Halfway through the first decade of the new century might be the time to take a moment and consider the calendar as an act of faith.

Our calendar is a wondrous mix of history, science- and faith-based — several faiths — reckoning of night and day.

The year A.D. 2006 begins on Sunday. That simple and accurate sentence embraces both Christianity and non-Christian religions, but is inaccurate, filled with controversy and in the midst of change.

Not until A.D. 523 did a little-known monk, Dionysius Exiguus, begin to number the year after the birth of Jesus. Previously, the year was either a record of the reign of the current emperor or the number of years since the founding of Rome.

The monk did his math badly, but his calculations persist to this day. Jesus was born, according to the Bible, "under Pontius Pilate," who died at least three years before the monk claimed Jesus was born.

Nevertheless, Exiguus was the first to use the symbols B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini, in the year of the Lord) that divide the calendar at the birth of Jesus. His scheme was not widely popular.

Most scholars credit an English monk, the Venerable Bede, for introducing the symbols. He wrote "On the reckoning of Time" in A.D. 725, the first published work in history that used the B.C.-A.D. dating.

Many scholars today believe that the Christian bias in that system upsets the world's large number of non-Christians. A new method uses B.C.E. and C.E. to designate "Before the Common Era" and "Common Era." The problem for non-Christians, of course, is that the system still uses the date of the birth of Jesus as the dividing line.

There are more problems, this time for Christians. The English-speaking world names the days of the week after pagan gods. Sun-day and Moon-day honor the god of the sun and the moon goddess.

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The others, Tiw's-day, Woden's-day, Thor's-day and Freya's-day are named after Saxon gods of war, wisdom, thunder and love, respectively. Saturn's-day is a throwback to pre-Christian Roman times.

Quakers and others long tried to avoid falling into linguistic blasphemy by simply referring to the weekdays by their number after the Lord's Day, itself a way around saying Sunday. Thus, the day dedicated to Thor would be the fifth day.

Most months are named after Roman gods and goddesses. July honors Julius Caesar, while August pays tribute to Caesar Augustus.

Our calendar, like the two-faced January god of the door, Janus, looks back as well as ahead, marking endings and beginnings.

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