Horton

Thread

  1. anti Christian bias?

    Nick T <ntaylor84@earthlink.net> — 2001-04-11T18:32:50Z

    Hi all:

On page 29 of the PostgreSQL User's Guide, distributed with version 7.0.3,
in table 3-8 Postgres Date Input, the last item in the Example column is
January 8, 99 BC.  The corresponding Description item reads "Year 99 before
the Common Era".  The author or the editor of this manual is obviously
expressing his anti Christian bias in attempting to redefine BC to mean
"Common Era".  Throughout history BC, when associated with a date, has
always stood for "Before Christ", and it always will.  I challenge the
author/editor to tell us exactly what is the significant event in history
that marks the boundary of what he chooses to call "Common Era".

Nick

  2. Re: anti Christian bias?

    Marc G. Fournier <scrappy@hub.org> — 2001-04-14T01:02:18Z

    On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, Nick T wrote:

> Hi all:
>
> On page 29 of the PostgreSQL User's Guide, distributed with version 7.0.3,
> in table 3-8 Postgres Date Input, the last item in the Example column is
> January 8, 99 BC.  The corresponding Description item reads "Year 99 before
> the Common Era".  The author or the editor of this manual is obviously
> expressing his anti Christian bias in attempting to redefine BC to mean
> "Common Era".  Throughout history BC, when associated with a date, has
> always stood for "Before Christ", and it always will.  I challenge the
> author/editor to tell us exactly what is the significant event in history
> that marks the boundary of what he chooses to call "Common Era".
>
> Nick

To back this up a bit, I did a search on Google to see what exactly BC is
supposed to mean, and found that "BCE" == "Before Common Era", and "BC" ==
"Before Christ" ... but how do you distinguish?  From reading below, my
preference would be to go with 'BCE' and 'CE' as designations, as they are
non-demoninational ...

I just found:

http://www.urbanlegends.com/language/year_abbreviations.html

which has:

====================================================================
>>What is 1000 _CE_?
>
> Common Era. It's basically a PC way of saying "A.D." without offending
> Jews, Muslims, Hindus and other touchy religious groups. Hence you get
> the rather monstrous abbreviations "C.E." and "B.C.E" (Before the
> Common Era)...

Sorry to add a real reference to an AFU thead - here is the discussion of
usage in the Chicago Manual of Style:

8.17 Eras

Figures are used for year numbers followed or preceded by era
designations, and words are used for centuries. The abbreviations for eras
are conventionally set in small caps. Note that the abbreviations
beginning with _A_ (for _anno_, "the year") properly precede the year
number, whereas others follow it. Among the most frequently used era
designations are A.D. (_anno Domini_, "in the year of the Lord"); A.H.
(_anno Hegirae_, "in the year of [Muhammad's] Hegira," or _anno Hebraico_,
"in the Hebrew year"); A.U.C. (_anno urbis conditae_, "in the year of the
building of the city" [i.e., Rome, in 753 B.C.]); B.C. ("before Christ");
C.E. and B.C.E. ("of the common era" and "before the common era" -
equivalent to A.D and B.C.); and B.P. ("before the present"). ...
=====================================================================

  3. Re: anti Christian bias?

    Mitch Vincent <mitch@venux.net> — 2001-04-14T01:28:15Z

    Oh please.. How about we not worry about it and move on to far more productive
conversation.

-Mitch
Software development :
You can have it cheap, fast or working. Choose two.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick T" <ntaylor84@earthlink.net>
To: <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2001 2:32 PM
Subject: anti Christian bias?


> Hi all:
>
> On page 29 of the PostgreSQL User's Guide, distributed with version 7.0.3,
> in table 3-8 Postgres Date Input, the last item in the Example column is
> January 8, 99 BC.  The corresponding Description item reads "Year 99 before
> the Common Era".  The author or the editor of this manual is obviously
> expressing his anti Christian bias in attempting to redefine BC to mean
> "Common Era".  Throughout history BC, when associated with a date, has
> always stood for "Before Christ", and it always will.  I challenge the
> author/editor to tell us exactly what is the significant event in history
> that marks the boundary of what he chooses to call "Common Era".
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>

  4. Re: anti Christian bias?

    Karl DeBisschop <karl@debisschop.net> — 2001-04-14T01:44:17Z

    Nick T wrote:
> 
> Hi all:
> 
> On page 29 of the PostgreSQL User's Guide, distributed with version 7.0.3,
> in table 3-8 Postgres Date Input, the last item in the Example column is
> January 8, 99 BC.  The corresponding Description item reads "Year 99 before
> the Common Era".  The author or the editor of this manual is obviously
> expressing his anti Christian bias in attempting to redefine BC to mean
> "Common Era".  Throughout history BC, when associated with a date, has
> always stood for "Before Christ", and it always will.  I challenge the
> author/editor to tell us exactly what is the significant event in history
> that marks the boundary of what he chooses to call "Common Era".

I always assumed that the point was not to diminish the relevence of
Jesus' birth, but to take his teaching to heart and show sensitivity to
those whose cultures don't share that heritage.

As for postgresql having an anit-Christian bias? I think Lamar and
Bruce, among others, could not be accused of an anti-Christian bias.

-- 
Karl

  5. Re: anti Christian bias?

    Lamar Owen <lamar.owen@wgcr.org> — 2001-04-14T02:08:52Z

    On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, Karl DeBisschop wrote:
> As for postgresql having an anit-Christian bias? I think Lamar and
> Bruce, among others, could not be accused of an anti-Christian bias.

Thanks, Karl.

As a matter of fact, I am an ordained Baptist minister.  Don't know about Bruce
-- other than I like his catchy .sig... :-)

If anyone asks about my .sig, I witness accordingly.  Otherwise, I'm not pushy
-- not in this venue, at least.
--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11

  6. Re: anti Christian bias?

    GH <grasshacker@over-yonder.net> — 2001-04-14T02:54:44Z

    On Wed, Apr 11, 2001 at 06:32:50PM +0000, some SMTP stream spewed forth: 
> Hi all:
> 
> On page 29 of the PostgreSQL User's Guide, distributed with version 7.0.3,
> in table 3-8 Postgres Date Input, the last item in the Example column is
> January 8, 99 BC.  The corresponding Description item reads "Year 99 before
> the Common Era".  The author or the editor of this manual is obviously
> expressing his anti Christian bias in attempting to redefine BC to mean

Oh yes, obviously.
Has society actually been reduced to this level of absurdity?

Since when does Christianity cule the world and thus determine what
abbreviations should be used to mean what?
Furthermore, since when is acknowledgement of differing religious (and
other) views considered "anti-Christian"?

Please, we all have more important issues.

When people stop killing each other we can worry about what BC is
supposed to mean. I challenge you to stop them from killing each other.

gh

> "Common Era".  Throughout history BC, when associated with a date, has
> always stood for "Before Christ", and it always will.  I challenge the
> author/editor to tell us exactly what is the significant event in history
> that marks the boundary of what he chooses to call "Common Era".
> 
> Nick
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

  7. Re: anti Christian bias?

    Lamar Owen <lamar.owen@wgcr.org> — 2001-04-14T03:33:59Z

    On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Lamar Owen wrote:
> > As a matter of fact, I am an ordained Baptist minister.  Don't
> > know about Bruce -- other than I like his catchy .sig... :-)
 
> Wow, pretty cool.  I am just an underling.  :-)

Well, we're all underlings.  At most I can be an undershepherd (as a 'pastor'
is -- 'pastor' comes from the same root as 'pasture' -- one feeds, the other
is the place of feeding).  

Well, other than the marriage thing.  You do have to have 'the document' to do
that.    

> > If anyone asks about my .sig, I witness accordingly.  Otherwise, 
> > I'm not pushy -- not in this venue, at least.    
> Becoming a Christian was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I
> want to share that, but I don't want to make people uncomfortable
> either.

Your .sig is ideal for this venue.  And your choice of names for your children
make it pretty well obvious where your heart lies. :-)  And I've been in enough
Usenet 'discussions' to know what is and is not appropriate.  And I've preached
enough to enough congregations to, well, have a feel for when it's over the
line.  And I do get rather 'energetic' in _that_ venue.  And accepting Christ
was by far the best thing I've ever done.

But, to go back on topic, PostgreSQL isn't a religious vehicle, either way. 
However, if we're going to call it 'Before Common Era' then our date routines
really need to use the BCE abbreviation -- otherwise, call BC 'Before Christ'
-- although it becomes more than a little paradoxical when you realize after
much study (in particular, the times Cyrenius was governor of Syria that
intersect with the time Herod the Great was still alive (he died in 4 BC
according to most scholars)) that the historical Jesus was most likely born
anywhere from 6 to 4 _BC_, making the abbreviation more than a little
eyebrow-raising.  (ever heard a computer programmer/engineer preach :-))....

God didn't set the calendar date -- a man did, 1600 or so years ago.
--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11
http://www.wgcr.org/about_us/who/lamar.htm

  8. Re: anti Christian bias?

    Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> — 2001-04-14T03:40:27Z

    > On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, Karl DeBisschop wrote:  > As for postgresql
> having an anit-Christian bias? I think Lamar and > Bruce, among
> others, could not be accused of an anti-Christian bias.
> 
> Thanks, Karl.
> 
> As a matter of fact, I am an ordained Baptist minister.  Don't
> know about Bruce -- other than I like his catchy .sig... :-)

Wow, pretty cool.  I am just an underling.  :-)

> If anyone asks about my .sig, I witness accordingly.  Otherwise,
> I'm not pushy -- not in this venue, at least.  

Becoming a Christian was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I
want to share that, but I don't want to make people uncomfortable
either.

--
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

  9. Very slow query, Help please!

    Igor <dbmanager@osb368.nnov.ru> — 2001-04-14T04:32:48Z

    Hi !

Help me please to resolv my problem.

I have two tables . One of them is large (say 100000 records)
with unique index on "ID"
and the second table (5000 records ) which i have to insert
into the first table , but the second table have much records,
which have many duplicate values in "ID" . and this is
the query which i used for insertion:

  insert into LTable select * from STable
    where ID not in (select ID from LTable )

this query takes much time. and moreover - for big tables
i couldn't got result of query for about an hour, it looks
like so that it is die...

May be there is anoter way for insertion ?


Thanks for any suggestion!

Igor

  10. Re: anti Christian bias?

    Jan Wieck <janwieck@yahoo.com> — 2001-04-14T14:22:01Z

    Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, Karl DeBisschop wrote:  > As for postgresql
> > having an anit-Christian bias? I think Lamar and > Bruce, among
> > others, could not be accused of an anti-Christian bias.
> >
> > Thanks, Karl.
> >
> > As a matter of fact, I am an ordained Baptist minister.  Don't
> > know about Bruce -- other than I like his catchy .sig... :-)
>
> Wow, pretty cool.  I am just an underling.  :-)
>
> > If anyone asks about my .sig, I witness accordingly.  Otherwise,
> > I'm not pushy -- not in this venue, at least.
>
> Becoming a Christian was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I
> want to share that, but I don't want to make people uncomfortable
> either.

    Yeah, another religious thread :-)

    Is  it  allowed  to borrow the Cristian rules even if I don't
    believe in God and don't pray?  Do they fall under  the  GPCL
    (General  Public  Christian  License) or are they distributed
    under a BSDish style license? What if I link myself to them -
    does  all  I'm doing then become property of the pope or some
    church?

    I'm not able to find any applicable disclaimers in my copy of
    the  Bible.   A  quick  look  into  the  Koran didn't show up
    anything either.


Jan

--

#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me.                                  #
#================================================== JanWieck@Yahoo.com #



_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

  11. Re: anti Christian bias?

    Lamar Owen <lamar.owen@wgcr.org> — 2001-04-14T14:32:10Z

    Jan Wieck wrote:
>     I'm not able to find any applicable disclaimers in my copy of
>     the  Bible.   A  quick  look  into  the  Koran didn't show up
>     anything either.

FWIW, the 1611 King James text is in the Public Domain, as is the source
Hebrew and Greek from which it is translated.  That of course means that
there is no copyright associated with it; thus no license at all.
--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11

  12. Re: anti Christian bias?

    Brett W. McCoy <bmccoy@chapelperilous.net> — 2001-04-14T15:04:20Z

    On Sat, 14 Apr 2001, Jan Wieck wrote:

>     Is  it  allowed  to borrow the Cristian rules even if I don't
>     believe in God and don't pray?  Do they fall under  the  GPCL
>     (General  Public  Christian  License) or are they distributed
>     under a BSDish style license? What if I link myself to them -
>     does  all  I'm doing then become property of the pope or some
>     church?

I think the Artistic License would apply here.  Larry Wall (another geeky
Christian) would probably approve. :-)

-- Brett
				   http://www.chapelperilous.net/btfwk/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The way to a man's heart is through the left ventricle.

  13. Re: anti Christian bias?

    Stefan Waidele jun. <st.waidele.jun@krone-neuenburg.de> — 2001-04-14T20:27:39Z

    I might not be able to change the standard but:

How specific is BCE?
1973 Before the Current Era my birth year,
but _only_ under that very pro-christian
assumption that BC = BCE !

<original quote>
the last item in the Example column is January 8, 99 BC.
The corresponding Description item reads "Year 99 before the Common Era".
</original quote>

Now in case the era changes, what will the Postgres manual read?
The quote will be wrong, since 99 BC then means 99 year before the 
preceding era.

This was my personal opinion. In my mega-sig, You will find (part of) my 
personal belief.

Stefan

-- 
I now this sig is far too long.

Christ himself promised us a world with anti-christian attitude and 
persecution of christians.
So we should not blame non-christians for moving further away from our 
believes.

Ban of school prayers, change of era, shifting attitudes towards sex, ...
Don't blame the people. Times are changing, but Jesus told us they would, 
2000 years ago.
They will change even further, he also told us that.

Why do we take our saviours birth year as a date-reference?
Not because I believe in Christ!
To be honest I do it, because it is convenient. Everybody does it, so why 
shouldn't I?
And that is also the reason why Muslims, Jews and Hindi take _our_ saviours 
year
as a reference, when talking to people from other cultures.

At 09:22 14.04.2001 -0500, Jan Wieck wrote:
>Bruce Momjian wrote:
>[...]
>     Is  it  allowed  to borrow the Cristian rules even if I don't
>     believe in God and don't pray?  Do they fall under  the  GPCL
>     (General  Public  Christian  License) or are they distributed
>     under a BSDish style license?

Martin Luther was the Bible's Richard Stallman.
He claimed the Bible back into the hands of the public.
Open Source vs. Closed Source

>What if I link myself to them -
>     does  all  I'm doing then become property of the pope or some
>     church?

When the Jews linked them against gods law-library (at run-time, on the run 
from the Egyptians :-),
they became his, but in return he became theirs.
You have to decide if it is worth it.

>     I'm not able to find any applicable disclaimers in my copy of
>     the  Bible.

That is the good thing about god: No disclaimers
We live, he cares. That is it. He stands up to his word and does not sneak 
out of his guaranties

>   A  quick  look  into  the  Koran didn't show up
>     anything either.

Don't know anything about those, but they are kind of mutually exclusive.
Mixing in this case does not do any good.
Like IE for Linux :-)



TO SUM IT UP:

No offense intended

  14. Re: Re: anti Christian bias?

    Brett W. McCoy <bmccoy@chapelperilous.net> — 2001-04-14T21:15:53Z

    On Sat, 14 Apr 2001, Stefan Waidele jun. wrote:

> How specific is BCE?
> 1973 Before the Current Era my birth year,
> but _only_ under that very pro-christian
> assumption that BC = BCE !

This brings up another question nto related to religion but just time
keeping in PostgreSQL: can PostgreSQL handle completely different time
systems, like say that of the Muslims or the Jews?  They don't use BC, CE,
BCE, etc.  How would PostgreSQL handle somehting like that?

-- Brett
				   http://www.chapelperilous.net/btfwk/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do,
that makes life blessed.
		-- Goethe