https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_Playground_(2002_film)
And also, sadly, many Amish flee physical and sexual abuse: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Amish+abuse&ia=web
Trying to shun technology is the ultimate form of becoming a purist hipster.
Add magical thinking, now it's merely unreasonableness grounded in superstition.
Also:
- Believe they're better than others and everyone else is "bad" for not believing as they do
- Endorse the abdication of personal responsibility
- Reject science
- Justify any cruelty, suffering, or subjugation on the basis of a manufactured mythology, including forcing a raped child to give birth rather than have an abortion "because grey bearded dude in the sky and a magical book say so"
- Coerce people to surrender their autonomy and control them
- Various forms of what is essentially human trafficking
Let me recount:
- Al-Qaeda
- ISIS
- Branch Davidians
- Moonies
- Scientology
- Heaven's Gate
- NXIVM
- The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project (Jonestown)
- Rajneeshpuram
- Seventh-day Adventists (most people have no idea how brutal they were)
- Catholicism for thousands of years, how many 100's of millions were slaughtered in the Old World and the New. (Albigensian Crusade anyone?)
- Islam and Catholicism are close in terms of attributable deaths (piles of heads after raiding sultan armies, Armenian Genocide)
- LDS
- FLDS
The exceptional few least likely to murder, rape, or exploit anyone:
- Sikh
- Jainism
- Episcopal
^- Benign as they may seem, it's still a weakness by surrendering critical thinking over to fantasy.
Also putting Islam, Catholicism, and LDS in the same list as the others would be like me putting similarly more mainstream Orthodox Jews in that list, just because of some cases of organ trafficking[0] or a "child rape assembly line"[1] in a few churches, or circumcision (which is viewed as genital mutilation in most of the world). And the careful adoption of technology (which I admire for the same reason as Amish). So not really appropriate to cluster more mainstream with the marginal cults side-by-side like that because it's disproportionate.
According to Charol Shakeshaft, the researcher behind the 2004 US Department of Education study[2] (if you can find a newer one, I'd like to see it), educators likely do 10-100x the abuse as priests. She's appeared on Oprah and NPR.
[0][https://www.smh.com.au/world/organ-trafficking-rabbis-arrest...
[1]https://www.vice.com/en/article/qbe8bp/the-child-rape-assemb...
[2]https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/...
In Ireland the church even operated mass graves for the children they neglected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_c...
First, one can look to the mid-Atlantic Quakers, whose own book of daily guidance is titled "Faith & Practice", which stresses the distinction between how one might behave in the world and what one believes about spiritual and religious matters. For (that branch of the) Quakers, you can live a "good life" without necessarily subscribing to any of their spiritual/religious beliefs.
Secondly, most people's idea of their good life is woefully lacking in self-reflection and self-knowledge. What really makes people happy? Civilizations and cultures across time and space all stress that what really makes people happy rarely involves material well being (although obviously a certain level is required to avoid that being the dominant shaper of the experience of life). Yes, we can admit that various gadgets and access to services brings us some level of joy in life, but that doesn't really negate the fundamental truth that what makes us happy tends to be purpose, not products, tends to be who we have in life, not what we have.
Well, the texts that survive those cultures stress that. But historically reading and writing were highly controlled political activities. So you should probably consider the political motivation behind those texts. The good life for a peasant farmer in the dark ages would almost certainly involve the accumulation of modest surpluses to be traded for quality of life enhancing material goods. But you can bet your cart horse on the fact that the texts which were being produced by the state - and delivered to the farmer in mandatory weekly Mass - strongly encouraged the redirection of that surplus to the state in the form of tithe or similar in exchange for ‘spiritual access’.
It's easy to see that the interests of the state (which for Christendom was often coterminal and indistinguishable with the church) would want people to accept their lot, and be accepting of whatever inequities existed at that time and place. But I think you do human philosophy a disservice to suggest that people are incapable of thinking outside of that particular sort of box.
Even with Buddhism, the tradition most easily accused of encouraging people to just accept the way things are, it's actual practitioners and believers have fairly sophisticated explanations of why that's not actually their position at all.
What self actualisation can one get from that?
Quakers succeeded enough in certain ways that their values became mainstream, and they didn't differentiate enough from the surrounding culture to remain separate from it or powerful within it. Our liberal culture owes a lot to the quakers, I have incredible respect for their foundational beliefs, I used to be one, but they don't have much to offer us now.
Also, I'd slightly dispute the "indistinguishable from the evangelical mainstream of wherever they live". There are branches of the Quaker tree that are evangelical, but for the one found in (at least) the mid-Atlantic and Pacific NW, evangelical Christianity is about the last thing I'd compare them to. Protestant mainline, sure.
But anyway if you are going to do this, I don't think you should do it with religions that still do have living practitioners however few. If you value what the quakers are doing go be a quaker, see what the experience has to offer. Or at least wait until its carcass is cold before you harvest its carrion. Trying to extract value from a spiritual tradition you're not willing to live is ghoulish.
I don't understand this sentiment at all. Identifying positive aspects in existing religions is perfectly fine (I'd even argue there is some amount of virtue to it). How is it possibly ghoulish to see good in other cultures/religions and bring that into your practice? One example that comes to mind are religions where consumption of meat is eschewed. If you find that the rationale that Jainism provides for a vegan lifestyle resonates with you, why can't you incorporate that into your life for those reasons?
Again though, and I think this is enough information to understand my position, I simply reject the notion that you can build anything worthwhile by picking and choosing bits you like from the collection of religions spread before you.
They are traditions whose fullness is only experienced as part of a community of other practitioners. By trying to extract an appealing bit and apply it to your own life outside of that context and separated from that practice, you're doing an entirely different thing and imo not what you think you're doing. I simply don't think this practice is worthwhile, valuable, or worthy of respect.
If you don't want to eat meat then don't eat meat. If a jain convinces you not to then that's as good a way to find out as any other. Does that begin to convince you that we are all part of an eternal cycle made up of different substances? Maybe you should convert to jainism!
I don't want to assume anything about you and I'm not really. But I often see this amalgamated spirituality concept coming from non-religious people. The idea that you can take the parts you like from anywhere, leaving the parts you disagree with. I simply don't think you can come out of this with anything meaningful, and in fact I think it's a trap. You'll think you've found wisdom when all you're doing is laundering your beliefs & preferences through the hard-won ancient traditions of the world.
There is courage necessary to commit to a path without possibly being able to understand it or even begin to know where it will lead. When you build your own religion you trade that in for mistaken confidence, and the feeling that you know what all the parts do and why they're there. You're not supposed to know why they're there! You're supposed to just live it.
It is certainly true that feeding at the buffet of world religions isn't the same as being a committed member of a particular religious community. But that doesn't mean that you don't get some value from it, and potentially different value than that found by the more committed members.
I personally take great inspiration from Hesse's Siddhartha, the titular character of which explores a variety of spiritual and religious traditions, finds them all lacking and ends up being most inpired by a river ferry man. But that doesn't mean that the character gained nothing from his experiences with Buddhism, Jainism, ascetism and more.
It is not picking through or over the bones of Quakerism to grapple with and/or be inspired by this idea.
As for Stoicism, I am not sure that it is required to do anything other than, maybe, bring greater peace and understanding into the lives of those considering its values.
no no no no no. some progressive protestant faiths perhaps, but the central tenet of most Christian and most Protestants faiths is faith, salvation comes through accepting Jesus Christ as your savior and repenting sin, for which you will be forgiven. It is a topic of debate among theologians as to what that says about works/acts but they don't generally depart from the idea that starting now you get a clean a slate, or as clean as anyone can.
To the outsider, though, they both come off as quirky, religious, and inordinately devout.
It depends on the definition of "better". The Amish idea of better is serving God, avoiding or repenting sin, and thus attaining salvation.
Most people's idea of good life is pretty different, given the basic axioms it's built upon.
This is why attempts to build a life by imitating various highly admirable spiritual movements mostly fail. To reap the benefits of the lofty ideas and commendable ways of life one needs to consciously* adopt most of the spiritual teachings which have lead to the development of these ideas and ways of life. You either convert to them, or admit that it's too hard to follow the way.
* Amish only accept adult, conscious baptism.