The Amish way of life is the most Christian

[Sixtus]

kidderdoc posted;

I don’t need my neighbor to help me paint my house, because I hire some one to do it. He doesn’t need me because his house has vinyl siding. Just a little while ago, it was on the news that they found the body of an old women in her home. She had been dead for almost a year. She had no family and she died, without anyone knowing about. The neighbors only knew her by name. The gas company came to turn off her gas. When the meter reader couldn’t get in, they had the police come and break down the door and they found her decayed body.

Absolutly abhorent, but it DOES go on in Catholic, Protestant and Agnostic communities, but you do not hear of it within certain close knitted communities.

My understanding is there have been groups throughout history who have rejected the technogoly of their age. So it is hardly surprising this group does too.

Their arguements can be understood from Scripture. The tragedy is that groups accept the Word of God without reference to the author who wrote the book. Is it hardly any wonder that groups go astray without the moral community

 

[kidderdoc]

kidderdoc posted;

Absolutly abhorent, but it DOES go on in Catholic, Protestant and Agnostic communities, but you do not hear of it within certain close knitted communities.

My understanding is there have been groups throughout history who have rejected the technogoly of their age. So it is hardly surprising this group does too.

Their arguements can be understood from Scripture. The tragedy is that groups accept the Word of God without reference to the author who wrote the book. Is it hardly any wonder that groups go astray without the moral community

Hey! why does it say that is my quote? I did not quote that!!! That was someone else…

 

[kidderdoc]

A documentary called the “Devil’s Playground” is well worth the viewing as I never understood it prior to seeing the video. I also took a class at the university called “Amish Las Vegas” to get a better understanding of the Amish…very enlightening…but to say the Amish church is involved in the meth trade is simply not true.

I never said that so do not twist my words or extrapolate into outer space!!

 

[CapaxDei]

True simplicity is to become detached from this world and in constant communion with God.

So true. Alas, the challenge for each one of us is to discover… how?

 

[CapaxDei]

I haven’t read this entire thread, but in response to the original poster, if Catholics, Jews, Protestants, etc. had not fought against Hitler in WWII, the Amish people would now be under Nazi control and unable to live their peaceful way of life. I think it’s a very idealized vision you have of the Amish life. They would not have the religious freedom they do to conscientiously object to going to war, if other Americans hadn’t lost their lives fighting for our freedoms. Think about it. It’s the rest of American society that protects the Amish way of life.

Your point is well taken, but, in my judgement, naive.

First, consider the logistical challenges the Germans would have faced in invading North America. They didn’t even invade Britain. Could they have? Perhaps. But Reichsmarschall Goering was so personally offended by the bombing of Berlin that he ordered the Blitz. (He had said to the German people, not necessarily in so many words, “If Berlin is bombed, you can call me Meyer.”) If the Luftwaffe had focused on destroying the RAF, it could have done so. In fact, it did not. And Operation Sea Lion (the Wehrmacht code name for the invasion of the island of Britain) never happened.

Indeed, some scholars argue that Hitler never wanted war with Britain; as he saw it, the true enemy was Bolshevism.

At its narrowest point, the English Channel is 22 miles across. (In 1944, the Allies mounted a diversion, causing the Wehrmacht high command to believe that Patton was going to cross the Channel at this narrowest point, the Pas de Calais).

Compare that to the Atlantic Ocean. How would Hitler get enough soldiers and materiel across the ocean to land… where? Maine? (First Civil Defense Volunteer: “Say… are those Germans on the beach?” Second Civil Defense Volunteer: “Ayup. Sound the alarm!”) Massachusetts? New Jersey?

Long-Guyland? (“Fuhgeddaboudit!”)

And whence would this invasion have been staged? Iceland? That’s a long way to go.

Canada?

You see the difficulty.

Even if President Roosevelt had stayed true to his promise to American parents that their boys wouldn’t see any “European wars,” Americans would have fought, had it come that far. Do you not suppose that the prospect of a German invasion – even if it had been logistically possible – would not have galvanized the American people?

Think about it.

After the Pearl Harbor attack, many Japanese-Americans were interred in camps because it was feared (or at least, the federal government insintuated) that they would support a Japanese invasion of the “homeland.”

Japan attacked us directly. Germany never did. Germany declared war on the United States only because of the (idiotic, in my opinion) Tripartite Pact. I submit that if there had been any evidence whatsoever that Germany was capable of an invasion of North America, and that there was evidence that this might be immanent, Americans would be up in arms.

At this point I note that, in the First World War, Wagner’s operas were banned at the Metropolitan Opera. But not in the Second World War. Indeed, some of the Met’s greatest performances are of Wagner operas during this period, starring Melchior and Flagstad.

But in the WWI, the Kaiser’s troops were falsely accused of many atrocities, including the bayonetting of babies.

Never mind the fact that the Kaiser didn’t want this war. But Germany was demonized.

And yet, in WWII…
it was different.

Wagner was not scorned at the Met… even though he was Hitler’s favorite composer. (Don’t blame Wagner.)

Even though… Hitler sought war, if necessary. (And when The End came, it wasn’t his fault, according to him… it was because the German people didn’t believe enough!)

Even though… well, the names speak for themselves:

Dachau… Sobibor… Treblinka… Buchenwald… Bergen-Belsen… Auschwitz… and many others.

Do you suppose that Satan had a field day between 1919 and 1945?

I do.

Eden, I propose that you don’t fully appreciate the factors that would have been necessary to accomplish what you describe.

The Americans of 1941-1945 would never have allowed Hitler the pleasure of conquering this country. There is scholarly speculation that the Wehrmacht could have conquered Russia, if only…

…if only Hitler had not postponed Operation Barbarossa to punish Yugoslavia (shades of 1914?)

…well, it all stems from that. Could Hitler have broken Russia’s back? Perhaps. But he didn’t.

If German divisions had actually managed to set hostile foot on American soil, do you think they would have conquered?

I think not.

 

[Aramis]

Thanks for that insightful post Jim.

I’m still puzzled though. How does using a horse & buggy instead of a pickup truck separate them from their neighbors? Am farmers are tilling their fields with tractors pulling plows, not a community. Their dairy farms have the latest milking and pasteurization equipment where one man,with a son or 2, can easily maintain a large herd. They don’t have electricity from the grid, but each home will have a generator and windmills. Wired phone service isn’t allowed, but no problems using satellites, repeaters, and other cell phone services.

And I too miss those days when locks on doors were unheard of, & neighbors were always lending a hand.

In the case of automobiles, a “recovering Menonite” explained it thusly:

The minimum technology needed to get the job done is the preferred method. The local ordinum sets the tone of what is needed.

So, since pins do nicely to hold the vest closed, buttons are not needed. But since a Man’s sons flee him, and his horse pulls not enough on the plow, he may have a tractor to plow with. Since the cell phone allows him to call the community for help when his buggy breaks down and reach members of the ordinum without reaching outsiders, it is an acceptable tool, while the CB radio isn’t.

These particular sects are very localized, and seem to lack any strong central unity outside their local community and its ordinum.