I think it's ridiculous to rename dates just to remove their religious connotations, especially when the reference point is still the (slightly inaccurate) birt

I think it's ridiculous to rename dates just to remove their religious connotations, especially when the reference point is still the (slightly inaccurate) birth of Christ. If someone wanted to start with a new system, where year 0 is the Big Bang, that would be reasonable - it would put all dates on the same time scale instead of having to convert between BC and AD. But if you're going to keep the religious reference point, why pretend it's something else? Prejudice is the only reason that I can see. Of course, when we revise our estimates of when that happened, it would screw everything up again...