Knock me over with a feather: There could be something good about those Biblical injunctions to obey the Sabbath:
Two economists examined the effect of repealing “blue laws”–regulations banning certain retail activity on Sundays–on church attendance in the sixteen states that have done away with such laws since 1955, and found that when the laws fall, so too do church attendance and church donations. The drop-off in church attendance was steepest among people who had previously attended weekly, while those who attended more than once a week were unaffected by the laws' repeal. States that repealed their blue laws also saw a noticeable increase in the consumption of alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine, and this spike was concentrated among precisely the people whose churchgoing had dropped off.
