The Amish are an Anabaptist Christian denomination and part of the Mennonite sect best known for rejecting many modern conveniences such as electricity and automobiles, while adhering to an agrarian lifestyle. They dress plainly (a compliment is "You look plain") and live apart from mainstream society and strictly observe the Lord's Day (Sunday) as a day of rest. In addition they do not participate in Social Security (they obtained an exemption due to their religious beliefs) and also generally do not attend school beyond 8th grade but continue to learn by reading throughout their lives. Their ancestors were German-speaking Swiss who arrived in eastern Pennsylvania in the 1700s, and more came over in the 1800s. The now-largest Amish settlement (148 large families today) west of the Mississippi River was from Switzerland to Kolona in southeastern Iowa, in 1846.[1]
The Amish are the fastest growing religion in the United States, doubling every 20 years.[2] The Amish population is growing so fast that each year some families move out to acquire more farmland. They are highly successful financially and morally. By 2050 the Amish are expected to attain 1 million in total population in the United States, and by 2222 the Amish could be the majority in the U.S.[3] The largest Amish communities are in Pennsylvania, where the Amish population exceeded 84,000 as of 2021 and is growing at more than 3% annual rate.
RationalWiki.org is a politically left-leaning website that skews towards atheism/agnosticism in terms of its worldview. RationalWiki has a small fraction of the web traffic it had in the beginning part of 2019 (see: RationalWiki and web traffic). RationalWiki is currently experiencing financial problems. On May 29, 2022, one of the founders of the RationalWiki website indicated "Currently the donations we get are sparse... We have not done a donation drive in a long time and have not been self-supporting for over a year....".[4] A global fundraising scam, Rationalwiki has not complied with non-profit reporting requirements for 7 consecutive years.[5] See also: Atheism and charity and Atheist organizations and fundraising and Atheist fundraising vs. religious fundraising
In the next 3 years, the global atheist/agnostic population are expected to shrink in number and continue shrinking in size (see: Status of Global atheism/agnosticism/Christianity and non-Christian religions, 2022, in the Context of 1900–2050 - Data compiled by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary). In addition, from a global perspective, the secular leftism is in decline in the world (see: Decline of the secular left).
At RationalWiki users who post information contrary to secular leftist/liberal ideology are vandal-binned, topic-banned and eventually put on trial and shunned/banned. All facts and opinions which are at variance with secular leftist/liberal ideology are reverted/erased/obscured at RationalWiki. The trials are not fairminded in terms of the application of the rules. For example, despite RationalWiki's rules requiring a 2/3rds majority to permaban a user, a RationalWiki user was permabanned despite the vote not reaching a 2/3rds majority.
RationalWikians have banned a very large proportion of individuals from their website compared to most wikis (see: Edits to blocked editor accounts ratio at a wiki). See also: Atheism and intolerance
Unlike the Amish, RationalWikians do permanently ban some of its users/members (But individuals who are "permabanned" from RationalWiki are able to create sockpuppet accounts and get around RationalWiki's so-called "permabans"). Atheists are known for being more unforgiving than Christians (see: Atheism and forgiveness). The Amish do excommunicate/shun members, but if they are contrite, they do allow ex-Amish to return to the Amish community.
See also: GrammarCommie
For a lengthy period, RationalWiki had a mentally ill enforcer of secular leftist orthodoxy at their wiki who went by the username GrammarCommie (GC). GC bullied other RationalWikians. GC formerly served on the RationalWiki Foundation board of directors until he had a mental health crisis which consisted of him threatening to cut himself and commit suicide in order to get his way at RationalWiki (see Screenshot captures of RationalWiki posts related to GrammnarCommie). GC is in the process of leaving RationalWiki.
In June of 2022, GrammarCommie was banning and unbanning himself.[8] Before banning himself initially, GrammarCommie said that RationalWiki was "half-dead" and filled with "twits".[9] Specifically, he wrote: "You know what, fine. Take your half dead site, where most of you twits obsess over one or two articles and et the rest of the site rot, where I can't even perform basic category maintenance without someone getting on my ass, which by the way is why i haven't touched mainspace in ages, where trolls are humored as long as there's the barest minimum level of plausible deniability, and shove it right up your f**king *ss."[10] In reply, the RationalWiki user 2friedeggs said: "This site is dying for a reason" and he indicated that GrammarCommie was chasing good faith editors away. On July 3, 2022, the RationalWiki Moderator LeftyGreenMario gave Grammarcommie an ultimatum. He could either unblock himself and "contribute to the community without taking swipes at other people" or he could stay blocked.[11] In response, GrammarCommie replied: "@LeftyGreenMario What, exactly, am I supposed to contribute? I try to deal with trolls and asshats, I get burned. I try to clean up categories, I get burned. So. What, exactly, am I supposed to contribute?".[12]
See also: LeftyGreenMario
LeftyGreenMario is a leftist, atheist, feminist and self-described asexual[14]
LeftyGreenMario is a student of Herbert Marcuse's partisan tolerance, and almost singlehandedly destroyed what little bit of balance and tolerance of diverse viewpoints existed in the Rationalwiki community since its founding in 2007. Her asexual outlook on life has been transformed into feelings of hostility and meanspiritedness toward other human beings. As a Trustee of the RationalMedia Foundation,[15] LeftyGreenMario has led the project down the road of leftist intolerance. Many longtime contributors abandoned the project after her rise as a central figure. See also: RationalWiki and web traffic and LeafyGreenMario and Google referral traffic
For awhile, LeftyGreenMario stopped editing RationalWiki due to disharmony at RationalWiki and after being publicly embarrassed for gossiping about other RationalWiki users at the RationalWiki Discord server.
See also: Atheism and groupthink and Atheism and open-mindedness and Atheism and dogmatism
Concerning atheism and open-mindedness, The Independent reported in an article entitled Atheists are less open-minded than religious people, study claims:
“ | Religious people are more tolerant of different viewpoints than atheists, according to researchers at a Catholic university.
A study of 788 people in the UK, France and Spain concluded that atheists and agnostics think of themselves as more open-minded than those with faith, but are are actually less tolerant to differing opinions and ideas. Religious believers "seem to better perceive and integrate diverging perspectives", according to psychology researchers at the private Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), Belgium's largest French-speaking university. Filip Uzarevic, who co-wrote the paper, said his message was that "closed-mindedness is not necessarily found only among the religious".[16] |
” |
PsyPost indicates:
“ | New research indicates that religious believers can be better at perceiving and integrating different perspectives than atheists in Western Europe.
“The main message of the study is that closed-mindedness is not necessarily found only among the religious,” the study’s corresponding author, Filip Uzarevic of the Catholic University of Louvain, told PsyPost. The research was published April 27, 2017, in the peer-reviewed journal Personality and Individual Differences. Atheists tended to show greater intolerance of contradiction, meaning when they were presented with two seemingly contradictory statements they rated one as very true and the other as very false. They also showed less propensity to be able to imagine arguments contrary to their own position and find them somewhat convincing.[17] |
” |
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of individuals in which the quest for harmony/conformity within the group results in irrational and/or poor decision-making.
The atheist website Atheist Revolution declared about segments of the atheist population:
“ | We've seen various cliques emerge, some of which have largely abandoned critical thinking for dogma. This mutual admiration society strikes me as being antithetical to free thought, as similar ideas are rewarded through promotion while diverse perspectives receive less attention. This sets the stage for a type of groupthink that runs counter to big tent atheism...
By elevating some in our movement to the level of celebrities, I fear we have cheapened it through irrational hero worship.[18] |
” |
See also: Atheism and intolerance
Wikipedia is a website founded by an atheist and agnostic.
Below is a screen capture from Wikipedia's Rumspringa article which helps demonstrate that the Amish are far more tolerant than RationalWikians who have banned a very large proportion of individuals from their website compared to most wikis (see: Edits to blocked editor accounts ratio at a wiki). See also: Atheism and intolerance
RationalWiki users have a higher incidence of mental illness than the general public which is common for the Western atheist and Western secular leftist population as a whole (see: Atheism and mental illness and Secular leftists and psychogenic illness).
The abstract for the journal article Health and Well-Being Among the Non-religious: Atheists, Agnostics, and No Preference Compared with Religious Group Members published in the Journal of Religion and Health indicates: "On dimensions related to psychological well-being, atheists and agnostics tended to have worse outcomes than either those with religious affiliation or those with no religious preference."[19]
In 2020, at the RationalWiki Discord server, the RationalWiki Administrator and RationalWiki Media Foundation board member DuceMoosolini said the RationalWiki website attracts "all sorts of weird people".
According to a health care portion of the University of Iowa website: "Amish have similar rates of mental illness to the general American population; however, there is a decreased incidence of depression. Case studies suggest social support within the Amish community can decrease the risk and severity of depression."[21]
See also: Atheism and the brain
According to an international study done by William Bainbridge, atheism is frequent among people whose interpersonal social obligations are weak and is also linked to lower fertility rates in advanced industrial nations (See also: Atheism and fertility rates).[22]
RationalWikians have a lot of infighting. According to RationalWiki, RationalWiki's Chicken Coop "is for the avoidance, containment and resolution of cases of Headless Chicken Mode (HCM). Despite the name, this tends to be serious business."[23] RationalWiki's Chicken Coop has 130+ archived pages as of July 10, 2022.[24] Presently, the main area of the website where disputes are attempted to be settled is RationalWikian's "RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation" which has 60 pages of archived discussion as of July 10, 2022[25]
The Amish are pacifist and have a reputation of being peaceful. CBS News wrote an article on the Amish entitled Amish: Separate And Peaceful.[26]
See also: Atheism and autism
Atheists have an above-average incidence of autism (see: Atheism and autism). ]]
The atheist PZ Myers and his blog audience scored higher than average on a Asperger's syndrome test (see: Atheist PZ Myers' blog audience and their reported Asperger's quotient test results).
Kiwi Farms has a thread discussing RationalWiki in which it describes RationalWiki as a "whiny hugbox for spergs and a cluster**** of never ending drama on a rapidly declining website".[27]
See also: Amish
The American Amish have a low autism rate which may be due to their healthy and simple lifestyle, their genetic makeup or both.[28] Due to their high levels of physical activity, the Amish have low rates of obesity.[29] Many atheists do not live a wholesome life (see: Atheism and alcoholism and Atheism and drug addiction and Atheism and health and Atheist population and immorality).
David N. Brown states that: "In March 2006, Drs. Kevin Strauss, Holmes Morton and others documented 9 autistic Amish children, which could raise the autism rate of the Lancaster Amish community Olmsted supposedly investigated to almost 1/5,000 which is still a fraction of the US average of 1/68."[30][31][32]
The Amish have high a fertility rate and in 2012 the Amish were named the fastest growing faith group in the United States. The Amish population is projected to grow to 1 million people by 2050.[33]
See also: RationalWiki and its web visitor interest in pornography
The Amish do not have a significant problem with pornography. Also, a significant amount of pornography is on the internet and the Amish do not have internet access in their communities.
See also: Atheism and leadership and Atheism and social skills
The term Amish was first coined in 1710 by opponents of Jakob Amman, an Anabaptist leader. As noted above, the Amish are presently a prospering and peaceful group.
On the other hand, the godless have a reputation for having poor leadership (see: Atheism and leadership) and RationalWiki is no exception to this matter (see: RationalWiki and its poor leadership) which helps explains its socially challenged atmosphere and impoverished state as well as it falling web traffic and influence. See also: Atheism and social skills
RationalWiki is written almost entirely in English (Although some of its users are multilingual).
According to one scholar, "today, almost all Amish are functionally bilingual in Pennsylvania Dutch and English; however, domains of usage are sharply separated. Pennsylvania Dutch dominates in most in-group settings, such as the dinner table and preaching in church services. In contrast, English is used for most reading and writing. English is also the medium of instruction in schools and is used in business transactions and often, out of politeness, in situations involving interactions with non-Amish. Finally, the Amish read prayers and sing in Standard, or High, German (Hoch Deitsch) at church services. The distinctive use of three different languages serves as a powerful conveyor of Amish identity."[36] The English language is used in more and more situations by the Amish.[37]
Humor:
Categories: [RationalWiki] [Amish] [Atheism]