4 ms·

>Its popularity has been deeply tied to Christian imperialism Well, Roman Imperialism. The sheer reach of the Roman Empire is the reason why it became a de fac

by Isamu 4y ago

>Its popularity has been deeply tied to Christian imperialism Well, Roman Imperialism. The sheer reach of the Roman Empire is the reason why it became a de facto standard, difficult to displace. The month names are still Roman, and the days of the week are pagan gods.

state_less 4y ago
I like learning about these historical time reckoning methods. Using the solar system as a clock is a nice way to be more in touch with the cosmos. I’m still fond of our new gps time though. A simple number line that doesn’t skip a beat and clocks so accurate that I can get a feel for the warping of spacetime.
- antognini 4y ago
  Well, to be a bit pedantic, UTC does have leap seconds so modern clocks do skip a beat every few years.
  - state_less 4y ago
    > The difference is that GPS time is not corrected to match the rotation of the Earth, so it does not contain leap seconds or other corrections that are periodically added to UTC. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Timekeeping https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Ti...
connorgutman 4y ago
Roman Imperialism that was peddling Christian Imperialism. Let us not forget that the calendar was made for and named after Pope Gregory XIII and the years are structured around the death of Christ. Naming the weeks after pagan gods (in my opinion) was a similar act to moving Christmas to fall on Saturnalia. The purpose being to appease pagans and slowly convert them to Christianity.
- ysavir 4y ago
  The Gregorian calendar was a relatively light modification to the Julian Calendar, created by Julius Ceasar, who predates both Christian Rome and Christianity as a whole. The Gregorian calendar is very much a Roman calendar, with a slight astronomically-inclined update by Gregory to fix leap year drift, 1500 years after Caesar introduced it. That the years are structured around the death of Christ... Eh? Hard to say. I believe that was retro-fitted, and probably was more centered around Augustus's rise to power and Rome moving from a republic to an empire. Or maybe not, I haven't read the relevant wikipedia page for that.
  - connorgutman 4y ago
    While the Julian calendar was clearly more secular, The motivation for the adjustments in the Gregorian calendar was to re-align Easter to a historically accurate date and to ensure that people around the world were celebrating it at the same time. While you are definitely right that the Gregorian calendar stems from Roman culture, one cannot deny that its revisions were religiously motivated and funded. Further, that its history and global adoption is intertwined with the spread of Christianity around the world. With its global adoption cultures all around the world have lost their connection to their own calendars and practices. As for the BC/AC part I believe it was always part of the Gregorian calendar? The Julian calendar also used BC/AC. :) EDIT: I meant to say that the Julian calendar did not always use BC/AC but adopted it some time prior to the invention of the Gregorian calendar.
    - Archelaos 4y ago
      > While the Julian calendar was clearly more secular, The motivation for the adjustments in the Gregorian calendar was to re-align Easter to a historically accurate date was in the focus results not only from the fact of it being the most important festival, but from the complexity of its calculation The motivation was to stop the drift of the whole Christian festival calendar towards later and later days in the year. We have some confusion about Easter in contemporary accounts of the reform, but the date of Easter when calculated as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox is independant of any calendar system. This would have implied that all other festivals, based on the Julian Calendar, would have caught up and then overtaken Easter (and caught up again, etc.). > and to ensure that people around the world were celebrating it at the same time. This was definitely not the intention. All people in the Protestant/Catholic/Orthodox "realm" were already using uniformely the Julian Calendar. Differences of the Easter date were due to different algorithms for its calculation. In practice, on the contrary, it led to more differences, because the reform was not accepted for a long time in many parts of the Christian world, even in Catholic ones. > While you are definitely right that the Gregorian calendar stems from Roman culture, one cannot deny that its revisions were religiously motivated and funded. Well, the flaws of the Julian System had a consequence for the Christian festival calendar. But to correct this flaw was also a very reasonable thing to attempt. We are in in age were astronomy (and astrology) become a very popular science. > Further, that its history and global adoption is intertwined with the spread of Christianity around the world. This is not true. For example in what become later the British empire the Julian Calendar was in use until 1752. So for many areas the adoption come long after Christianity took roots. And then it was implemented in areas that never become widely Christian, such as India. > With its global adoption cultures all around the world have lost their connection to their own calendars and practices. Most did not loose connection. It become rather dual use. > As for the BC/AC part I believe it was always part of the Gregorian calendar? The Julian calendar also used BC/AC. :) > EDIT: I meant to say that the Julian calendar did not always use BC/AC but adopted it some time prior to the invention of the Gregorian calendar. "BC/AC" is wrong, it is: "BC/AD" ("Before Christ" and "Anno Domine" = "In the year of the Lord"). The Gregorian Calendar strictly speaking applies only to dates after AD 1583. If you extent it backwards (avoiding the date gap in 1583), it is called the "proleptic Gregorian Calendar". There exist different version of it. For example ISO 8601 uses a proleptic Gregorian Calender with a year zero. Besides first appearances in the late 15th century, Julian Calendar BC dates started to be widely used only much later than the Gregorian reforms. When writing about ancient history, authors used AUC dates ("Ab urbe condita" = "From the founding of the City [Rome]" = 753 BC) or dated from the (suppost) beginning of the world, thus avoiding negative numbers.
mickdeek86 4y ago
It wasn't the Romans who spread the calendar beyond Europe.

by Isamu 4y ago

state_less 4y ago

I like learning about these historical time reckoning methods. Using the solar system as a clock is a nice way to be more in touch with the cosmos. I’m still fond of our new gps time though. A simple number line that doesn’t skip a beat and clocks so accurate that I can get a feel for the warping of spacetime.

antognini 4y ago
Well, to be a bit pedantic, UTC does have leap seconds so modern clocks do skip a beat every few years.
- state_less 4y ago
  > The difference is that GPS time is not corrected to match the rotation of the Earth, so it does not contain leap seconds or other corrections that are periodically added to UTC. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Timekeeping https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Ti...

connorgutman 4y ago

Roman Imperialism that was peddling Christian Imperialism. Let us not forget that the calendar was made for and named after Pope Gregory XIII and the years are structured around the death of Christ. Naming the weeks after pagan gods (in my opinion) was a similar act to moving Christmas to fall on Saturnalia. The purpose being to appease pagans and slowly convert them to Christianity.

ysavir 4y ago
The Gregorian calendar was a relatively light modification to the Julian Calendar, created by Julius Ceasar, who predates both Christian Rome and Christianity as a whole. The Gregorian calendar is very much a Roman calendar, with a slight astronomically-inclined update by Gregory to fix leap year drift, 1500 years after Caesar introduced it. That the years are structured around the death of Christ... Eh? Hard to say. I believe that was retro-fitted, and probably was more centered around Augustus's rise to power and Rome moving from a republic to an empire. Or maybe not, I haven't read the relevant wikipedia page for that.
- connorgutman 4y ago
  While the Julian calendar was clearly more secular, The motivation for the adjustments in the Gregorian calendar was to re-align Easter to a historically accurate date and to ensure that people around the world were celebrating it at the same time. While you are definitely right that the Gregorian calendar stems from Roman culture, one cannot deny that its revisions were religiously motivated and funded. Further, that its history and global adoption is intertwined with the spread of Christianity around the world. With its global adoption cultures all around the world have lost their connection to their own calendars and practices. As for the BC/AC part I believe it was always part of the Gregorian calendar? The Julian calendar also used BC/AC. :) EDIT: I meant to say that the Julian calendar did not always use BC/AC but adopted it some time prior to the invention of the Gregorian calendar.
  - Archelaos 4y ago
    > While the Julian calendar was clearly more secular, The motivation for the adjustments in the Gregorian calendar was to re-align Easter to a historically accurate date was in the focus results not only from the fact of it being the most important festival, but from the complexity of its calculation The motivation was to stop the drift of the whole Christian festival calendar towards later and later days in the year. We have some confusion about Easter in contemporary accounts of the reform, but the date of Easter when calculated as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox is independant of any calendar system. This would have implied that all other festivals, based on the Julian Calendar, would have caught up and then overtaken Easter (and caught up again, etc.). > and to ensure that people around the world were celebrating it at the same time. This was definitely not the intention. All people in the Protestant/Catholic/Orthodox "realm" were already using uniformely the Julian Calendar. Differences of the Easter date were due to different algorithms for its calculation. In practice, on the contrary, it led to more differences, because the reform was not accepted for a long time in many parts of the Christian world, even in Catholic ones. > While you are definitely right that the Gregorian calendar stems from Roman culture, one cannot deny that its revisions were religiously motivated and funded. Well, the flaws of the Julian System had a consequence for the Christian festival calendar. But to correct this flaw was also a very reasonable thing to attempt. We are in in age were astronomy (and astrology) become a very popular science. > Further, that its history and global adoption is intertwined with the spread of Christianity around the world. This is not true. For example in what become later the British empire the Julian Calendar was in use until 1752. So for many areas the adoption come long after Christianity took roots. And then it was implemented in areas that never become widely Christian, such as India. > With its global adoption cultures all around the world have lost their connection to their own calendars and practices. Most did not loose connection. It become rather dual use. > As for the BC/AC part I believe it was always part of the Gregorian calendar? The Julian calendar also used BC/AC. :) > EDIT: I meant to say that the Julian calendar did not always use BC/AC but adopted it some time prior to the invention of the Gregorian calendar. "BC/AC" is wrong, it is: "BC/AD" ("Before Christ" and "Anno Domine" = "In the year of the Lord"). The Gregorian Calendar strictly speaking applies only to dates after AD 1583. If you extent it backwards (avoiding the date gap in 1583), it is called the "proleptic Gregorian Calendar". There exist different version of it. For example ISO 8601 uses a proleptic Gregorian Calender with a year zero. Besides first appearances in the late 15th century, Julian Calendar BC dates started to be widely used only much later than the Gregorian reforms. When writing about ancient history, authors used AUC dates ("Ab urbe condita" = "From the founding of the City [Rome]" = 753 BC) or dated from the (suppost) beginning of the world, thus avoiding negative numbers.

mickdeek86 4y ago

It wasn't the Romans who spread the calendar beyond Europe.