[Phaelyn]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

How do you come up with 5000 years?

I come up with about 2500.

Some philosophy teacher at a community college told our class that. I'll google it as I have no idea. I'm still confused about BCE BC AD and all of that lol.

Buddha was born in the 6th century B.C., or possibly as early as 624 B.C., according to some scholars. Other researchers believe he was born later, even as late as 448 B.C. And some Buddhists believe Gautama Buddha lived from 563 B.C. to 483 B.C

Ok that didn't help.

B.C. means "before Christ" and B.C.E. stands for "Before the Common Era

What? So Buddha's birth day is based on Christ's birth day??? Why? Time starts at zero when Jesus was born? So there is before christ time and after christ time? What about the parts of the world that don't believe in Christ at all... what is time there.... what year is it there?

In the modern calendar, we label all years with B.C. (before Christ) or A.D. (anno domini, or "in the year of our lord"). There is no "zero" year -- in this system, the year Christ was born is 1 A.D., and the year preceding it is 1 B.C.

So is this year basically 2020 A.D.?

here is no difference in dating, just in the terms. Anno Domini is Latin for "in the year of the Lord" referring to the birth of Jesus Christ. C.E., the abbreviation for "Common Era" is used to mark time in the same way. B.C. means "before Christ" and B.C.E. stands for "Before the Common Era".

Therefore, 1403 A.D. and 1403 C.E. are the same date as are 4000B.C. and 4000B.C.E. Read the article "Common Era (CE) and Before Common Era (BCE)" by the website Time and Date.

The Anno Domini year–numbering system was introduced by a Christian monk named Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century. The year count starts with year 1 in the Gregorian calendar. This is supposed to be the birth year of Jesus, although modern historians often conclude that he was born around 4 years earlier.

Time is not very precise eh.... but then what year it is would be made up anyway.....why not start with the big bang? Well because then we would have to list todays date as 13 billion, 8 million, 147,895.... or something like that.

Ok back to how long ago Buddha lived....

I'll just make a guess based on the above which I'm still iffy about if I understand it or not....

So it is now 2020, Jesus was born in the year 1, when the monk started counting years, Buddha was born around 500 years before Jesus so Buddha would have been born around 2520 years ago if I did that right. Yea you get what you pay for in community college.