On 6/19/05, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
Just because the side with the "Jesus wasn't God" POV prefer BCE/CE doesn't make using BCE/CE an example of supporting a POV.
Please don't be overly broad-brush. I am very much certainly in the former group, and am equally certainly not in the latter. I severly doubt that I am not alone in this, either.
I omitted the word '''some''' because the implication was being made that BCE/CE itself is POV, which is clearly untrue. The confusion that it is clearly stems from the fact that many people with a particular pov prefer one over the other... This certainly isn't the only reason, as I previously mentioned, it is argued that BCE/CE isn't as widely understood. But this is the reason that causes people to think that the BCE/CE debate is one POV verses another POV.
Since I was specifically discussing the claim that arbcom was getting involved with supporting one POV over another, my primary interest was in demonstrating why BCE/CE isn't POV at all.
That is to say that arbcom may or may not be doing the right thing, but they aren't affirming one POV over another... because if we were to agree that one of the phrasings were non-neutral then it would be the BC/AD nomenclature and we would have no choice but to adopt the BCE/CE form. Since the original post was concerned about arbcom's involvement in deciding NPOV, I think this point is quite important.
[Snip the rest of the argument based on this logical fallacy]
I'm sorry, because I suspect I must be a little dense here... I just can't follow how your (quite correct) criticism of my loosely worded claim in any way invalidates the rest of my message, and I really do wish you had replied point by point.