

I know, it's pathetically superficial, because as soon as you ask "what determines Common Era?" you're straight back to the supposed birth of Christ again. It's a nonsensically flimsy disguise. And anyway, using a dating system based on a supposed event does not imply belief that such an event actually took place or was important if it did, so I can't see that it genuinely benefits anyone except a few hand-wringers bleating woe-is-me about western cultural dominance -- which this flippant rebranding does nothing to affect whatsoever.
 
The Americans could decide that the real date is 237 (since the declaration of independence).

The Scots could decide it's 1170 (Since Kenneth Mac Alpin united the Picts and Scots, and founded modern Scotland).

The UK could decide it's 410 (since James VI of Scots became James I of the UK).

The Jews and Japanese have their own calendars.

As to the age of the human race, there are a couple of wild theories, but nothing concrete.

The real date is what people say it is, and most of us are happy with the flawed, but familiar AD/BC (BCE and CE is a bunch of pratts arguing over semantics) - making it as real as anything else.
 
Oi, Ace! England is conspicuously absent from your list!

Admittedly, we don't have precise dates for our founding as it happened in the Dark Ages, but 500AD could work.
 
Karn Maeshalanadae said:
Well, Gramm, Earth is estimated to be something around four billion years old, and the Big Bang is estimated to have happened some thirteen billion years ago, so...yeah...
Click to expand...

Ahem! The Earth is 4 and a half billion years old. And the Universe is 13.798 billion years old. Such sloppiness will not be tolerated Karn! :D

As for the current date, well logic suggests that year one was the birth of the planet. I mean, why be so homocentric as to think humans are the only calendar to go by?

So the year is, and you may quote me on this, 4,500,000,189.

p.s. Pointless trivia. When one puts in "how old" in the Yahoo search engine, the top auto suggestion of what you are looking for is "How old is Demi Moore". This must be on the minds of a great many people!
 
Gordian Knot said:
When one puts in "how old" in the Yahoo search engine, the top auto suggestion of what you are looking for is "How old is Demi Moore". This must be on the minds of a great many people!
Click to expand...

Google's top auto-suggestion is "how old am i". My first reaction was how stupid that was, to think Google would know how old you were. Then again, given how much information Google collects on us, I guess they're as likely to know as anyone.
 
thaddeus6th said:
The Romans used to date time from the founding of the ity (753BC, I think).

Actually, Jesus was born between 4 and 6BC, because they got the initial dates slightly wrong (I think the calendar began a century or two after he died).

Quite happy to use the Christian calendar, but the Common Era nonsense irks me. It's not a year determined by a group of diverse people sitting round a campfire, holding hands and singing folk songs, it's determined by the (approximate) birth of Jesus.
Click to expand...

But,as is most likely, he's a fictional character, what then?
 
thaddeus6th said:
Oi, Ace! England is conspicuously absent from your list!

Admittedly, we don't have precise dates for our founding as it happened in the Dark Ages, but 500AD could work.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't it be 938, when Aethelstan defeated the Norse for the last time and united pretty much the whole of what became Angleland (England)?
 
Sounds like a pretty accurate forecast :)

[NB Yes, I know it's only Northern Ireland currently, but a century or so ago the UK included all of Ireland].
 
Gordian Knot said:
Ahem! The Earth is 4 and a half billion years old. And the Universe is 13.798 billion years old. Such sloppiness will not be tolerated Karn! :D

As for the current date, well logic suggests that year one was the birth of the planet. I mean, why be so homocentric as to think humans are the only calendar to go by?

So the year is, and you may quote me on this, 4,500,000,189.

p.s. Pointless trivia. When one puts in "how old" in the Yahoo search engine, the top auto suggestion of what you are looking for is "How old is Demi Moore". This must be on the minds of a great many people!
Click to expand...


Which is why I used those rough estimates. ;)
 
thaddeus6th said:
Sounds like a pretty accurate forecast :)

[NB Yes, I know it's only Northern Ireland currently, but a century or so ago the UK included all of Ireland].
Click to expand...


He would've sh*t himself if he found out that a Scot was responsible, though, or that the present Queen (another nightmare for him) has her bum on the throne, due to her descent from King Robert I who was, errrrrm, a Scot (this is getting monotonous :p).
 
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