[NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh]

There has been a country of ISRAEL since approximately 3500BCE. And this is what year?

[wooly_mammoth]

I don't know what calender you use but my computer says it's Friday, December 28th, 2001. Radical Islam says it's 1400 and something. I suppose it's kind of arbitrary. There's no way of picking a specific event in the past that everyone will agree with. And there's no way of accurately dating an event in the distant past that would be far enough back to be non-controversial. For example, the first fusion reaction on our Sun. I think that's somewhere in the vicinity of 5-6 billion years. In terms, of starting calenders based on the birthday or deathday of some religious figure, there's no doubt that it would look silly from a non-anthropomorphic point of view.