How great are the Amish

Sycophant

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I don't see a single thing admirable about that action.

I disagree.

I think that realising they were not the only victims of this man's terrible actions is very admirable. And is certainly more than most of us would consider.

I do think about this sort of thing sometime though - and I did when I heard of this incident. A man with a family goes off the rails like this, commits a terrible crime and ends his life. He has made victims of his own family as well - they are as innocent in this as his direct victims.
 
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PassthePeace1

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Not exactly. Amish do live a self-imposed life of simplicity, which translates to a life that constantly teeters on poverty. Because they refuse government assistance, many Amish families simply go without, especially in years with extensive crop failure (like this year).

Don't believe me? Here's a map of the Amish in Ohio who are eligible for food stamps because they're below the poverty line.

But you're right. Not all Amish live in self-imposed poverty. Some choose to profit off of tourists and those who fall for their "poor Amish" act. I've known Amish who appealed to pity to buy pots and pans at yard sales for just a few cents, but when it came time to pay they'd whip out a thick wad of cash. You'll have to excuse me if I don't feel a need to pat the Amish on the back. I've known too many Amish.


I also know many Amish, and have experinced nothing...like you just described, at all...they are very hard working people.
 
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TheMissus

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I also know many Amish, and have experinced nothing...like you just described, at all...they are very hard working people.

So.... what? My observations mean nothing because you don't agree? The statistics of the Amish poverty level means nothing?
 
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TheMissus

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No, Missus....I didn't say your obervations mean nothing...just that mine are different.

I didn't expect your experiences to be exactly like mine. Besides, I never claimed that the Amish weren't "hard working." They may work hard, but a good portion still falls under the poverty line, and many still aim to rip off non-Amish people. It's got nothing to do with working hard, and it's not solely my observation.

The Amish, as a whole, are not role models for the rest of us. This bandwagon of praising "the Amish" is harmful, because "the Amish" as a group do some truly despicable things. (Rampant sexual abuse, just to name one.) These particular families have forgiven someone and that's great, but it doesn't follow that we should praise "the Amish" for something that a few families did.
 
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419gam

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I disagree.

I think that realising they were not the only victims of this man's terrible actions is very admirable. And is certainly more than most of us would consider.

I do think about this sort of thing sometime though - and I did when I heard of this incident. A man with a family goes off the rails like this, commits a terrible crime and ends his life. He has made victims of his own family as well - they are as innocent in this as his direct victims.
The family of the guilty perpetrator may be as innocent as the Amish victims, but they are not as negatively impacted. There is nothing as nearly as tragic in an adult freely choosing to end their own life then their is in the unprovoked slaughter of innocent children.
 
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butterfoot

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The family of the guilty perpetrator may be as innocent as the Amish victims, but they are not as negatively impacted. There is nothing as nearly as tragic in an adult freely choosing to end their own life then their is in the unprovoked slaughter of innocent children.


So I guess you get to determine who is more of a victim. All involved are victims of this man and we should be compasionate towards his family as well as the families who lost innocent children.
 
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419gam

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So I guess you get to determine who is more of a victim. All involved are victims of this man and we should be compasionate towards his family as well as the families who lost innocent children.
You must be joking, surely you are capable of seing that the murder of a child is more tragic then an adult choosing to commit suicide.
 
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praying

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What else would the Amish do with a million dollars? They live in self-imposed poverty.


Hardly the Amish as a group are one of the wealthist in the nation. Just because they don't flaunt it doesn't mean they are living in poverty.
 
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TheMissus

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Hardly the Amish as a group are one of the wealthist in the nation. Just because they don't flaunt it doesn't mean they are living in poverty.

Having money and using the money are two very different things. If your net worth is over a billion dollars, but you live in a squalid rent-controlled roach hotel and eat nothing but ramen noodles because you don't want to spend your money, it's still self-imposed poverty.
 
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They determine their self-imposed poverty. It's self-imposed. If they have no use for the money, there's no skin off their nose if they give it to someone else.

But they aren't in poverty. They have homes, farms, clothese and plenty of food. Go to Zimbabwe if you want to see an example of real poverty.
 
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Finella

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The murderer's family certainly did have a serious tragic loss. I don't know the particular economic situation, but it could be that the father was the primary breadwinner and the means whereby the family got health insurance and other forms of socioeconomic security. By blasting himself away, he put his family at risk for falling into poverty themselves. No such loss was suffered by the deaths of the Amish girls, though certainly this was a horrible, shocking, and tragic loss. Neither is worse than the other.

And yes, many Amish (and this is quite true of those in Lancaster County, PA) are quite wealthy. As has been rightly pointed out, they simply stash their assets and choose to not use them. Because of the simple life they life, their need for income is not as great as it is for the rest of us. However, what makes me wonder about this donation is that they don't have health insurance -- and surely the medical bills of the girls who were treated after the shooting have got to be enormous. Not to mention the medical care the surviving girls may still need to receive in the future. I would hope that these families did not give away money that donors intended for the use of these girls' care and then find themselves short.
 
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ACougar

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I am humbled by the grace and generosity of the Amish during this terrible time for them. Their example has caused me to reevaluate my life and work on finally finding forgiveness in my heart for someone who did me a great wrong. I'm very grateful for that.

I find myself humbled by thier grace and generosity as well.
 
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tqpix

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But they aren't in poverty. They have homes, farms, clothese and plenty of food. Go to Zimbabwe if you want to see an example of real poverty.
Defintion of poverty:

From Dictionary.com
  1. the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor; indigence.
  2. deficiency of necessary or desirable ingredients, qualities, etc.: poverty of the soil.
  3. scantiness; insufficiency: Their efforts to stamp out disease were hampered by a poverty of medical supplies.
From the American Heritage Dictionary:
  1. The state of being poor; lack of the means of providing material needs or comforts.
  2. Deficiency in amount; scantiness: “the poverty of feeling that reduced her soul” (Scott Turow).
  3. Unproductiveness; infertility: the poverty of the soil.
  4. Renunciation made by a member of a religious order of the right to own property.
From WorldNet:
  • the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions
As you can see from the definitions I've bolded above; you can have food, clothing, and shelter and still be considered to be in poverty.
 
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TheMissus

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And from m-w.com:

1 a : the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions b : renunciation as a member of a religious order of the right as an individual to own property

Poverty isn't necessarily synonymous with indigence. And as I'd demonstrated previously, a sizable number of Amish families in Ohio (which has the largest population of Amish in the world) do fall under the poverty line.
 
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GraceLikeRainFallsDown

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Thank you for posting this article. I had not heard this yet.

I am so humbled by the way they have handled this unbelievable situation. My heart and prayers went out to them after this tragedy. I will continue to pray for healing for them, but I will also thank God for their wonderful example to us all.

It is truly an example of how God can use terrible events as lessons for us all. Some good may come out of this tragic event. Their example may bring others closer to God. :prayer:
 
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izarya

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We all seem to be on various paths whether we know it or not which indicate to us that there are great heights and abysmal depths possible along the road to realization, whatever that realization may be. And I would argue that for many of us, the path on which we tread encourages us to identify ourselves with the heights (if those heights be indeed supernal, or if they represent the fulfillment of human potential for the Good) or to identify with a beautiful balance. In any case, I would imagine that there would be some consensus for the assertion that humanity is called to a beauty which it has not yet realized fully, but that it has glimpsed many times through the centuries as a reality that can be lived and experienced: moments of aesthetic joy, moments of a feeling of oneness with nature, moments of intense communion with another, moments of love.

I would argue that if this vision is a relatively common vision, then the various and venial ways (as well as the great and monstrous ways) in which we fail to touch or comprehend this beauty (however we may understand it) are occasions more for pity and compassion than anything else. These failures demand a response, sure. But this response must be tempered by mercy. And I think the harder it is to temper the response with mercy, the more valuable it is to do so.

I say this as one who was absolutely flabbergasted by what happened in that Amish schoolhouse. It was stunning. And when the depths of the possibility of human depravity are opened and plumbed like that, it's just jaw-dropping. What that man did was monstrous. But that this monstrous act was done by a human being is not surprising, given how truly far away we can be from the beauty to which we aspire.

And so I think that things like this should be heartbreaking. On every possible level--when you think of the enormous loss to that community, when you think of the pain those children endured in that room, when you think of their parents and their anger, when you think of the twisted byways of the soul that man walked to lead him to believe that we he was about to do was inevitable. I think we should be broken by this. I don't think you can honestly live in the world without being broken.

And I think this broken-ness is what reveals what human nature really is, and what allows us to say, "I identify with the humanity of that little girl, and I identify with the humanity of the man who killed her, because I have to. Because if I don't, I deny my own humanity, my own broken-heart, which is perhaps the most precious thing I have, and whose cracks are perhaps the most beautiful things I can call my own because they admit so much of the pain and beauty of the world." I think the whole point of being human is to be broken by love. Finally and ecstatically. And I think that somewhere in that brokenness is the beauty to which we aspire and the fulfillment of our humanity.

Rumi wrote a beautiful poem that expresses this, I think. It says:

Tonight, the image of
That Beautiful One came swiftly,
Looked for my heart’s place.
When He found it, He drew His knife
And plunged it into my heart.
Bless that Most Beautiful One.
 
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