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[Cathy <goosecreekfarm AT gmail.com>]

On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 9:07 PM, sjc <indexer AT fairpoint.net> wrote:

> The Swartzentrubers, in Ohio?
>

That's it, thanks.

I've been thinking about this "groups like Amish as proof humans don't have
to be violent/aggressive" theory.  I think that folks are predispositioned
in their personality as well as their health, height, etc.  Certainly our
behavior is more subject to our control than our height, but we have
predispositions.  I see, broadly speaking, much of the variety in religious
groups' doctrines as a product of these personality predispositions.  I
worship with the Lutherans.  Luther and Zwingli, as you (Susan Jane)
mentioned, were contemporaries.  After meeting with Zwingli, Luther is
reported to have said "Yours is a different spirit than ours."  He was
referring to a specific point of disagreement, but there were many.  Luther
was-not-a pacifist.  Arguably, he could be called a racist war-mongering
nationalist.  Luther's brand of Protestantism resonated with many of his
countrymen; the Anabaptist pacifist flavor of Protestantism appealed
(broadly speaking) to people/groups with a predisposition to those ideas.
As generations pass and those who cannot continue to embrace the dogma leave
the group, the predisposition is concentrated and strengthened.  Sort of
self-selective breeding.

I guess my point is that I don't think the Amish (or likely Buddhist
monks) are a representative sample of humankind.  What do you think?

Cathy