Is This Year (2001) The Beginning Of The New Millenium, Or Are We Into Our Second Year Already?

SpeedGod

Banned
Nov 1, 2000
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The Question Is:

Is This Year (2001) The Beginning Of The New Millenium, Or Are We Into Our Second Year Already?

Any facts and links to websites would be great.

I need to compile a 3 minute speech about it which is not soo bad.

Any replies would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks In Advance.
 

thebestMAX

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2000
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It actually started New Years eve, 1996 (or 7) depending on how you count. Researchers now believe Jesus was born 4 years earlier than previously thought.

Could be a sub note in your speech :D

I feel there was no year 0 so 10 would be 11 years and 2001 would be the start.
 

Optimus

Diamond Member
Aug 23, 2000
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Argh - it is all so arbitrary that it hurts.

Look, every year is the end of a millenium - 100 years. 2002 will be the end of the 1000 years since year 2...
So any meaning we get comes from either:

A) Celebrating each 1000 years that pass since the birth of Christ - which runs into the fact that we don't know when he was born, exactly. But assuming that scholars got it right, the debate then is whether they started with a year 0 (the concept of 0 didn't technically exist then) or if they said - hey, here Jesus is - this is year 1.

Big debate made useless IMHO by the fact that it all rests on an unknown factor (the correct year of Christ's birth).

OR

B) Its a big round and appealing number -which is all 2000 years (2 millenium) really is anyway - we like multiples of 10.


So my opinion? 2000 is a nice pretty number and is remarkably different to say and write. Therefore I partied on New Years Eve 1999-2000 as the start of the next millenium. As its all innacurate anyway, why not admit that we are just enjoying a big round number? :)
 

UG

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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01-01-2001 is the beginning of the current conventional millennium.

It's an arbitrary calendric standard, yes, but since all calendars are equally arbitrary it's as good as any other.

And, since the context of the question is specific to the current Gregorian calendar, 01-01-2001 is the beginning of the Gregorian Calendrically-defined millenium.

The intelligencia component of society says 01-01-2001. Everyone else says something different.

Keep the faith, if you must.
 

Zenmervolt

Elite member
Oct 22, 2000
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01/01/2001 it is. I remember last year some of my friends thought I was nuts saying that it was one year shy of the millenium. This year, with all the news coverage about the "real" millenium, they were rather surprised to find that I had been, technically at least, correct. I agree with UG about how arbitrary the calendar is, we'll never know for certain when Jesus was born, and even if we did, there would probably be people saying that the millenia ought to be defined as every 1000 years since the creation of man/the earth/the animals/&c. I have a suspiscion that the media intentionally mislead people last year about the millenium just so it would have a "big story" about how 2001 was the real turn of the millenium. Things still feel the same to me regardless. On a slightly related side note, on older calendars that ours, new years is not until April 1, so I suppose when April rolls around I'll have to play the contrarian and claim that that is the "real" turn of the millenium.

Zenmervolt
 

~zonker~

Golden Member
Jan 23, 2000
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There is no year 0,... so 2001 it is by the way most of the world is counting
 

SirFshAlot

Elite Member
Apr 11, 2000
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look at it this way; how many years have passed?

in Dec 1999/Jan 2000, only 1999 years had passed, does that constitute the passing of a millenium?

Last weekend, 2000 years had completed, thus ending the second thousand years.
 

Imaginer

Diamond Member
Oct 15, 1999
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Things like this are relative to your beliefs. And I believe that we count from 1 so thereby, it is really 2001.

But some have this relative to the bible.... and yada yada ya.
























But lets just say it is the New Millenium and forget this ok. :)