Hacker News Reader

Comment by bentley | Hacker News Reader

You’d have to convince a lot of religious people to give up the day of rest they’ve considered a religious obligation for thousands of years.

View on HN

Well, let’s rest (two days) every five days instead of seven.

That would defy the point. To Jews and Christians, the cadence is literally inscribed in stone. To quote the Ten Commandments: “Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. … For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Exodus 20:9,11 (ESV)

Christians don’t rest on Sabbath.

Edit: I mean, we do now because of weekends. But the rest-and-worship day is supposed to be Sunday, not Saturday.

It is very common for Christians to religously rest on Sunday (e.g., Puritan Sabbatarians) and even, for some, on the Jewish Sabbath (seventh‐day Sabbatarians). There’s been plenty of theological debate on the subject. It’s absolutely not true that Christians, categorically, don’t consider themselves obligated to rest on the Sabbath. And those who treat Sunday specially as the Lord’s Day also keep it on a seven‐day cadence.

> It is very common for Christians to religously rest on Sunday

Precisely: Saturday is written in stone, yet Christians typically rest and worship on Sundays. If we changed that, why couldn’t we change the seven-day cadence? It’s not like the Church would object to more masses.

The reasoning behind that change was religious, and those who made the decision were Christians. That most Christians accept that change doesn’t imply they would accept a contradictory change made for secular reasons.

It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t accept it either, and I don’t see how that’s contradictory. As I said: more masses. I am a Christian myself, by the way.

The churches that have "masses" have them daily already.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com