God is Watching

The big NFL football game is just hours away and you suddenly discover that you don't have any snacks or beer. You hop into your car and head to the nearby grocery store and are shocked to see that it is closed. You then realize you have time traveled back to the 60s-70s and no store is open on Sunday. 

Why? Well, God is watching.

They were called “Blue Laws” probably because they made everyone feel blue because people couldn't buy their snacks.

Often Young people don't believe me when I mention you couldn't buy a pair of socks on Sunday. They grew up in a time you could buy just about anything on Sunday. I guess God isn't watching as closely these days.

Over the years, the laws began to relax a bit here and there. For example, convenient stores were given exemptions first. Maybe because God wanted them to stay convenient or maybe because their lobby paid some big bucks. Gas stations also got a bye because hey, you need gas to be able to get to church to praise god.

Grocery stores came next because you sure can't worship god on an empty stomach. It took longer for shoes and socks, but they eventually got a pass from god too. Of course, god still won't allow alcohol to be sold on Sunday, but a number of years ago, he winked at beer.

It may seem strange that these rules changed so slowly, but that is quite common. Religions always adapt to the times. They have new interpretations of what god believes is okay. For example, in the early days of this country, you weren't allowed to play sports. Too ungodly. Nowadays there are church softball leagues. Before the 1800s, people could not celebrate Christmas. Too pagan for the Pope. By the way, the annual story of Christmas is a few weeks away.

Some folks will undoubtedly defend their religion and the Blue Laws by mentioning how their god commands them to keep the Sabbath holy. Well, I hate to remind them that Sunday is not really the Sabbath. Yep, even that got a reinterpretation by religions.

Sunday is the first day of the week. Saturday is the seventh day—which is the day god supposedly alluded to. So how did Sunday get to become the owner of Blue Laws? Around 400 CE some Pope decided he didn't like that his religion was required to observe the Sabbath on the same day as those heathen Jews. My gosh, they actually drank wine and cut off the tips of children's penises! So he moved the Sabbath one day over. After all, they both begin with the letter “S”. Who'll know the difference. 

So I hope you younger types will appreciate the sacrifices your elders had to endure. Imagine no chips and beer during Sunday football! It's ungodly.

Ahhh, James Thurber

The Thurber Brigade knows there were more restrictions based on religion. Things like birth control, women driving, women owning houses, well, women doing anything and much more. Those weren't tied to one day though and so maybe we'll catch you up on those in the future. As for the religious types who may be offended by the snarky way we attacked religion, we'd like to say we are sorry, except we're not. Nope, not at all sorry that we made fun of your current mythology. After 3,000 years people gave up on Zeus. There are 2,500 different gods being worshiped these days. You sure that your single god is the one?

Did we mention that Blue Laws violate church/state separation?