NationStates Jolt Archive

So, let's suppose that some of the more agressive and militant non-believers decide that the current calendar year, based on the birth of Christ and the format commissiond by Pope Gregory are just a wee bit too christian for their liking.

If that were the case, what event do you think ought to be the basis for a new Year 1 and what other changes to the calendar would you make?

So, let's suppose that some of the more agressive and militant non-believers decide that the current calendar year, based on the birth of Christ and the format commissiond by Pope Gregory are just a wee bit too christian for their liking.

If that were the case, what event do you think ought to be the basis for a new Year 1 and what other changes to the calendar would you make?

Hmm... I've got no perfectly clever idea, but I'm pretty sure that the USA would lobby for either 1492 or 1776... ;)

Have the new year start at like... the Winter Solstice. Or maybe the Vernal Equinox, and have the year divided into four by the Solstices and Equinoxes...

Maybe months can be divided by the cycles of the moon. Every new moon is the start of a new month. Though I suppose that way you're months would never be in quite the same place two years in a row...

Edit: Er... and year one can be whenever the new calendar is put into use?

As of now, some call the years BCE and CE for common era and before common era. Now, for the Atheistic Satanists, there is the AS - anno satani which year one would be 1962 because thats when the Church of Satan was formed by Anton LaVery. Other than that, I dont have any ideas.

Have the new year start at like... the Winter Solstice. Or maybe the Vernal Equinox, and have the year divided into four by the Solstices and Equinoxes...

Maybe months can be divided by the cycles of the moon. Every new moon is the start of a new month. Though I suppose that way you're months would never be in quite the same place two years in a row...

Um... I don't think that the segmentation of the year has too much to do with Christianity. I believe this is more about the count we have. 2005 A.D.

Have the new year start at like... the Winter Solstice. Or maybe the Vernal Equinox, and have the year divided into four by the Solstices and Equinoxes...

Maybe months can be divided by the cycles of the moon. Every new moon is the start of a new month. Though I suppose that way you're months would never be in quite the same place two years in a row...

The muslims already do the moon thing.

Current calendar is off by as much as decades, as the recorded human history timeline gets a bit vague from the first few centuries AD backwards.

Um... I don't think that the segmentation of the year has too much to do with Christianity. I believe this is more about the count we have. 2005 A.D.

Shhh. I was kind of confused by the question, and didn't go back and re-read it until after posting.

Besides, he asked for other changes to the calendar. I dunno.

I guess we could always go back to Ab Urbe Condita (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ab_urbe_condita), which would make this the year 2758.

But I don't know why this would make sense...

The muslims already do the moon thing.

Screws the New Years Celebrations a bit, I hear. The new year doesn't begin at midnight on a certain day, both the day and the time change...

So, let's suppose that some of the more agressive and militant non-believers decide that the current calendar year, based on the birth of Christ and the format commissiond by Pope Gregory are just a wee bit too christian for their liking.

If that were the case, what event do you think ought to be the basis for a new Year 1 and what other changes to the calendar would you make?

Metric time please. Hundred-second minutes, Hundred-minute hours, ten-day weeks, etc.

Let's do away with daylight savings and ante meridian and post meridian as well. They just confuse things.

As of now, some call the years BCE and CE for common era and before common era. Now, for the Atheistic Satanists, there is the AS - anno satani which year one would be 1962 because thats when the Church of Satan was formed by Anton LaVery. Other than that, I dont have any ideas.
Our physics teachers tried to tell us that we should always use BCE and CE. None of really did for a couple reasons. Mostly because what is the basis for the time at which BCE becomes CE...the birth of Jesus.

Metric time please. Hundred-second minutes, Hundred-minute hours, ten-day weeks, etc.

Let's do away with daylight savings and ante meridian and post meridian as well. They just confuse things.

Metric time was tried during the French Revolution, but it turned out to be impractical (don't remember the details, though)

Daylight saving, seconded. Bloody useless confusion.

And I think you mean ante midi and post midi (before midday and after midday). The meridians have little to do with it. And it is only really still used in the US, most other nations changed to the 24h system ages back.

So, let's suppose that some of the more agressive and militant non-believers decide that the current calendar year, based on the birth of Christ and the format commissiond by Pope Gregory are just a wee bit too christian for their liking.

If that were the case, what event do you think ought to be the basis for a new Year 1 and what other changes to the calendar would you make?
Start it from 1066, as that's obviously when civilisation truly began...
Or we take the current year of every major organised religion (say all religions with over 25 million active followers), and take an average?

Start it from 1066, as that's obviously when civilisation truly began...
Or we take the current year of every major organised religion (say all religions with over 25 million active followers), and take an average?

1066? 793 would do just as well...

Metric time was tried during the French Revolution, but it turned out to be impractical (don't remember the details, though)

Daylight saving, seconded. Bloody useless confusion.

And I think you mean ante midi and post midi (before midday and after midday). The meridians have little to do with it. And it is only really still used in the US, most other nations changed to the 24h system ages back.

It'd be nice to figure out a way to dump leap years. Though I suppose having a fluid month system would work, keeping the time of year in line with other marks.

THE ZERO DAY CALENDAR

The first day of the year is Zero Day. Or the last day of the year is Zero Day. It has no Monday-Friday reference. It is simply Zero Day.

It is followed by 13 months of 28 days each. Each day is refered to by the numerical 00/00/00. Every month starts on a Sunday. The 13th is always a FRIDAY. Every four years, the Zero Day is a two-day period. Leap Zero.

13 x 28 = 364

Zero Day is either a day when religious people can pay respect to their gods. Or... it is a day that makes Mardi Gras look like a tea party. Zero Day Girls Gone Wild.


THE FRENCH REPUBLICAN CALENDAR. AH YES. ANOTHER REASON THE FRENCH SHOULD NEVER BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolutionary_Calendar

Metric time please. Hundred-second minutes, Hundred-minute hours, ten-day weeks, etc.

Let's do away with daylight savings and ante meridian and post meridian as well. They just confuse things.
Ok. You want to change the length of a second to make this work? Go ahead.
There are 60*60*24 seconds in a day (86400). Hundred-second minutes would give 864 minutes in a day. By changing the length of a second to 1.157407407407407407407407407... seconds, you'd fuck up pretty much every computer in the world.
But I'm with you on getting rid of daylight savings. It's not worth the extra hour in bed every October.

1066? 793 would do just as well...
But with 1066 I'm likely to see another millennium party.

Actually,There was a lobby in Britian to change the calender system to have the birth of Isaac Newton as the beginning of the calender a while ago.

Why not that?It does seem to be a better one than 1066 or whatever else,because those dates are mostly significant to western civilization.I'm sure there are plenty of athiest in China or other non-western countries(specifically former communist ones).

But with 1066 I'm likely to see another millennium party.

Wait... if year 1 was year 1066, then this would be the year 939... and I was born in 1974... but that never took place yet... so I wouldn't exist...

How DARE you take away my existence???

As of now, some call the years BCE and CE for common era and before common era. Now, for the Atheistic Satanists, there is the AS - anno satani which year one would be 1962 because thats when the Church of Satan was formed by Anton LaVery. Other than that, I dont have any ideas.

the calandar seems to be working just fine,doesnt really matter what your beliefs... changing it would not have any real productive results besides costing trillions of dollars just to make a few whiners egos bigger. can you just imagine what the date format would look like if we based the calandar on scientific findings---->12/30/5000?????? or something to that effect.just to let it be known ,an atheist neither believes in god or satan:mp5:

[QUOTE=Lunatic Goofballs]So, let's suppose that some of the more agressive and militant non-believers decide that the current calendar year, based on the birth of Christ and the format commissiond by Pope Gregory are just a wee bit too christian for their liking.

[QUOTE=saintpeter]The christien calender will never be removed because of several different reasons. A:The first one is that this could be considered discrimination aganst christiens, B:The vatican still contain allot of power so it wouldn't indeffinately change due to the popes wishes, C:Who Cares? Do people in general have time to whine about the influences that push our lives this way or that? That would be like whining about the free masons or the mafia yet we can doing nothing about it.

Actually,There was a lobby in Britian to change the calender system to have the birth of Isaac Newton as the beginning of the calender a while ago.

Why not that?It does seem to be a better one than 1066 or whatever else,because those dates are mostly significant to western civilization.I'm sure there are plenty of athiest in China or other non-western countries(specifically former communist ones).

How about the birth of Ghandi?

C:Who Cares? Do people in general have time to whine about the influences that push our lives this way or that? That would be like whining about the free masons or the mafia yet we can doing nothing about it.

You haven't been on here long, eh? ;)

So, let's suppose that some of the more agressive and militant non-believers decide that the current calendar year, based on the birth of Christ and the format commissiond by Pope Gregory are just a wee bit too christian for their liking.

If that were the case, what event do you think ought to be the basis for a new Year 1 and what other changes to the calendar would you make?
Or maybe the non-militant non-believers just figure its a pretty stupid idea to base a calendar on a fairy tale? Anyway, year one. Well the whole BC and AD thing can get a bit confusing. Maybe we can make year one the year Noah built his ark? Ha. Just kidding.

How about the birth of Ghandi?


I don't know,how about it?

I'd think people would probably take to I. Newton,though Ghandi was a good guy.It's just that Newton's acheivements are more scientific and generally helped all of Mankind.Though you could argue a lot of things against that,probably.

I don't know,how about it?

I'd think people would probably take to I. Newton,though Ghandi was a good guy.It's just that Newton's acheivements are more scientific and generally helped all of Mankind.Though you could argue a lot of things against that,probably.
Yeah but wasn't Newton kind of a recluse? Okay, a lot of a recluse? And wasn't he terrified of women? Ghandi seems like a more rounded individual. But maybe we should pick someone less contraversial. Like Elvis. The birth of Elvis could be year one.

Yeah but wasn't Newton kind of a recluse? Okay, a lot of a recluse? And wasn't he terrified of women? Ghandi seems like a more rounded individual. But maybe we should pick someone less contraversial. Like Elvis. The birth of Elvis could be year one.

:eek:

*backs slowly out of this thread

Metric time was tried during the French Revolution, but it turned out to be impractical (don't remember the details, though)

Daylight saving, seconded. Bloody useless confusion.

And I think you mean ante midi and post midi (before midday and after midday). The meridians have little to do with it. And it is only really still used in the US, most other nations changed to the 24h system ages back.

Anti- and post-meridian are the original latin terms. It may be called something different in other countries (or more sensibly not used), I don't know.

:eek:

*backs slowly out of this thread

I agree.:D

:eek:

*backs slowly out of this thread

If the militant atheists felt like shoving it in the church's face or something like that, they might go for some date surrounding Darwin.

Wait... if year 1 was year 1066, then this would be the year 939... and I was born in 1974... but that never took place yet... so I wouldn't exist...

How DARE you take away my existence???
Hang on, hang on. Your life expectancy at the moment is around 80. With my calendar system, you are currently -1035. You will therefore live for roughly another 1115 years, so it's possible you'll see not 2 but 3 millennium parties. How about that, eh? And if you get bored of life, you can always kill yourself.
I believe it was Woody Allen said: 'I plan on living for ever. So far, so good.'

http://www.kelsung.com/calendar.htm

There are aready enough damn calendars!!! :p

Heres a comment by Robert Anton Wilson (http://www.rawilson.com/prethought.shtml) on the subject:
dated: 18 Archemides 30 a.T.

Wait a Minute--
What Goddam Millenium?
I have used a variety of different calendars over the past 30 years--partly because I find it amusing to do so, but mostly for reasons of neurolinguistic self-education. [I employ a few dozen other devices of this sort to re-program myself out of conventional semantic grids: experiments, if you will, on Guinea Pig Bob.] For instance, I often use Ezra Pound's post-Christian calendar to date this column. Beginning at midnight 30 October1921 -- when Joyce wrote the last words of Ulysses -- this chronolog has six months for the male/solar divinities (Hepheistos,Zeus, Saturn, Hermes, Mars, Phoebus) and six for the female/lunar divinities (Kupris, Juno,Athena, Hestia, Artemis, Demeter.) In this system, these words will appear on 8 Hestia 78 p.s.U.
Sometimes, I use the Discordian calendar, which dates everything from the Original Snub (see http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tilt/principia/body.html) and makes today 1 Bureaucracy 3165 y.D.

As you can plainly see, we have 923 years to go until the next millenium (1001 p.s.U.) on the Poundian calendar, and 836 years to go to the next millenium (4001 y.D.) in the Discordian system.

A few other random calendars yield results like this:

Thelemic: present year 96. 905 years until 1001 millenium,
Hebraic: present year 5759. 242 years to 6001 millenium
Mayan: present year 5113. 888 years to 6001 millenium.
Pataphysical: present year 126. 875 years to 1001 millenium.
Islamic: present year 1420. 581 Islamic years (or 563 solar years) to 2001 millenium.
Why all the fuss, then, about the totally arbitrary Gregorian millenium? Well, maybe some intellectual Catholics (Jesuits, probably) have convinced themselves that Pope Gregory XIII created the "one true" calendar by tuning in -- infallibly -- to some Cosmic Clock. Einstein, however, has proven mathematically, and his successors have proven experimentally, that no such "one true" clock exists anywhere; and most of us don't believe in Papal infallibility, anyway. Dating the year after next 2001 (Gregorian) has as much and as little validity as dating it 5761 (Hebrew) or dating it 128 (Pataphysical.) I think most people honest-to-Gawd believe the Papist date "is" the "real" date because they never stop to think about it.
I suspect, also, that most people do and say most of the things they do and say for exactly the same reason: they never stop to think about it. I know this sounds brutally cynical, but at least it explains the religious and political behaviors of our species, which otherwise seem totally beyond rational comprehension.

By the way, I used an excellent new calendar to date this data-about-dating: the Tranquility calendar (http://www.clark.net/pub/harrison/Tranquility/tranquility.html) which begins on the day of the first moon landing (20 Athena 48 p.s.U; 20 Fructidor 177 a.R..). You can thank Pat Farley for calling this calendar to my attention. You can also thank him for the weird and lovely style of this website. He designs it.

Too bad that last link doesnt work though :mad:

Anti- and post-meridian are the original latin terms. It may be called something different in other countries (or more sensibly not used), I don't know.

I checked... we are both wrong.

It's ante meridiem and post meridiem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ante_Meridiem), another Latin word refering to midday. My bad for mistaking it for midi. And meridians are still a completely different story ;)

How about this - instead of having the first year as year zero or one, have it as the year 999. Every year you take one off, so next year would be the year 998, next 997 etc etc. It'd all look nice and metric, and everyone would have a lovely feeling of anticipation over the big countdown. After a couple of generations of this no one will recall why it started or what it's counting down to and conspiracy theories will start to fly about that it must be the countdown to the end of the world. Then, on new years eve year zero, nothing happens! The universe's bigest practical joke ever. And it puts off the problem of deciding how to sort this mess out for another 999 years.

I checked... we are both wrong.

It's ante meridiem and post meridiem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ante_Meridiem), another Latin word refering to midday. My bad for mistaking it for midi. And meridians are still a completely different story ;)

I guess we are .... I must have heard 'meridiem' and mistook it for 'meridan' because I don't know shit about it (or latin for that matter). Whatever, it's still arbitrary and unnecessary.

Metric time was tried during the French Revolution, but it turned out to be impractical (don't remember the details, though)

Daylight saving, seconded. Bloody useless confusion.

And I think you mean ante midi and post midi (before midday and after midday). The meridians have little to do with it. And it is only really still used in the US, most other nations changed to the 24h system ages back.

...Australia uses metric, & I think it works tons better than the old english system.

But we still have 60-second minutes, & 60 minute hours.
But I agree with the daylight savings thing...It sucks, the sun goes down to early, & I have to wake up earlier! Blah!

I think New years Day would be kept the same...I mean, Religion can't change how long it take the Earth to get round the sun...
& the seasons & all that would stay the same.

How about every year that it is is year one, and all other years are renumbered accordingly, just to be difficult?

Or stop numbering years all together and name them by a series of interesting/important/catastrophic events that happened during them. It'd be great, because eventually you'd probably get 'The Year Where Nothing Particularly Interesting Happened'.

...Australia uses metric, & I think it works tons better than the old english system.

But we still have 60-second minutes, & 60 minute hours.
But I agree with the daylight savings thing...It sucks, the sun goes down to early, & I have to wake up earlier! Blah!



Not metric time, then.

I don't think any country uses that, really. Does any country actually use anything but the 24h/60min/60sec system?

Hmmm.

I vaguely recall some push by some historians to base time off of Julius Caesar's assassination. I can't recall the reason.

How about every year that it is is year one, and all other years are renumbered accordingly, just to be difficult?

Or stop numbering years all together and name them by a series of interesting/important/catastrophic events that happened during them. It'd be great, because eventually you'd probably get 'The Year Where Nothing Particularly Interesting Happened'.


Yeah and the name of the year could change constantly... The year That hasnt yet started to the year where nothing interesting really hapened in January to the Year WHere we found out that the President of the United States smokes crack with his daughters and finally to the year where everyone farted at the same time and woke up days later with the world on fire...

Come on now people. I bet more folks around the world would recognize a picture of Elvis than they would of Jesus anyway.

Yeah and the name of the year could change constantly... The year That hasnt yet started to the year where nothing interesting really hapened in January to the Year WHere we found out that the President of the United States smokes crack with his daughters and finally to the year where everyone farted at the same time and woke up days later with the world on fire...

Naw, the years would only be named after they're over. Otherwise it would just be like The Year That Is Happening Now, or Year Now for short. Then like... Next Year, and Next Next Year, and to save on lots of 'nexts' you can have a FortYear (fourteen years from Year Now) and a ScoreYear (20 years from Year Now) and such.

if your gonna base your calender on any musician you would have to basew it on the death of John Lennon because while elvis is well known I think more people know about john Lennon

Naw, the years would only be named after they're over. Otherwise it would just be like The Year That Is Happening Now, or Year Now for short. Then like... Next Year, and Next Next Year, and to save on lots of 'nexts' you can have a FortYear (fourteen years from Year Now) and a ScoreYear (20 years from Year Now) and such.


The Year We Couldn't Agree On A Name For The Year

if your gonna base your calender on any musician you would have to basew it on the death of John Lennon because while elvis is well known I think more people know about john Lennon
I don't think so. Plus plenty of people hate John Lennon because of Yoko. Who hates Elvis? Noone, that's who. And the Americans would never let a pinko commy muscician like Lennon affect their calendar.

I don't think so. Plus plenty of people hate John Lennon because of Yoko. Who hates Elvis? Noone, that's who. And the Americans would never let a pinko commy muscician like Lennon affect their calendar.


I hate Elvis because I live in Vegas and he haunts me everywhere I go. Stupid Elvis!

I hate Elvis because I live in Vegas and he haunts me everywhere I go. Stupid Elvis!
He can't haunt you because he isn't dead. You should know that, living in Vegas.

He can't haunt you because he isn't dead. You should know that, living in Vegas.


You're conspiracy theories can't scare me. I live in Vegas and am haunted daily by a ghost!

The Year We Couldn't Agree On A Name For The Year

The Year That DOESN'T EXIST, Damn You All!

And there would most certainly have to be The Year of Much Pie. I don't know why there would be a year called that, but it would have to happen.

There are serious reasons for setting year zero at the beginning of uninterrupted contact between the Old World and the New World, that is, 1492 or 1500 or thereabouts. Not only is this date important to the foundation myths of America, but lots of other importants events happened around this time, too, for instance the fall of the last Muslim enclave in Spain. The revelation to Europe of the Existence of a whole new supercontinent also influenced the thinking of Europe, probably creating the modern notion of the continent or European and what it means to be European. This is hardly a western hemisphere matter. The discovery of the New World, the closing of distance that existed since prehistorical times is of great significance for everyone on the planet Earth. 1500 has my vote for year zero, mostly because it's easy to convert back and forth between this system and the old one.

Other dates that might be considered is the beginning of the Little Ice Age in Europe (if you'd prefer a hard science date rather than a social science date), the end of World War I (which saw the end of so many archaic institutions like the Ottoman Empire), and the Axial age.

So, let's suppose that some of the more agressive and militant non-believers decide that the current calendar year, based on the birth of Christ and the format commissiond by Pope Gregory are just a wee bit too christian for their liking.

If that were the case, what event do you think ought to be the basis for a new Year 1 and what other changes to the calendar would you make?Make it count down. Act all surprised when the world ends at year zero... ;)

Truly though, Year One/Zero should be the year I die. Through a total, utter coincidence this would be the same year in which the Zombie Apocalypse would start. Then everything would be dated something like BZ and AZ, Before Zombies and After Zombies, or maybe PA and AA, Pre-Apocalypse and After Apocalypse.

Eyup.

you could take the year of buddhas death as base. in thailand for example, we currently have the year 2548 (very usefull to know, when you check the ID card of the thai hooker, you just picked up, to make sure she is over 18-)

What i (already) do, is add 10K to the year. This year is 12005, then next is 12006 (unless you're reading this more than 12-36 hours after i post this, in which case, this year is 12006).

What i would change, is start the new year with the vernal equinox.

Our physics teachers tried to tell us that we should always use BCE and CE. None of really did for a couple reasons. Mostly because what is the basis for the time at which BCE becomes CE...the birth of Jesus.

As one of these "agressive and militant non-believers" I agree that I have always seen that as a problem. However, with the difficulty of translating the sheer mass of documents and dates to an entirely new system, I have instead found a way to coerce myself into settling for B.C.E. and C.E. Could you not describe the Common Era as the era in which organized religion saw its rise, and in which the masses came to be controlled through fear by the tyrrany of the various clergies?

From this perspective, wouldn't you find the birth of the leader of the most destructive cult in the history of the world to be a pretty good starting point?

What i (already) do, is add 10K to the year. This year is 12005, then next is 12006 (unless you're reading this more than 12-36 hours after i post this, in which case, this year is 12006).

What i would change, is start the new year with the vernal equinox.

Aha! AHA! Somebody else agrees with an idea of mine! Or came up with the same idea as me. I'm not all crazy afterall! Mwahahaha!

Ante-meridian and post meridian are Latin, so it gives them the air of authority. Change anything to Latin it gives it undue authority.

At the Hague, when asked why they broke the treaty, he said "conditions had changed". He was told that this wasn't good enough. Then somone points out the principle of international law rebus sic stantibus. Well, now you're talking.

Why not change the name of the months too? I mean, do we really need something based on Roman deities?

I don't know why we need names for the months at all. We can simply number them, or refer to them by the associated seasons of the year like so: Early Spring, Mid Spring, Late Spring, Early Summer, etc.

I'm not much for time marking but it does serve as a nice tool. Why not just keep the Calender we got and lose the sensitivity over it.

Since nobody now thinks that Jesus was born in year 1, I think the current year-numbering should be kept as a testament to Christian errancy :-)

The New Year should be moved to the Vernal Equinox, though. Until 1752, it was close to it in England - New Year was March 25 (Annunciation Day). That is why our financial year still begins on April 6 (March 25 + the 11 days removed from the calendar in 1752).

So, let's suppose that some of the more agressive and militant non-believers decide that the current calendar year, based on the birth of Christ and the format commissiond by Pope Gregory are just a wee bit too christian for their liking.

If that were the case, what event do you think ought to be the basis for a new Year 1 and what other changes to the calendar would you make?
1945-The Great Liberation Drive!
1st of January would still be the first day.

Good grief; how did this get to page 5 without anyone suggesting this?

Start the new calendar at the most influential historical event ever to happen, of course!







The birth of NationStates!

Feel free to bask in my magnificence...

Good grief; how did this get to page 5 without anyone suggesting this?

Start the new calendar at the most influential historical event ever to happen, of course!







The birth of NationStates!

Feel free to bask in my magnificence...

Suck up.... :rolleyes:

I don't know why we need names for the months at all. We can simply number them, or refer to them by the associated seasons of the year like so: Early Spring, Mid Spring, Late Spring, Early Summer, etc.
Why have months at all? Why not just number the days? Today is 365/2005, tomorrow is 1/2006.

So, let's suppose that some of the more agressive and militant non-believers decide that the current calendar year, based on the birth of Christ and the format commissiond by Pope Gregory are just a wee bit too christian for their liking.

If that were the case, what event do you think ought to be the basis for a new Year 1 and what other changes to the calendar would you make?

14 December 1900. The birthday of Quantum Mechanics!

THE FRENCH REPUBLICAN CALENDAR. AH YES. ANOTHER REASON THE FRENCH SHOULD NEVER BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolutionary_Calendar
Wow, that seriously rocks! :Dhttp://assets.jolt.co.uk/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif
I've already proposed a 10day week in the recent week poll, and adding decimal time is even better! :)
Just the work schedule should be WWWFWWWWFF as I proposed.

So, let's suppose that some of the more agressive and militant non-believers decide that the current calendar year, based on the birth of Christ and the format commissiond by Pope Gregory are just a wee bit too christian for their liking.

If that were the case, what event do you think ought to be the basis for a new Year 1 and what other changes to the calendar would you make?

I would just keep the same calendar, but move new year's to the summer solstice so the new year will be far from any major christian holiday. Year 1 would be based on the start of the scientific revolution, because that is when the church started to lose so much political power. That is all I think will be needed to make the calender less christian and more atheist. And also just number the months, don't give them names.

Metric Calender. Year One would be the first year it was put into use.

Personally, I like this idea: Decimal Time (http://decimaltime.hynes.net/index.html) -- but, I actually don't know exactly how it works. It just sounds REALLY REALLY cool. Would you guys think this is too complicated, or would decimal time be a little easier than our weird 60 min per hour with 12 months and about 30 days per months and all?
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Why not change the name of the months too? I mean, do we really need something based on Roman deities?

Yes we do!:mad:

Personally, I like the Sumerian second and all its 60-part derivatives. I say we stay the course.

Just make sure all religous based holidays are removed, so they may ot be taked by those who do not believe in them. Then go back to any other calender in existancem, such as the Chinese.

the calandar seems to be working just fine,doesnt really matter what your beliefs... changing it would not have any real productive results besides costing trillions of dollars just to make a few whiners egos bigger. can you just imagine what the date format would look like if we based the calandar on scientific findings---->12/30/5000?????? or something to that effect.just to let it be known ,an atheist neither believes in god or satan:mp5:


The religion I'm talking about doesnt believe in a god or in the devil as any type of diety. Satan is more of just human nature that's in all of us. It's what drives us all.

What we can do is go to a metric-type calendar and take virtually all the religion and history out of the calendar, plus all the obnoxiousness about which holidays fall on which days of the week, which months have 30 days and which have 31...it's a colossal pain in the ass if you ask me. The year should be 365 days, of course, with leap years every 4 years just for consistency, but beyond that, to hell with the current system. We prorate current holidays to fit with this calendar and just go with it. Plus, for the most part, all holidays fall on the same exact days of the week every year.

For one thing, we require one fewer digit for the date under this system, because the year is divided first into four 90-day segments, with each day given a two-digit number. The first day indicates what week it is, the second what day. The first day of the week is day 0, the last day 9, and the weeks are numbered 1-9, with each day being preseded by either 1, 2, 3, or 4 to indicate what quarter of the year it's in.

Oh, but the year is 365 days, isn't it? That leaves 5 days left over. What are we, the Mayans? Well, they had one good idea - five unmarked days left over. Unlike the Mayans, however, we don't consider these five days unlucky or anything; we just put them right around the New Year. The first three of these unmarked days are at the beginning of the year and the rest are at the end, and they are simply known as Day 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 (or day 001, 002, 003, 004, and 005 if you're a computer.) Leap day is Day 006 and becomes New Year's Eve.

Today is Day 001, 2006; it could be written 001/2006, 001.2006, 1/2006...you get the idea. This Wednesday would be 110/2006, with 110 representing the first quarter, first week, day zero. Yesterday would have been 005/2005, so the unmarked days are generally 4-5-1-2-3 order (or 4-5-6-1-2-3 order in leap years.)

I figured out when some holidays would fall based on this system by counting out when months start under the current calendar. April 15 is the U.S. tax filing deadline; under my calendar, it's day 221 and, since the work week would be days 1-8 with a tendency to give people day 8 off, I figure it might be nive to give people a holiday on tax day. Christmas would be on day 495, which is actually December 25, and the 4th of July would be on day 311.

As for the time of day, changing it raises a lot of questions and there isn't yet a perfect system. It would need to be based on the length of an Earth day but coudl be altered if, for example, humans had to live outside of Earth or lived in a domed environment a la Logan's Run. I have heard that the human brain works in cycles of 25 hours if it's unaltered by the sun, and therefore a 90,000-second day would be doable. That would be a simple matter of dividing the day into 100 units of 900 seconds, or 15 minutes, each, and breaking those units down as we see fit. The number 864 doesn't divide so nicely, so unless we change the definition of a second, which would be extremely problematic given the dependency of much of the world on computers, we have to cut the day into horrible little segments. Frankly, we may be best served by using military time in its place. The time cycle isn't really that broken; the calendar could do much better.

Why have months at all? Why not just number the days? Today is 365/2005, tomorrow is 1/2006.

Because it's still convenient to refer to general times of years smaller than the seasons and without the deceptive sense of precision created by using an even number of days. "Let's meet next month" is different than "Let's meet in twenty-five days."

This next part isn't in response to Candelar.

Here's how my system would work: Let's say that we divide the year into ten months. This isn't quite the intuitive definition of a month, but our present months were created for mathematical convenience and don't represent the motion of the moon anymore. Replacing twelve with ten is a natural sort of calendar reform, one, I think, that is more welcome than redefining minutes or seconds or any of that. 365 doesn't divide evenly by ten, but we can get around that by rounding up and down on alternate months.

The year should begin, in my opinion, on the winter solstice, since this is analogous to the way we delimit the day, starting at midnight.

37 days Late Winter/First month/unamber
(begins on our December 22nd/23rd on Leap years)
36 days Early Spring/Second month/duober
37 days Mid Spring/Third month/triaber
36 days Late Spring/Fourth month/quattuorber
37 days Early Summer/Fifth month/quinqueber
36 days Late Summer/Sixth month/Sexber
37 days Early Autumn/Seventh Month/September
36 days Mid Autumn/Eighth Month/October
37 days Late Autumn/Ninth Month/November
36 days/37 days on Leap years Early Winter/Tenth Month/December
(Ends on our December 21nd/22nd on Leap Years)