[Kye]

This article is aimed at religious people. It's fine. Good writers know their audience and write to them. This would make a fine sermon or lecture. But you can see how the context collapse has led to lots of snark here.

My advice: read it with the understanding that it's not for you (or me), and that it offers a perspective you might not have gotten if it targeted a more general audience.

Seneca might have been writing to his boyfriend Lucilius in his famous letters, but anyone who's read them will agree they got something out of it despite not being the target audience.

[allenofthehills]

> This article is aimed at religious people.

I didn't get that at all. I think the author was trying to explain that the concept of the Sabbath (ie take a day of rest) has important psychological and societal value, irrespective of its religious origins.

[maze-le]

Yep, I concur. As an atheist I am as detached from religion as you can get, and I still think this article has some valuable insight. I know it from experience, as I am from Germany and most workers actually do have Sundays off (there are exceptions of course: doctors, nurses, gas station workers, police officers...). In retrospective, I very much appreciated having it as a kid. My parents were pretty busy otherwise but Sundays were always different and brought us together as a family.

[bonniemuffin]

I disagree-- I think this article was speaking right to me, an atheist. Sometimes I schedule a weekend day on my calendar labeled as "do-nothing day", in which I give myself the luxury of staying in pajamas all day if I feel like it, not leaving the house if I feel like it, and basically not doing any goal-oriented activities (e.g. nothing you'd put on a to-do list). I could really get into the idea of keeping a secular sabbath.