Sunday, January 22, 2023

IN the NEWS - More Testing of Arguments for Sunday Sacredness via Secular Law

Howbeit in vain do they worship me, 
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Matthew 7:7
 
"MercatorNet is an Australia-based publication that is directed by a Roman Catholic editor.
They have adopted the widely shared belief that the repeal of the Blue Laws has led to death and despair. There are forces at work to inflame public interest and excitement about Sunday laws. 
And here we have another group of journalists who are reiterating this call right now.
 
On January 18, 2023, MercatorNet published an article titled “Gimme that old time religion: Did it Protect Americans from Deaths of Despair?” in which it stated that the repeal of the Blue Laws caused people to die early.
The following was published by MercatorNet:
The dechristianization of society is hard to assess and harder to predict. But we can ask: is this good news or bad news? According to a research paper released last week by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a prominent
think tank in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is bad news. It is, in fact, literally deadly
.” 
In an original and thought-provoking use of statistics, the researchers examined deaths of despair after American states repealed their ‘blue laws’. These were laws which banned commerce on Sundays so that people could observe the Sabbath by attending church services and spending more time with their families. Regulations varied from state to state, but typically the sale of alcohol was restricted or banned and department stores were closed. Many of the repeals took place in the 1980s.” 
What happened as a result? They report that: We find that for middle-aged Americans, the repeal of blue laws had a 5- to 10-percentage-point impact on weekly attendance of religious services and increased the rate of deaths of despair by 2 deaths per 100,000 people. Applying these results to the decline in religion at the end of the century suggests that this decline could be responsible for a reasonably large share of the initial rise in deaths of despair.” 
Those who applaud the decline of religion in the public square in the US should be careful what they wish for. Church attendance protects some vulnerable people from social isolation, introversion, alienation and even death.”
The law of unintended consequences is always at work. We have all experienced this with the Covid lockdowns. Back in the 1980s, repealing the blue laws was meant to make life more convenient. For most people, it did. But for an unlucky few, it turned their lives upside down. It even killed them.”
There you have it. 
Repealing the Blue Laws has killed people. It has brought despair, turned lives upside down, caused church attendance to decline, and led to social isolation, alienation, and death. 
This situation is threatening everyone on the planet
For those who are alive today, death and despair are an inescapable truth, we are being told. We are on the road to extinction. Until we bring back Sunday rest by law, society will continue to deteriorate, and more people will die in despair.
 
This is not the rambling of a small group of people. This is being promoted by the so-called experts, and the media is disseminating their argument all over the world. In fact, inspiration predicts that this is what will happen in these last days:" AdventMessemger