What year?

[johnlambert]

What year would it be if Jesus had not been born and Britain wasnt a Christian country?

[Chessman]

Its a debatable question, seeing how many other faiths there are, but if Jesus hadn't been born, there would have been no Christianity, and very likely no Islam, quite possibly something else would have taken their place,not forgetting, that both Christianity and Islam are offsprings of Judaism, the Jewish year, which has just begun, is 5763.

[Octavius]

According to a recent estimate, there are about forty calendars used in the world today, so depending on the dominant forces over time, take your pick. Our dominant force was Pope Gregory and the Gregorian Calendar which evolved from the Julian Calendar.

In most societies a calendar reform is an extraordinary event (epoch). Adoption of a calendar depends on the forcefulness with which it is introduced and on the willingness of society to accept it. For example, the acceptance of the Gregorian calendar as a worldwide standard spanned more than three centuries.
The legal code of the US doesn't specify an official national calendar. Use of the Gregorian calendar in the US stems from an Act of Parliament of the UK in 1751, which specified use of the Gregorian calendar in England and its colonies. However, its adoption in the UK and other countries was fraught with confusion, controversy, and even violence. It also had a deeper cultural impact through the disruption of traditional festivals and calendrical practices.

In the case of the Chinese calendar and others, years are counted in cycles, with no particular cycle specified as the first cycle. Some cultures eschew year counts altogether but name each year after an event that characterised the year. Whether this epoch is associated with an historical or legendary event, it must be tied to a sequence of recorded historical events.

in China it is currently the Yera of the Rooster, 2006 will be Year of the Dog.... perhaps had the world and it's historical ruling powers evolved differently it may have been one of those.

In the Islamic calendar, years are counted since the Hijra, that is, Mohammed's emigration to Medina in AD 622. On 16 July (Julian calendar) of that year, AH 1 started (AH = Anno Hegirae = year of the Hijra). So the current Islamic year is 1426.

[woofgang]

it would still be now!

[jno]

I suppose the last non-Christians ruling the country were the Vikings, so it'd probably be Odin Year 3000 or something. Instead, all he has is Wednesday named after him. (=Woden's day)

[brionon]

A very good year.

[NapoleonSolo]

I seem to recall reading that using "Anno Domini" as a reference to the year didn't become common use unit around the 16th Century although the AD/BC dating system was certainly known. Up until then it was common for a country to refer to the year in reference to the time their King/Queen had been on the throne. E.G. In the 10th year of the reign of Good King Henry VIII (1519 to us)... So I guess you could say we are in the 53rd year of the reign of Queen Lizzie II.

[Octavius]

Anno Domini dating was not the initial choice of Christians in the Mediterranean world; it was not adopted in Western Europe until after the end of the Western Roman Empire.

And yes regnal (or consular) dating was possibly the earliest and most commonly used. But bearing in mind the time it took news of accessions and appointments took some time to reach the far corners of the empires of the time, it was rather skew-wiff.

Perhaps this year might have been 2758 ab urbe condita, or "from the foundation of the City" (abbreviated AUC), where "the City" meant Rome. The foundation of which is generally perceived to be 753BCE.

[jno]

Octavius I guess this year is about 2005 AUC where the city is London (and has all sorts of Mithraic temples designed by Christopher Wren).