# What's the real date?



## Gramm838 (Aug 20, 2013)

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


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## HareBrain (Aug 20, 2013)

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.


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## Ursa major (Aug 20, 2013)

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.


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## svalbard (Aug 20, 2013)

According to the calendar on my wall it is...


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## thaddeus6th (Aug 20, 2013)

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.


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## HareBrain (Aug 20, 2013)

thaddeus6th said:


> the Common Era nonsense irks me.



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.


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Aug 20, 2013)

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...


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## The Ace (Aug 20, 2013)

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.


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## thaddeus6th (Aug 20, 2013)

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.


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## The Ace (Aug 20, 2013)

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.




Of course it is !  What happens south of the Tweed/Solway line is (rightly) none of my concern.


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## Gordian Knot (Aug 21, 2013)

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...



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! 

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!


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## HareBrain (Aug 21, 2013)

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!



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.


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## Gordian Knot (Aug 21, 2013)

The single top reason I don't use Google!


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## Ursa major (Aug 21, 2013)

How old is a whole Moore?


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## Gramm838 (Aug 21, 2013)

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.



But,as is most likely, he's a fictional character, what then?


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## Gramm838 (Aug 21, 2013)

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.



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)?


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## The Ace (Aug 21, 2013)

Gramm838 said:


> 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)?




Naah ! The idiot claimed Scotland, Wales and Ireland as well.


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## thaddeus6th (Aug 21, 2013)

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].


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Aug 22, 2013)

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!
> 
> 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?
> 
> ...




Which is why I used those rough estimates.


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## The Ace (Aug 22, 2013)

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].




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 ).


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## Ursa major (Aug 22, 2013)

I'm beginning to wonder whether I give a fig about the real date.


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## Huttman (Aug 25, 2013)

Gramm, it seems rather silly for Roman leadership to make up documentation about someone they executed, isn't it? 

So what's the stardate today, anyway?


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## thaddeus6th (Aug 25, 2013)

Ace, isn't the monarch defined by direct descent from Sophia, Electress of Hanover?


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## The Ace (Aug 25, 2013)

thaddeus6th said:


> Ace, isn't the monarch defined by direct descent from Sophia, Electress of Hanover?



Yes, daughter of Elizabeth, Winter Queen of Bohemia, and grand-daughter of James VI/I.

Both of James' parents were descendants of Robert II (the first Stewart King), who succeeded his childless uncle, David II (Bruce) as King of Scots, because he was the son of Marjory Bruce and her husband Walter Stewart, and grandson of Robert I.


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## Gramm838 (Aug 25, 2013)

Huttman said:


> Gramm, it seems rather silly for Roman leadership to make up documentation about someone they executed, isn't it?
> 
> So what's the stardate today, anyway?



Not getting into a discussion about whether Jesus ever existed (he didn't), wasn't it the Council of Niceae in the 400's that decided upon the christian calendar - not the Romans?

Apparently todays date according a star trek date calculator is 67116.64...or 10113.07, depending on which series version you go by!


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## Mirannan (Aug 25, 2013)

The calendar currently in use that's nearest to a universal calendar is probably the Julian date used by astronomers, which is simply a day number. The reason it's universal is that it was designed that way; three calendar cycles coincided on Julian day 0.

Unfortunately this calendar is a bit cumbersome for ordinary use.

It might be interesting to use Trinity Day (July 16, 1945 AD) or Tranquillity Day (July 20, 1969 AD) as an origin for a new calendar. After all, events of high historical significance occurred on both dates.


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## K-9 (Aug 26, 2013)

Gramm838 said:


> wasn't it the Council of Niceae in the 400's that decided upon the christian calendar - not the Romans?



that's embarrassing!!! I'm quite sure they told me at university that Christian Era is due to monk Dionysius Exiguus, who lived only between V and VI centuries, while in Niceae (... 325, a little before our monk, if I remember well ) the rule to fixing Easter was finally established; but I never read Nicea documents, indeed. But I'm quite sure other counts should existed, and I'm very interested in chronology - where do you find this information?


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## River Boy (Sep 9, 2013)

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].



Unless we take the King Arthur mythology instead when he supposedly united a land of the Britons.

From the roots of the mythology I'd suggest this included England, Wales, at least the lower half of Scotland and also Brittany - though later versions have him conquering all kinds of places.


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## Gramm838 (Sep 12, 2013)

Huttman said:


> Gramm, it seems rather silly for Roman leadership to make up documentation about someone they executed, isn't it?
> 
> So what's the stardate today, anyway?



Isn't that part of the problem - the Romans didn't make any mention of anyone being the son of god, and given how superstitious they were as a group, it rather points to the fact that there was nothing to record?


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## River Boy (Sep 12, 2013)

Gramm838 said:


> Isn't that part of the problem - the Romans didn't make any mention of anyone being the son of god, and given how superstitious they were as a group, it rather points to the fact that there was nothing to record?



Not convinced by that, the Romans were very inward looking. This was something happening in an outer community, I can't see any reason why they would have recorded what to them was just another crucifixion. We know nothing about the lives of those outside of Roman communities during their reign in Britain, for example, other than that they existed separately and without mingling.

No need to presume they indulged in others' superstitions as well as their own - they wouldn't be such a proud conquering race if that was the case.


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