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[SirPeebles]

Right, 7 day weeks make perfect sense because there is this natural phenomenon it is based on called Easter.

Not only is this a clear slam on (certain) religion(s), it's actually an absurd one - nobody (well, there are some strange people, so almost nobody) is going to say that the week is based on Easter. If you're trying to go for a "crazy religious" argument, you would say something like "because God made the universe/earth in seven days". However, I think you'll find most religious people won't really buy that, either.

I mean, there are a few reasons, basically practical. There is some way in which having a day off now and then can help, it is easy to do this on a basis with some periodicity, and seven seems roughly correct. And then, the bigger thing is that it's roughly one fourth of a moon cycle. Also, a month being moon-based is probably correct but a little bit fishy, because months have irregular lengths which are (except February) all longer than the actual lunar cycle.

Month is clearly based on the lunar cycle.  Hell, even the word "month" is etymologically related to the word "moon".  The reason that the length of a month does not quite match the length of a lunar cycle is because our calendar is primarily based on solar cycles, and they don't evenly divide.  The Romulus calendar consisted on 10 months (hence our final months being named September, October, November, December) and the remaining 50 of the year were not assigned a month.  It was later reformed to add in two additional months to divide the solar year into 12 months.

One astronomical feature seen in the seven days of the week is that they correspond to the seven "planets" that were known in the ancient world, and you can still see this is you look at the names in both English and French:

Sunday - Sun
Monday/Lundi - Moon
Mardi - Mars
Mercredi - Mercury
Jeudi - Jupiter
Vendredi - Venus
Saturday - Saturn

[WanderingWinder]

Right, 7 day weeks make perfect sense because there is this natural phenomenon it is based on called Easter.

Not only is this a clear slam on (certain) religion(s), it's actually an absurd one - nobody (well, there are some strange people, so almost nobody) is going to say that the week is based on Easter. If you're trying to go for a "crazy religious" argument, you would say something like "because God made the universe/earth in seven days". However, I think you'll find most religious people won't really buy that, either.

I mean, there are a few reasons, basically practical. There is some way in which having a day off now and then can help, it is easy to do this on a basis with some periodicity, and seven seems roughly correct. And then, the bigger thing is that it's roughly one fourth of a moon cycle. Also, a month being moon-based is probably correct but a little bit fishy, because months have irregular lengths which are (except February) all longer than the actual lunar cycle.

Month is clearly based on the lunar cycle.  Hell, even the word "month" is etymologically related to the word "moon".  The reason that the length of a month does not quite match the length of a lunar cycle is because our calendar is primarily based on solar cycles, and they don't evenly divide.  The Romulus calendar consisted on 10 months (hence our final months being named September, October, November, December) and the remaining 50 of the year were not assigned a month.  It was later reformed to add in two additional months to divide the solar year into 12 months.

One astronomical feature seen in the seven days of the week is that they correspond to the seven "planets" that were known in the ancient world, and you can still see this is you look at the names in both English and French:

Sunday - Sun
Monday/Lundi - Moon
Mardi - Mars
Mercredi - Mercury
Jeudi - Jupiter
Vendredi - Venus
Saturday - Saturn

Well, I think you misunderstood my point - it wasn't that "ah, this month relationship isn't well-founded", it was more "it doesn't line up exactly, so don't expect it to". But I do appreciate the specific information.

[XerxesPraelor]

Right, 7 day weeks make perfect sense because there is this natural phenomenon it is based on called Easter.

Not only is this a clear slam on (certain) religion(s), it's actually an absurd one - nobody (well, there are some strange people, so almost nobody) is going to say that the week is based on Easter. If you're trying to go for a "crazy religious" argument, you would say something like "because God made the universe/earth in seven days". However, I think you'll find most religious people won't really buy that, either.

I mean, there are a few reasons, basically practical. There is some way in which having a day off now and then can help, it is easy to do this on a basis with some periodicity, and seven seems roughly correct. And then, the bigger thing is that it's roughly one fourth of a moon cycle. Also, a month being moon-based is probably correct but a little bit fishy, because months have irregular lengths which are (except February) all longer than the actual lunar cycle.

Well, causually, even if you don't think it's a good reason, the beginning of Genesis is one reason why we have seven-day weeks. The jewish tradition that christians took and carried into the middle ages.

[pingpongsam]

Right, 7 day weeks make perfect sense because there is this natural phenomenon it is based on called Easter.

Not only is this a clear slam on (certain) religion(s), it's actually an absurd one - nobody (well, there are some strange people, so almost nobody) is going to say that the week is based on Easter. If you're trying to go for a "crazy religious" argument, you would say something like "because God made the universe/earth in seven days". However, I think you'll find most religious people won't really buy that, either.

I mean, there are a few reasons, basically practical. There is some way in which having a day off now and then can help, it is easy to do this on a basis with some periodicity, and seven seems roughly correct. And then, the bigger thing is that it's roughly one fourth of a moon cycle. Also, a month being moon-based is probably correct but a little bit fishy, because months have irregular lengths which are (except February) all longer than the actual lunar cycle.

Whatever, dude. I have no issues with any religions and I'm not trying to slam anything.
When writing some code that attempted to parse dates I started to understand that our dates are meaningless mathematically. Parsing dates, specifically date ranges and gaps, is a recurring programming issue with no right answer and trade-offs for any given approach. In coming to understand why I discovered it was completely religious based. The fact is the Gregorian Calendar was specifically designed with Easter as the basis for calculation. It is not the sole reason for the 7 day week, that preceded Gregory, but the 7 day week is still a religious overtone and our modern calendar is designed expressly around timing the Easter date.

[Kirian]

Right, 7 day weeks make perfect sense because there is this natural phenomenon it is based on called Easter.

Not only is this a clear slam on (certain) religion(s), it's actually an absurd one - nobody (well, there are some strange people, so almost nobody) is going to say that the week is based on Easter. If you're trying to go for a "crazy religious" argument, you would say something like "because God made the universe/earth in seven days". However, I think you'll find most religious people won't really buy that, either.

I mean, there are a few reasons, basically practical. There is some way in which having a day off now and then can help, it is easy to do this on a basis with some periodicity, and seven seems roughly correct. And then, the bigger thing is that it's roughly one fourth of a moon cycle. Also, a month being moon-based is probably correct but a little bit fishy, because months have irregular lengths which are (except February) all longer than the actual lunar cycle.

Well, causually, even if you don't think it's a good reason, the beginning of Genesis is one reason why we have seven-day weeks. The jewish tradition that christians took and carried into the middle ages.

Except that, again, the Hebrews were not the originators of the seven day week.  The Babylonians divided the month into four parts, which meant each part had to be seven days, as the lunar cycle is about 29.6 days.  They added the extra days at the end of the month and defined the new month on either first crescent (new moon) or full moon, I don't remember which.

The Hebrews decided that keeping the worship cycle as 7 days every week was easier and kept that part, allowing the lunations to start in the middle of the week.

[SirPeebles]

Right, 7 day weeks make perfect sense because there is this natural phenomenon it is based on called Easter.

Not only is this a clear slam on (certain) religion(s), it's actually an absurd one - nobody (well, there are some strange people, so almost nobody) is going to say that the week is based on Easter. If you're trying to go for a "crazy religious" argument, you would say something like "because God made the universe/earth in seven days". However, I think you'll find most religious people won't really buy that, either.

I mean, there are a few reasons, basically practical. There is some way in which having a day off now and then can help, it is easy to do this on a basis with some periodicity, and seven seems roughly correct. And then, the bigger thing is that it's roughly one fourth of a moon cycle. Also, a month being moon-based is probably correct but a little bit fishy, because months have irregular lengths which are (except February) all longer than the actual lunar cycle.

Well, causually, even if you don't think it's a good reason, the beginning of Genesis is one reason why we have seven-day weeks. The jewish tradition that christians took and carried into the middle ages.

Genesis is probably a good reason for why the seven day week has persisted over time in Europe.  But I suspect that the seven day week in Genesis was based on Jewish tradition, and not vice-versa.  Maybe not though.

Also, I think it is probably worth considering that in the olden days less value would have been placed on a single, standard unit of measurement that would be used ubiquitously through society.  Some parts of society used seven day weeks, maybe other parts didn't bother subdividing months at all.  In the end, what we refer to now as having been that society's calendar is really just the calendar of the rulers, priests, or scholars.

I think it is interesting that both lunar and solar calendars have been used.  It makes sense I suppose.  The moon and sun are by far the two most obvious astronomical bodies.  This is speculation, but I would imagine that lunar calendars were more common and were generally developed earlier, if only because the lunar cycle is so much more obvious.  I mean, the visual appearance of the moon in the night sky morphs over the course of a month from being a bright disk to disappearing entirely, which all the grades in between.  The solar cycle is less obvious from the sun itself; probably the largest difference is the drifting position of sunrise/sunset each day.  But in the end, the solar cycle has much more practical significance.  It helps to predict the weather, which in turn influences such long term decisions as when to plant crops, when to begin construction, and when to mobilize armies.

[pingpongsam]

If it were your job to figure out, which would you rather look at on a daily basis to make your detailed positioning records, the moon or the sun?

[SirPeebles]

Right, 7 day weeks make perfect sense because there is this natural phenomenon it is based on called Easter.

Not only is this a clear slam on (certain) religion(s), it's actually an absurd one - nobody (well, there are some strange people, so almost nobody) is going to say that the week is based on Easter. If you're trying to go for a "crazy religious" argument, you would say something like "because God made the universe/earth in seven days". However, I think you'll find most religious people won't really buy that, either.

I mean, there are a few reasons, basically practical. There is some way in which having a day off now and then can help, it is easy to do this on a basis with some periodicity, and seven seems roughly correct. And then, the bigger thing is that it's roughly one fourth of a moon cycle. Also, a month being moon-based is probably correct but a little bit fishy, because months have irregular lengths which are (except February) all longer than the actual lunar cycle.

Whatever, dude. I have no issues with any religions and I'm not trying to slam anything.
When writing some code that attempted to parse dates I started to understand that our dates are meaningless mathematically. Parsing dates, specifically date ranges and gaps, is a recurring programming issue with no right answer and trade-offs for any given approach. In coming to understand why I discovered it was completely religious based. The fact is the Gregorian Calendar was specifically designed with Easter as the basis for calculation. It is not the sole reason for the 7 day week, that preceded Gregory, but the 7 day week is still a religious overtone and our modern calendar is designed expressly around timing the Easter date.

If the calendar was expressly designed to compute the date of Easter, then is was one of the greatest fails in history.  I'm pretty sure that there were lots of practical concerns that took priority over Easter in the construction of the Gregorian calendar.

[Kirian]

Right, 7 day weeks make perfect sense because there is this natural phenomenon it is based on called Easter.

Not only is this a clear slam on (certain) religion(s), it's actually an absurd one - nobody (well, there are some strange people, so almost nobody) is going to say that the week is based on Easter. If you're trying to go for a "crazy religious" argument, you would say something like "because God made the universe/earth in seven days". However, I think you'll find most religious people won't really buy that, either.

I mean, there are a few reasons, basically practical. There is some way in which having a day off now and then can help, it is easy to do this on a basis with some periodicity, and seven seems roughly correct. And then, the bigger thing is that it's roughly one fourth of a moon cycle. Also, a month being moon-based is probably correct but a little bit fishy, because months have irregular lengths which are (except February) all longer than the actual lunar cycle.

Whatever, dude. I have no issues with any religions and I'm not trying to slam anything.
When writing some code that attempted to parse dates I started to understand that our dates are meaningless mathematically. Parsing dates, specifically date ranges and gaps, is a recurring programming issue with no right answer and trade-offs for any given approach. In coming to understand why I discovered it was completely religious based. The fact is the Gregorian Calendar was specifically designed with Easter as the basis for calculation. It is not the sole reason for the 7 day week, that preceded Gregory, but the 7 day week is still a religious overtone and our modern calendar is designed expressly around timing the Easter date.

No, the modern calendar is quite obviously not based around Easter, or Easter would be on the same day each year.  In the Hebrew calendar, which is lunisolar, the religious holidays do fall on the same days each year.

The conversion to a civil solar calendar caused no end of difficulty to early Christians, who spent something like 200 years before they settled the calculated date of Easter, because Easter was taken from the Hebrew Pesach holiday, which of course moved around on a solar calendar.

Now, you're correct that the 7 and 30-ish day cycles have little meaning now, except as tradition.

[pingpongsam]

Why did Pope Gregory see a need to amend the Julian calendar and what was the primary basis for the Calendar Reform of 1575 as proposed by Luigio Lillio?

[WanderingWinder]

The Gregorian Calendar IS based on Easter maintaining its place in the year seasonally. Go Google it or Wikipedia it. Easter moves around because it's the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the beginning of Spring (by the equinox), which is a complicated thing that goes back to Passover, which itself was probably tied with some kind of harvest/planting thing. The 7 day week, like the timing of Easter, predates both the Gregorian Calendar and Christianity by hundreds of years, at least.

pingpongsam, if you truly don't want to slam religion, then you should not call a religious observance a "natural phenomenon".

[pingpongsam]

Being tongue in cheek is not the same as being disparaging. The sarcasm was rooted in frustration at something so numerically important being so mathematically byzantine as to basically have no standard method of calculation at all. The context of natural phenomenon is that all of the other methods of calculating time use one. That the Gregorian calendar is designed to cause Easter to occur at or near the same time of the year is analogous to making the Easter holiday a type of "natural phenomenon" much like the solstice, equinox and moon phase.

[SirPeebles]

The Gregorian calendar updated the Julian calendar by further refining the leap year system.  A solar year is on average about 365.25 years, so a strict 365 day calendar would "be off" by about a day very four years, which accumulates over time such that winter's starting date will drift by nearly a month each century.  Even the Romans recognized that this was too much, so the Julian calendar added an extra day once every four years to improve stability.

That still isn't a perfect fix, since the average solar year is actually a little less than 365.36 days.  Over millennia, the error accumulates to a few weeks.  The fix was the remove 3 leap days per 400 year cycle, which is roughly a week per millennium.

In the long term this was a good fix to make, although it does appear that the reason it had become a pressing matter in Gregory's time is because Easter was gradually slipping out of the agreed upon time of year.  So as a one time measure, Pope Gregory skipped ahead by ten days to retroactively counteract the error which had accumulated and return Easter to the proper time frame.

So yes, Easter was a big part of the political impetus to correct the problem, but it was a problem which already existed, and which really ought to have been addressed eventually.  I suppose that skipping ten days wasn't strictly necessary apart from Easter.

[Qvist]

WalrusMcFishSr, what have you done!?

[WalrusMcFishSr]

I didn't know Qvist! I...DIDN'T...KNOW!!!

[DStu]

I didn't know Qvist! I...DIDN'T...KNOW!!!

... you should have ...