Therefore, some Christians conclude that businesses should not be operational on that day. If this view gains sufficient support in society, sometimes laws are passed forbidding commerce and industry to operate on Sundays. What was initially a religious wrong becomes a legal wrong, or crime, as well. Prohibition is another example of something that was regarded as morally wrong by some and became a crime. No matter how immoral or harmful an act may be, it is not a crime unless it is covered by a law that prohibits it and prescribes punishment for it. Violence is in the eye of the beholder, violence can be interpreted by recorded crimes or a persons morals.

             When people first began to live in groups they had few rules or laws, but they soon realized that each individual had to pay attention to the needs and welfare of his neighbors in order to make life not only tolerable but pleasant for the greatest number of people. It was considered necessary, for instance, for each person to recognize everyone else's rights to life and the ownership of property. Probably the most famous of the written laws are found in the first five books of the Bible, the laws of Moses. The basis of these laws are the Ten Commandments presented by Moses to the people of Israel. These commandments are the basic summary of all moral law designed to regulate the behavior of individuals with regard to each other. Without this mutual recognition, society could not function in peace. Yet having laws drives some people to want to break these laws, peoples need to rebel may actually cause violence.

             All other societies in the ancient world devised sets of laws. In the 7th century BC, a lawgiver named Draco drew up a very harsh code that punished offenses, no matter how trivial, with death. Not many years later, another Greek lawgiver, Solon, repealed all but the laws dealing with murder. In the Greek city-state of Sparta, there was a legendary lawgiver named Lycurgus who, after giving the Spartans a code of law, left the city with the instruction that the laws were not to be changed until he returned.