Why does everyone use one year but we can't have other important things common worldwide?

Question

Okay, I'm not exactly sure about this but does everyone of every religion agree that it's 2007 now?
I mean isn't that supposed to mean that Jesus was born 2007 years ago but why would people of other religions (who don't believe in Jesus or general christianity) agree that it's 2007?

And if the reason is (not saying it is, just assuming) that it's because it's easier to use the same date worldwide then why can't we agree on other important things for worldwide use like one language or one currency?

Answer 1

Today's date in Israel is 6 Iyar 5767. However, we must all acknowledge the law of the land in which we live in our day-to-day business dealings.

The point is that we must have respect for, and knowledge of each other's culture. There are Christians who refuse to use the dating system Biblical scholars use which is BCE (before common era) and CE (common era). Some might think of that as Christian intolerance for others...

Answer 2

You could apply this to any culture in the world not your own. Why don't we learn about Japanese history? Or Swedish? Or Cambodian? History encompasses A LOT of stuff, there just isn't time to learn about everything! You ask an English schoolchild to name six English kings, and I bet they wouldn't be able to. Perhaps children should learn about colonialism in Africa and the consequences it had, but how do you pick and chose what part of history is important and what isn't? What one person considers important another doesn't. And yes, you can argue that learning about Ancient Ghana and Zimbabwe etc is just as interesting as Kings and Queens in England, but surely ignoring one culture for another would create exactly the same thing the other way around? People should know where they come from and their own cultural history. And if that includes African history, or Indian history or Australian aboriginal history or whatever, then fair enough, it should be taught. Personally, I think it's more important that English children have a grasp on English history than the history of the kingdom of Ghana. It's more relevant to who we are. That's not to say that African history is not important, it's just more important to some people than others, just like the kingdom of Ghana and Ancient Nigeria is apparently more important to you than English kings and queens. The fact that kids think Africa is one big country is hardly the history teacher's fault. What's the geography teacher been doing with them? And really, it's always referred to as Africa, just as England is referred to as England, and China as China. If they haven't been told, how do they know it's not one big country? I certainly used to think it was, along with the Americas, until I started school. However, basic geography when a child starts school should tell them that it's a continent, not a country.

Answer 3

yes eventually the whole world will be one, and most of the world agrees that this year is 2007 but Jesus was not born on zero year? some say he was 4 years premature wow. Weights and measures is America's last hold out, I am not sure what the English have done but America still holding to Miles yards and inches, the stuff the pyramid was used to build, can you see and inch was measurement of the middle link on the index finger a foot was actually size of a foot, a yard was measurement of the forearm. And dates was so messed up in dark ages they just started over, because the Bible said the year for Jews was 360 days and the time was all messed up from probably the flood and world tilting off it's axis that the cycle changed to 364.25 days eventually the time was changing seasons so Mr. Julian changed the time to fit the season and started the 364.25 day years. English is by the way the most common world wide language thanks to the English conquering the world.
But the Anti-Christ system will make all your dreams come true, the meteric system was man made and only a shadow of what you speak of. Europe has already done what you said with money, but all of these things time is the only one that seems to be a problem for world travelers. Like China is all in one time zone while America has 4 in about the same space. But since America seems to rule the world today since World War II and Russia and China have both been sucked into the American way of life through Nato and world economic crashes. They all bow to America except for them nasty Arabs trying to make trouble and North Korea with nuclear bombs.

Answer 4

A year is different.

Language-

Different languages are skilled at different things. English, for example, is very good for coining new words and expressions, but poor at definining emotional subtleties. Japanese is better for puns. Latin is better for confusing people who speak the same language you do. In the end, there's no "best" language to choose.

Secondly, people use language for cultural identity. See the histories of Normandy, Belgium, the Basque areas of Spain, or the Welsh areas of Great Britain for details. Any attempt to force a language on these peoples has, at times, met with great resistance.

Currency-
Not all currencies are the same. A Euro is not equal to a dollar, which is not equal to a yen, which not equal to deutchmakr... when Germany reunified and normalized the currency discretion, the cost to the government was in the billions. Imagine doing this over the world.

Now, you could argue that we could agree on a common denominator. For example, as of the time of this writing (4/24/07, 4:06 PM):

1.00 Euros = $1.3651 US
From: http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi

In this idea, Europeans can go and exchange each Euro for a 1 "Universal Currency" (UC), and all the Americans can exchange $1.3651 (round as appropriate) for a UC. Once we all do that, we all have the same currency, and fluctuations stop.

The problem is that, in the ~1.5 minutes it took me to type that, look what happened (same source):

1.00 Euro = $1.3680 US

Now, the fluctuation is slight...a fraction of a penny. However, spread that over the trillions of dollars over the world, and you have a major problem.

Not only that, but when, exactly, is the prime moment to take the "snapshot" and begin the process?

Finally, countries use the value of their currencies in relation to other currencies to set monetary policy and adjust interest rates. By not tying their currency to their economy, you only encourage fiscal irresponsibility. The health of a currency is vital to this sort of planning.

Answer 5

Because calendar creation is horribly complicated, factoring in regular orbit patterns etc.
For a secular alternative, modern historians frequently use the term C.E.(common era) or B.C.E.(before common era) instead of B.C. and A.D.

Multinational currency is a devloping trend, see the Euro in Europe.

Language is intricately tied into nationalist and cultural histories like texts, literature, legal matters, etc. so just switching over is unlikely. More likely, languages will comingle over time to form hybrid versions of previous native tongues. Spanglish (Spanish-English) is a potential example of this.

In the United Nations, the common language used to be French and is now English. Everyone there knows how to speak both of those languages.

Answer 6

The Chinese New Year is in March, I think, and numbered differently.
In the Islamic calender it's something very different to 2007.
There may be other variations.
Accepting 2007 is a bit like speaking English. You might do it to communicate more widely but at home you might speak another language entirely.

Answer 7

Do you remember when they tried to switch America over to the metric system in the 70s? Mass chaos. Now take that, make it worldwide and times it by ten, and you have how hard it would be to make the entire world speak the same language and use the same currency. It probably wouldn't work, either.

Answer 8

One currency would mean that the individual economies of every country would affect that currency. That would never work.

At least a large segment of the world uses the same months which are named after Greek and Roman gods no one believes in anymore, one set of weekdays named after Norse gods, etc. Those things are crucial to business function - the others you list are not.

Answer 9

the Romans set that standard up, the Romans colonized, the later romanized colonies colonized, and so it passed on. Rome conquered Europe, the Brits and the Franks claimed N.A., the west-indies, Asia, Africa and Australia, so it became standard.

besides, it makes it so much easier (and some religions don't agree btw. there are still some who go by 18 month and 10 month calenders and such)

Answer 10

We also have two months named after ceasars, and weekdays (at least in english) named after Norse gods. It doesn't mean much.

Good luck trying to get whole countries to give up their language. Attempts like Esperanto have never been successful.

Currency is completely different - there are economy forces at play there.