AD vrs CE ?

Question

What's the difference, since they both use birth of Christ as a start date?

Answer 1

A.D means "Anno Domini", which literally translates "The year of our Lord"

CE means "Common Era".

As a secular atheist, I prefer CE and BCE because

A: Jesus is not my Lord.
B: I still recognize that, for better and ill, The foundation of Christianity was a dramatic event in history, and because of tradition, I don't have a problem using it as a starting point.

Personally, I think the Common Era should have started in 476, the year the Roman Empire fell, because it really marks the end of the old civilization and the beginning of ours, but so far, my attempts to convince people that it is 1531 CE have not been very successful ;-)

Answer 2

AD means "in the year of our Lord" and implies that Christ is the Lord which is offensive to many people who are not Christians (Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, etc.) whereas CE acknowledges merely that Christianity is a turning point for history and is less offensive to most people because it means Christian Era and gives no greater significance to Christ's historical implcation that beyond the fact that he lived.

Answer 3

Anno Domini means the year of the Lord
and CE the Christian era

Answer 4

The change was made to mask the Christian basis for the dating system and presumably make it more palatable to non-Christians.

look into the site below...its gives a very interesting account of the use of CE

Answer 5

Yes, as other people already told you, AD means "in the year of our Lord". To me, as an atheist, this is gibberish. I feel insulted when people talk about their religion. Only stupid people believe in God. So I use CE instead, which means "Christian era" or "Common era" depending on who you ask.