Surprised to see what looks very much like OSB lining the Amish house on the program on BBC2 right now.
Always get the impression that anything less than two centuries old (in technology terms) is too modern. But that is very likely based on much ignorance.
Not to mention the Fridge, the 'phone (in an outhouse!) and the solar panels.
I wasn't really watching - but I did later notice several things like that. I can't get my head round why walking to a phone makes it OK...
The Amish philosophy is not to adopt a technology just for the sake of adopting a technology. If it is a useful tool to accomplish the work they chose to do, and not a frivoulous toy, then they will use it.
A telephone is a useful emergency communication device, which is more-or-less exactly how my great-grandmother considered it.
JGH
I didn't see the show - but I've had dinner in an Amish home. The fridge and the lights were gas-powered, rather than electric.
At least they don't need GPS - the horse always knows the way home.
Owain
I miss my gas powered Kitchen fridge. Only expect such things in motorhomes nowadays.
Except maybe for this £1,437.60 thing...
The one I like is the eruv.
I once heard of an eruv where the wired off area was very small....but that was considered the 'outside'....
Not in mine. Gas fridges are a nightmare. The best fridges for mobile use are the 24V DC ones meant for yachts.
Bill
You just don't understand the finer points of religious reasoning. An eruv is a boundary wall taken to its most minimal extreme. You start off by asking what a wall is, and move on to asking whether it's still a wall if it's not in good condition. Everybody would agree it is. Then, what if it has holes in? Sure, that's okay. So, what if the holes are really big holes? That's okay, too. So, you end up with an eruv, which is a wall with a simply huge hole in it.
It's all perfectly logical, but if you think of it as a boundary marker you may be happier. It's no different, really, from the boundary line between neighbouring counties, but even that tenuous line acts as a barrier to policemen.
It sounds like one of those invisible dog fences.
Yes, but the bit where a very small enclosed spec is taken to be the 'outside' and the rest of the world the 'inside' was what took the biscuit! A bit like the guy and his hut in HHGttG...
Can't be as crazy as the strain of Jewish religion that forbids ALL work on the sabbath.
I watched a programme many years ago about the extraordinary lengths some would go to comply with this. Even down to a special light switch which was designed to comply with this.Some wont even take the bones out of fish or filter water on the sabbath
Beats me
Actually, I don't think that could work as an eruv, so I am not sure where you got that from?
A bit like the guy and his hut in HHGttG...
and much closer to home - on the Island of Scalpay - there is a sign stating that the children's playground is closed on Sunday. Can't have anyone - even children - enjoying themselves on the Sabbath.
I've just had a flashback to trying to get a gas-powered fridge lit in a caravan. Kneeling on the floor with your head in the fridge while repeatedly pressing a piezo-electric button and trying to see a tiny blue flame through a little perspex window while muttering in basic Anglo-Saxon. Thank the lord for electrical hook-ups.
-- Halmyre
I've stayed in a household like that over the sabbath. Once you get the hang of what's going on, it's actually very relaxing.
I suspect that it's less crazy than everyone else in the country rushing off to the shopping centre on Saturday to spend money they haven't got and can't afford on things they don't need. :-)
I kind of envied the Amish their certainty about things. No ontological problems for them!
There are a number of sub-sects of Amish. The ones you see on TV are always the more moderate ones, since the "hard line" Amish, who eschew most modern technology, will not allow themselves to be filmed. Indeed, some of the "Amish" I have seen on TV are not, strictly speaking, Amish at all, but families who have been "shunned" for using modern technology, but still keep elements of the Amish lifestyle.
(My parents live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, aka "Amish Country", although the community in Ohio is larger.)
It was tried in North London a while ago. I think it got slapped down..!
I vaguely remember them putting up an eruv surrounding Golders Green.
Ah, yes...
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