The Devil’s Playground – Hey, Is That Beelzebub On The Monkey Bars?
21 December 2008 by KA(In which I manage to dodge/artfully evade the topic of the oncoming holiday)
I just finished watching the Devil’s Playground. This documentary deals with the Amish custom of Rumspringa, of which the Wiki entry says:
Rumspringa (also Rumschpringe or Rumshpringa, derived from the Deitsch term for “running around or jumping”) generally refers to a period of adolescence for some members of the Amish, a subsect of the Anabaptist Christian movement, that begins around the age of sixteen and ends when a youth chooses baptism within the Amish church or instead leaves the community. The vast majority choose baptism and remain in the church. Not all Amish use this term (it does not occur in Hostetler’s extended discussion of adolescence), but in sects that do, Amish elders generally view this as a time for courtship and finding a spouse.
As a rule, of all the Christian cults, I rather appreciate how these folks tend to stay out of other folks’ affairs. We envision them as religious anachronisms, as they tend to veer away from modern technology, but the film states that they shy away from anything that might endanger the community or family (the example was that a battery charger, not much of an impact, an automobile, a huge impact).
In fact, the doors are pretty much open to the adolescent at any time they want to return to the ‘fold’ – but if they return, and change their minds, to return to the ‘English’ ways? Then they are shunned.
My major issue with this group (as with any other religious nomenclature) is this sense of tribalism. In some ways, tribalism is a social networking tool, a meeting of like minds. The unfortunate side-effect is the exclusion of those deemed other. And when it is done in a religious context, somehow, some way, it just seems to make it that much worse. Basically, a group of human beings is isolating and outcasting another human (or smaller group of humans) over a bunch of superstitious hooey. A perceived non-crime committed by a non-criminal as per rules set by a non-existent judge.
Kafka, anyone?
21 December 2008, on 4:18 am
That’s sort of what chimpanzee do, although chimps skip the baptism bit, I’m not suggesting the Amish are chimps of course, chimps are way way more intelligent but that sort of tribal behaviour is unnervingly similar.
21 December 2008, on 3:22 pm
Personally, I don’t see any reason to sugarcoat this. The amish are idiots. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,273941,00.html
“This disease seems to cruelly target their communities.” First off, shame on the reporter for implying that genetic disorders are capable of emotions and choosing targets. Secondly, it’s amazing how common genetic disorders become when you limit your breeding population in the way that the amish do.
The amish belong to a very large group of christians and other idiots who belong to something that my roomie and I refer to as the “cult of suffering.” They believe, deep down, that if they had to suffer to get something, it is inherently more valuable. With this comes the belief that if someone else suffered to make something, it has more worth. As an example, take two wooden chairs. They are identical. Same material, same shape, same construction. Both are quite sturdy. These chairs have the same value, right? Well, if one is hand made, and the other machined, then not according to these people. Because someone worked hard to make the hand made chair, they will perceive it as having a greater value to them, even though they get nothing out of one chair they wouldn’t get from the other.
21 December 2008, on 4:56 pm
a group of human beings is isolating and outcasting another human (or smaller group of humans) over a bunch of superstitious hooey.
My niece and youth pastor husband who isolated themselves and their children on that Alaskan island did so to get away to Sarah Palin’s cult paradise…away from non-believers (even though the state is loaded full of meth users, they are somehow better than the rest of us on the mainland in the evil populated areas). And they stay away from family members who do not believe as they do. My sister defends them totally, saying that it is me and my other family members (my two brothers and their wives and families etc) who are shunning and causing divisiveness because we will not listen to what they are telling us about Gawd’s word and will not repent and be saved from whatever sins they image we have. When they do come visit once a year, they stick to his parents, my sister and her husband and that’s it. They avoid everyone else. I really don’t care anymore because I have other relatives out of town who are like strangers to me and that’s the way life goes. But these two told me that I was “crude” (though I never did anything to them except to tell a couple of slightly off-color jokes a couple of times via email) and was never mean to any of them…except to be firm that I do not want to buy into their religious crap and I told them to keep it to themselves. I was thinking that it was the main reason why they wrote and cut off communication with me, but when my brothers had no arguments with them at all except that they were happy with their own Lutheran religion (which my niece and her husband think is not true Xianity), my brothers are being shunned, also.
This shunning is such unnecessary and pointless nonsense. They are keeping their children away from family ties and their own grandparents because they believe they are not godly. So, the kids will grow up never knowing relatives and with the limited population out there will unfortunately end up getting involved in meth for fun and excitment since there isn’t anything else to do out there except fish and hunt moose.
21 December 2008, on 5:00 pm
Must be rough, having to accept help like that.
21 December 2008, on 6:58 pm
While I personally have no problem with “community identity” or avoiding technology (I’ve never particularly been a technophile, myself) the idea of shunning whole groups of people in our post-modern world is a shameful loss.
With the access we have to the global community, it is truly grevious not to experience something besides your immediate surroundings. To take provencialism to the point of purposefully avoiding or even fearing/hating certain people for not holding the same unsubstantiated beliefs is down right destructive.
Live and let live, sure; but when families (such as Stardust’s) are torn apart by such non-sense, it’s difficult not to agree with Hitchens, that religions truly poisons everything.
BTW Stardust, not to be harsh on your sister, but she’s full of it. A person should be able to tell any family member they don’t want to talk about a certain subject. If your crazy fundie relatives don’t want to respect that, shame on them. They can’t be surprised when you get upset and ask them again to abstain from the gawd-talk. If they decide that they have nothing in common with you to talk about, so be it. But to shun you and other family members for that as “punishment” is passive-aggressive childishness. I know you know this, but it never hurts to have a little back up
Here’s to hoping your niece’s children don’t turn to meth. Coming from the midwest, I’ve seen the results of that stuff, and yes, religious folk’s kids do indeed turn to it out of boredom and rebellion.
21 December 2008, on 8:46 pm
BTW Stardust, not to be harsh on your sister, but she’s full of it. A person should be able to tell any family member they don’t want to talk about a certain subject.
Fritzy, thanks for the backup. You are right that family members should be able to tell one another if there is some subject we don’t want to talk about,and when I told her that I said it in that way. I said “Since we are family I am sure that we can talk about anything…etc” and went on to nicely ask her to please stop the witnessing and god mail. That was when me and my family were sent a very cold and very mean email from her husband that he was not allowing any more communication with “his wife”. So, for more than two years now, there hasn’t been.
21 December 2008, on 8:50 pm
Last night on our news we saw that the US is currently having a gun buying epidemic and the general consensus was that your either with us all the way or we are going to kill you, the thing about that is it is so similar to the mentality of religious groups who if you don’t agree with their illness then your shunned or as we see so clearly with Muslim crazies that they are more than happy to kill you, this pervasive mental abberation seems to go hand in hand with those folk who consider themselves Gods chosen representatives, oswald Spengler in his discourse on the fall of western imperialism talks about this collective mentality that in it’s own delusional state will sacrifice itself to prove it is some how right and anyone who disagrees is wrong it’s that black and white mentality, the Amish are perhaps one of the most fundamental in that respect and my previous comments in a humourous vein should in no way detract from the reality that their brand of tribalistic exclusiveity is every bit as dangerous as the fruit cakes who flew the aircraft into the towers, because they keep a low profile would indicate that they have something to hide and we should never ever be conned by the simple piety, it’s just a front, if it came to push and shove them you would quickly see that they too have no qualms about doing some killing, the Wacko from Waco was a classic example of a simple little group of christians{ all be it fruit cakes} who were more than willing to do some killing, any form of tribalistic behaviour that is based on a belief system as unsound and delusional as monotheists of any persuasion should be seen for what they are ,KILLERS, forget the speeches on how peace loving a gang may be it’s all just talk, the reality is as I said much more insidious.
22 December 2008, on 12:09 am
KA
The Amish don’t seem to mind selling their goods to the rest of the world. Lots of small religious factions like this eventually fade out.
But you’re trying to evade avoid the coming holidays? But why? We have so many irreligious ways of celebrating. In fact here is our good friend Eric Idle with a little xmas ditty for us all. Feel free to sing along.
WARNING The song “Fuck Xmas” contains language unsuited for children and small adults.
http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/140531/detail/
22 December 2008, on 12:39 am
jimmer:
No, I’m shunning them.
& no, I was evading the topic – difficult to dodge these days that come rolling over you like a steamroller.
No, I’m simply not celebrating this year.
Inari:
Cool nick, BTW.
Unless 1 chair was vividly carved w/patterns & the other was a plain pre-fab, of course not.
People tend to personify: somehow, a meal is ‘better’ if it’s ‘made w/love’, as if the emotional content of the cook infuses the meal w/some kind of ‘fuzzy wuzzy oogie boogie’ nonsense.
22 December 2008, on 4:31 am
But KA did you listen to the song?
BHAro I gotta tell ya to listen here
http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/140531/detail/
It will cure you of what you got.
22 December 2008, on 12:48 pm
Howdy, everyone! I’m on the computer now and then during “skeleton” hours at work and my family visiting from out of town.
My main issue right now with the Amish is their treatment of animals; they apparently run a lot of puppy mills, justifying their abuses with the dominion over animals their babble gives them. I’ve also heard of at least one case of their covering up child abuse in order to avoid attention and intervention from the outside world, which outraged me royally at the time because the community’s response to the story going public tended to side with the abuser rather than the abused.
That to me is another of the main dangers of tribalism, especially religious: shunning the outsider / remaining “apart” so that they can’t see and thus do anything about what’s really going on inside. It seems all about power and population control…
22 December 2008, on 12:51 pm
Hey Jimmer…Thanks SO much for that the (fucking) hilarious link!
You just solved one itsi-bitsi part of my Winter Solstice Holiday emailing shtick. It’s been so (fucking) miserably cold around Chicagoland…and I don’t really (fucking) HAVE to go out chasing for anything but (fucking) food…that I intend to include that link in my accompanying note to my (fucking?) friends; with my little custom created Holiday eCard attachment.
I’m sure it’ll startle a few of the terminally “still believing” Xtian sheeple types.
What’s that, Jimmer…”So much for (fucking) ‘friendship’!”…?
“Fuck, yes!”
Of course…with all due respect to Eric Idle…I would’ve somehow found a way to weasel in a “Fuck Jeebus”, or maybe just “Fuck all Religions”, somewhere into the song’s lyric.
Me thinks, however, Eric Idle has, perhaps, just a smidgeon more ‘class’ (sensitivity?) than myself…?
22 December 2008, on 2:11 pm
ChuckA
LOL me too. However only a few of my friends will appreciate it.
22 December 2008, on 2:24 pm
My main issue right now with the Amish is their treatment of animals; they apparently run a lot of puppy mills, justifying their abuses with the dominion over animals their babble gives them.
My father had a rural Baptist upbringing in the Smoky Mountains. When the cat population around the farm became too much, when a cat had a litter my grandmother ordered my father and his brothers to put the new kittens in a sack filled with rocks and toss them in the river! The same river the church used for Baptizing people. However, my father describes the elation he felt when a bag would become untied and he saw all the kittens swimming to safety. He said his mother used the Babble verse to justify killing whatever animals became a burden, or to “toy” with them in all sorts of mean ways for entertainment (they would tie firecrackers to the dogs’ tails and watch them go crazy…shit like that.)
It must have affected him because I never saw him be cruel to any animals except once when he thought he was doing good by trying to hang a diseased psycho cat in our backyard when police refused to come and take care of it. This was back in the 50s when no one really cared about animal rights. He and my mom have gone through three dogs and several birds and they baby all of them to the point of insanity. They literally kill their dogs with kindness by too much people food. So, my father went from one extreme to the other. It really affected him. And I wonder how many of the Amish children are affected by this shit. The stories I have seen about Amish who “leave the fold” are quite traumatized by some things they had experienced.
22 December 2008, on 2:44 pm
Wow, Star; an upbringing like that would really have messed me up. In my house, we didn’t baby animals to the point of insanity, but our cats, dogs, fish, and birds were all treated very well, seemed pretty happy and well-adjusted (no pooping behind chairs!), and have lived extremely long lives (my mom had one cat die at the age of 20!). Even the tiniest kitten, if injured or ill and unable to be nursed back to life, was wrapped in a blanket, driven to the vet, and humanely put to sleep (people thought my mom was nuts; at the time, cats weren’t valued very much in the DR, certainly not as pets or companions).
Whoops, there’s my ride; I’ll chat with y’all tomorrow!
22 December 2008, on 3:25 pm
Bye Eve! Hope you have time to do a post sometime soon. I am sure I speak for everyone when I say we have missed your posts.
22 December 2008, on 7:56 pm
You know, it’s really sad that this genetic disorder is prone to Amish people, and as a result it seems a lot of children are being affected by it (who had no choice whom their parents ended up with). But on the bright side, since the community is so closed off to outsiders, there’s a lesser chance of that particular gene (and the 35+ others mentioned in the article) being further spread into the general population.
This is Darwinism in action — a community refuses to adapt to its environment and inbreeds, and as a result suffers genetic disorders and slowly dies off.
24 December 2008, on 11:42 pm
On the topic of shunning, it’s interesting that among Orthodox Jews, a child who declares herself an atheist is merely an apostate, but still welcome in the home; but if she converts to Christianity (often because of marriage), she becomes “dead” to her family and they actually sit Shiva for them, and go through all the death-and-mourning rituals. Even re-conversion back to religious Judaism won’t affect that, I’m given to understand.
That’s unique to Judaism, I think…has do with the fact that Judaism is as much a quasi-ethnic identity as it is a religious practice. You can be a secular, atheist Jew, but only if you’re born into a Jewish family to begin with. You can’t “convert” to secular Judaism, though some Reform congregation members joke their practices more or less are just that.
I’m embarrassed to admit I went through a religion phase in graduate school–self inflicted brain damage owing to imbibing too much postmodern poppy-cock. After I dumped my highly idiosyncratic “hippie liberal” idea of Christianity, then rescued myself from a dark nihilism, I did take a long hard look at Judaism. Side by side, there was a fair bit I could say I at least liked better than Christianity. It was entertaining to read Christian-to-Judaism conversion narratives for a time. But eventually I drifted away from studying Judaism and came back to an atheist position on the god-question and a generic humanist outlook on everything else.
Hoffy, I wouldn’t read too much into the increased gun sales, other than a general fear of another Clinton-esque weapons ban. I didn’t buy any new firearms after the election, I already own an AR-15, a WASR-10 (semiauto AK clone), a Mini-14 and 2 SKS carbines (a Yugo and a Chicom). I’m jonesing for an M-1 Garand (US Army WW2-era infantry semiauto infantry rifle), and a pre-ban TT33 Tokarev clone, but that’s all. I don’t think Obama will waste political capital on a so-called “AWB” in his first term, since that came back to bite Clinton in the ass in 1994. Australia’s own crime rates have gone up markedly since your country’s own bans were enacted; doesn’t sound like that’s workin’ out too well down under, any more than it has in the UK. After the Mumbai attacks, at least some Britons have begun to wake up and realise maybe a total ban on civilian firearms ownership isn’t great social policy after all.
25 December 2008, on 5:36 pm
JJR?…You, apparently…being a highly educated gun owner…have there been any definitive studies on the relationship of some men’s overwhelming “need” to own lots of big guns, with any possible “Freudian-like” penis size issue?
In other words…do guys with VERY small dicks need to own VERY big guns…and even lots of them?
Just ‘wondering’.
(feigns measuring penis)
Of course gals who like (and even collect?) REALLY big guns…well…I’d say…
that’s probably a whole other…
‘ass-pecked’?
“Bang-bang!”
(ala…Harlan Ellison?)
25 December 2008, on 10:59 pm
Hi JJR I don’t know where you got your info but our gun laws hav’nt really changed at all, there was some superficial tinkering about auto’s being outlawed but you can get past that by being a member of a gun club, presto problem solved, in fact we have had a gun epidemic since the fuctards and the towers, NSW now has 830,000 new fire arms registered, we have gone down the US path of arming the populous by stealth, it’s all a giant con job, the real reason our crime rate is going up is because we become more saturated with US Ideology by the day, our media and our TV is basically US, we even have a faux channel for fucks sake, the US is a toxic xianist culture that pollutes all who come into contact with it, this is directly attributable to to the xian ethos that has so totally fucked your great nation and turned it into a pariah state, people like Ric Warren and all the other right wing filth are responsible for the decline, as for gun ownership I personally think anyone who owns a gun is a TARD of the first order and I consider them to be aligned completely with the xianist trash, sorry but guns are for LOSERS, as farmers we often have clowns visit and they always want us to get out our guns, it’s bizzarre how they turn into total fuck heads when they get a gun in their hands, we let them shoot a few rabbits and they love it, it’s the small dick syndrome, low self esteem and sheer stupidity, I for one am aghast that anyone would admit to being a gun tard, that is fucking scary man, we have 2 bolt action 22s that are used to put down injured or dying animals, thats what they are for not to get your jollies killing shit or being a boastful tard about………