Here in Ontario, it is astounding to me that it was against the law to open your store on a Sunday up until 1992:
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1994 in the UK.
Still only 6 hours of trading allowed on a Sunday for large stores, I think.
Itās basically still the case in German-speaking countries, although there are about 3-4 Sundays every year where shops can open, and the individual states can pass their own regulations. There are a lot of other things you canāt do, such as mow the lawn, wash your car, hang out washingā¦ It does make Sunday quite peaceful though, and as long as you have time to go shopping on other days it means thereās more time to spend with other people.
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Not sure where you live, but around here thereās another explanation that is often the reason: we have a local ordinance that prohibits the sale or consumption of alcohol (in retail establishments, not private homes) within a certain radius of schools and places of worship. (I kid you not.) So even if itās not your religion, or itās not a religion that prohibits alcohol, you still canāt sell it to customers if your restaurant is in the immediate area.
We have a local bar that has been around for many decades. When the owner died, his children closed the place for a few weeks to clean it (holy moley, it needed cleaning!) and discovered that the change of ownership meant they couldnāt reopen as a bar because they were one building over and across the street from a Catholic church, which also had a school on the property. The entire religious staff of the church/school plus many of their superiors showed up at the licensing board meeting to plead on behalf of the bar. What finally worked was a creative argument that the radius ended onto the church property, yes, but its terminus was still only in their (very large) parking lot, not actually extended into the church or school building themselves.
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Some of our sport-spoiling regulations died pretty hard as well(and not all of them are gone). Comes of being founded by crazed puritans who wanted a place where they could be the ones repressing dissidents for a change, I suppose.
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I can understand a motorised mower could be a noise disturbance, but washing your car or hanging out washing?
Fuck me, thatās a bit authoritarian isnāt it?
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We had a guy in one of my classes who is in the wholesale food business. He told us the whole Kosher certification is just a huge racket. This ridiculous wire reminds me of that - and all the fights in the comments over whose rabbi is the more noble one to decide where to string the wire or if to do it. I have a giant issue with any religion that cedes personal authority over to a leader, and particularly this kind of silliness that creates this dependency where people literally cannot cross the street without being told by their leader whether God permits it or not. I donāt mind if people want to obey rules so strictly and debate them endlessly, but giving their power over to another person is going to end in pain.
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Not in Scotland. Scotland has had Sunday trading laws way more liberal than even the current English ones since 1990 at latest.
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Now a law which made it obligatory to open a bar within a certain distance of a Catholic Church I could understand ā¦
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There is a really nice family owned greek pasta/pizza place more or less right in between the kids school and where he will most likely go to high school. Since they serve booze they canāt be open for lunch/during school hours.
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Crazy, isnāt it?
I know this one too!
Itās actually the religious people. A lot of Lutheran and similar organizations applied to take on refugees, and so they were sent to where those organizations are; I was just reading about it a few days ago: http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2011/01/19/good-question-why-did-somalis-locate-here/
Actually I believe she said she would be happy if her name was removed the certificate so that it no longer happened under her name.
Already, I prefer Yahweh!
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Here in New York, itās still illegal for a restaurant to serve you alcohol before noon on Sunday as of last Sunday.
Iād like to hear the conversation where the rabbi explains the fishing line to God. I bet God is not too impressed.
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These religious practices are generally not about preventing cruelty so much as early attempts at food safety.
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Yeah, thatās one of the arguments thatās made. One rabbi I know says that it comes from the superstitious belief that āyou are what you eatā and shrimp were kind of weird lookingā¦ But I think considering their environment the things they banned were likely ones they observed creating health issues.
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I have no idea why a desert-dwelling tribe would dislike shellfish. NO idea! 
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