For some reason I found the whole thing hilarious and thought it would be a good idea to weigh in. Actually, I probably never thought it was a good idea, but my response amused me so I replied. I asked the simple question "What if you started counting on Monday?" The rage that got sent my way was hilarious, you would think I had gone to a star trek convention and wouldn't shut up about how awesome the millennium falcon was. I was...informed...that the week does indeed start on Sunday and that is the way it always has been. I countered that the work week starts Monday and it wouldn't be unreasonable for someone to consider that the beginning of the week and therefore Sunday would be the seventh day. Apparently I was wrong :)
I never expected to convince anyone of anything, I really didn't even have a point, I just laughed at my stupid joke and figured I'd share. I was a bit surprised at the volume at which they shouted back at me. After thinking about it for a bit, I came up with 2 reasons why. First, they are surrounded by people who celebrate on Sunday (most of the area is other kinds of protestant, and there are also a fair number of catholics), I wouldn't be surprised if they have a lot of friends and family who harass them for having church on Saturday and it made them defensive about it. This part of it completely makes sense to me, and I completely understand their overreaction.
But there was another aspect to it, a general perspective on the way the world is that I found interesting. When I brought up the (admittedly stupid) point that we could have started the calendar on Monday instead of Sunday, they rejected the very notion outright. It wasn't just that the week starts on Sunday, it's that the week has to start on Sunday. I didn't press it, because I was just screwing around, but as I was thinking about it later, I think they really believe that there would be no other logical way to do it. Creation took 7 days, the next day was a Sunday and time marched forward from there. Under this paradigm it doesn't make a lot of sense to start on a different day. Of course, from my perspective, the earth is a few billion years old, at some point people showed up and decided they wanted to count the days. At some point they chose some arbitrary date as a Sunday and moved forward from there. There's no good reason they couldn't have started the day after that, it's all arbitrary. I find it interesting when these types of fundamentally different views of the world get in the way of a proper dialogue.
It is rather amusing, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteThey're kind of stuck in a bind in thinking that way, because (to 7th day Adventists credit in recognizing it) God is incredibly serious about keeping the Sabbath day throughout the OT.
I think the change was made in Christianity because (if I'm remembering correctly) Jesus was resurrected on a Sunday.
Of course, what they hilariously fail to understand is that God must have screwed up the size of earth's orbit, because you can't measure a true year of time in pure multiples of seven. (That would be 364 days a year.) So we have things like leap day thrown in to make corrections. This, as well as the several times the calendars were change in history, kind of makes the idea of what "day" it is a truly arbitrary.
(Also adding to the day confusion, Jews originally followed a lunar calendar as opposed to a solar calender. They had to change things when they realized that their months no longer corresponded to the same seasons...)
That's pretty funny, I never thought of the connection to Jesus rising on Sunday and that being the new Sabbath day. But that actually makes a lot of sense. As to the year not being multiples of seven and leap days and such, it doesn't interrupt the 7 day week so I guess that is okay. And given that they are young earth creationists, I don't think they think too hard about history. I guess any history older than that they just assume our dating is wrong or something. I've never gotten into it with them, we aren't really that close.
DeleteThe fact that the Jews used to follow a lunar calendar is something you would think would throw a monkey wrench into things. I guess when a defining feature of your church is that you celebrate on saturday instead of sunday, it would keep you from examining these things too closely.
Good catch on the seven day thing Hausdorff. Yes, the pattern of every seven days can't truly be broken.
DeleteWhat I failed to explain (or maybe just had a brain fart in writing) was that I was referring to events beyond the weekly Sabbath. Other religious Festivals, which often included special Sabbaths, specified by God did not quite line up because of the difference in solar and lunar year. So these adjustments required extra days or months added to the calendar, effectively changing their location in measured time in order to match the season. That mostly happened with the Jews, but it was thanks to wanting to correct for Easter which brought us our present calendar.
Check this
Oops, I meant to add this link to the Wikipedia Hebrew Calendar entry. It's... complicated to say the least!
ReplyDeletewow, I just read the few paragraph blurb at the top, you are right, it is pretty complicated
DeleteI'm for branding Friday as the Sabbath. Maybe I'll get a three-day weekend out of it.
ReplyDeleteYou could always just make up holidays at your leisure like Bender...Robanukah, Robomadan, Robonzaa
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