Why do historians tend to prefer BCE/CE?

by lithedreamer

I recall that my elementary (public) school textbooks (I'm twenty, by the way) used BC and AD exclusively. By the time I had gotten to high school the texts had switched to BCE and CE.

I'm not Christian myself, but I've always been confused by this change. It takes me a moment to 'translate' when a BCE/CE date was and I was curious if there is some practical advantage to it since the date for the 'Common Era' shift isn't actually any more sensible from what I can tell.

Searocksandtrees