Time Itself
““I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.””
— the risen Christ, in Revelation · Revelation 1:8The internationally dominant civil year-numbering convention retains a Christian-era calculation; its adoption was gradual and other calendars remain in use.
The Anno Domini year count is a striking example of long-lived Christian influence on global convention. Dionysius Exiguus used an incarnation-based count in sixth-century Easter tables; Bede later helped popularize it in Latin Europe, and the Gregorian calendar retained it in 1582. Its global dominance resulted from centuries of historical adoption, institutional use, commerce and political power—not a single decision alone.
Other eras and calendars exist and are used today, including Islamic, Hebrew, Hindu, Buddhist and traditional systems. The counterfactual claim is that the globally dominant Gregorian year-numbering convention would likely have developed differently without the Christian era—not that all humanity uses only one calendar.