Hipsters repaint bike lanes in brush off to Hasids - Brooklyn, NY

By making Sunday (or any other day) an enforced day of rest, for as many people as possible (obviously nurses, firefighters etc can't), you allow people to have the same day off as other people. If it wasn't for this, in a large family you would almost never be able to have a day off together, as rather than having more choice, you have less choice, as companies will force you to work when they want.

What about those of us that don't live in a traditional family unit and don't wish to do so? Why should be be penalised at the expense of those that do?

I'm not suggesting that those in traditional family structures should loose out because of my own personal interests but it seems to me that with those structures and sentiments in decline to hold to them is a rather redundant ambition.

You talk of companies "forcing" people to work when they want and having an enforced day of rest to counter this. Away from religion this is a strictly legislative issue. Enforcing a single day off is a rather blunt and simplistic use of that legislative authority. A more flexible approach has the capacity to serve people better and provide more options for for people to access facilities and services. I appreciate that it may be more complicated, but that doesn't mean that it isn't something that is worth exploring.

A day of rest may well be compassionate, humanistic and communal, but it is that last word that is the crux of my argument really. The contexts of community have changed since the many years ago when a Sabbath was introduced. We in the developed nations no longer live in hunter gatherer communities, or even subsistence communities. We have even passed through the agricultural and industrial ages and are at a point where we as individuals, or combinative units, can elect the communities that we wish to be a part of. Therefore, does it really serve us to shoehorn ourselves into outdated and outmoded social formats? I genuinely don't think that is does. I believe there should be a degree of individual freedom to determine which communities they belong to and which days they take as rest.