Amish Culture And Beliefs

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Amish Culture and Beliefs Sheila Coggins March 1, 2012 ANT101 Instructor: Adrienne Stafford Introduction: The Amish are a group of about 100,000 people who find their heritage in the Protestant Reformation. They are sometimes called “The Plain People”, who today are known as “the quite in the land”; emphasizing their lives on simplicity, humility, community, family, and separation from the outside world. (History of the Amish, para.1). History: Early sixteenth century Anabaptist groups came forth as the radical Reformation in southern Germany and Switzerland, under the leadership of Ulrich Zwingli. Even though, each individual group has its own doctrinal distinctions, all Anabaptists are known by the practice adult or believer’s baptism rather than infant baptism. (Goreham, G.A., 2002, para.1) Anabaptists were forced to migrate and continually fled places, because of fear of persecution and discrimination; eventually migrating to North America to obtain land, escape, poverty, and practice their religion in freedom. (Goreham, G.A., 2002, para.2) The Anabaptist is made up of many groups, its own history, leaders, beliefs, and practices. (Goreham, G.A., 2002, para.3) Mode of subsistence: The Amish farming practices have differed in many ways from other farmers. They did not oppose technological change during 1850-80, but other evidence suggests other systematic differences. To ensure the survival of their existing religious culture, they adopted individual patterns of investments. (Cosgel, Metin, 1993, pg.319) The low-input farming methods practiced today by Amish farmers, were developed over 300 years ago and have proved the Amish as one of the persistent and wealthy subcultures, in North America. (Stinner, D.H., Paoletti, M.G., & Stinner, B.R., 1989) The farming practices and behavioral patterns that characterize Amish farmers from other

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