Posted on 05/24/2009 8:46:57 PM PDT by Born Conservative
NICKTOWN — When she wakes from restless sleep in the middle of the night, Susan Miller thinks about the man who put her family out of their rural Blacklick Township farm.
The Amish mother would like to talk to Cambria County Judge Norman Krumenacker, who ordered the house, barns and outbuildings padlocked because she and her husband John violated building codes and sewage regulations at their 49.5-acre homestead.
"I sat up in bed the other night, and I was thinking that I feel bad he has to do this to us. I wanted to write him a letter to tell him I'm praying for him," Miller said. "I don't feel anger. I actually pity him."
The Millers and other Amish in the ultraconservative Swartzentruber sect have reached an impasse in a clash of culture, religion and law with government agencies responsible for protecting public health and safety. Although two families were forced to leave their homes and one man has been jailed, the Amish say they aren't defending themselves because aggression, confrontation and violence — like the regulations they're refusing to follow — are against their religion.
The Amish want to use outhouses with homemade 250-gallon holding tanks to collect waste at two new homes and a school. They'd planned to treat the waste with lime and then spread it across their fields for fertilizer.
The law permits outhouses in new construction but stipulates either that tanks under 5,000 gallons be precast or the homeowners must provide engineers' specifications to show they are built properly. Homeowners must follow testing guidelines for treating the waste.
The Amish say the modern guidelines would force them to use technology.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
Human waste as fertilizer?
In the middle of the article the core problem is found — the non-Amish neighbors are concerned about Amish generated waste getting bacteria into their water wells, and the Amish don’t want to use modern methods for checking the safety of their crudely treated sewage.
It’s difficult for me as a “modern” Christian to see where the bible could be read as teaching that God frowns on these modern methods of carrying out concern for neighbors. The Amish wish to avoid the temptations of the modern world, but in this case it seems about as far from sin as one could get.
In the Orient they call it dark soil!!! And they have used it as untreated fertilizer for as long as their culture has been there.
Night soil, in Mexico (it is typically picked up at night). US produce importation regulations bar items which had been fertilized with night soil.
So? It’s frowned upon for a reason, same as the lead paint toys.
graybeard, where do you think the honeywagons have been dumped for the last few generations? Today it has to be dumped in a waste treatment plant. And some areas require a permit to pump a tank, and they can only be pumped every two years.
“* Fideism is the view that religious belief relies primarily on faith or special revelation, rather than rational inference or observation (see natural theology). The word fideism comes from fides, the Latin word for faith, and literally means “faith-ism.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fideism
The alternative view is “Faith and Reason”. Rejected by the Amish. In their view, technology is evil. Is it not true that they don’t use phones because they like peace and quiet. They don’t use phones because they are evil. Has to do with the fall of man and the human mind. Calvinism to the final extreme end.
So chase every last illegal out of Pennsylvania back to where he or she came from. That’s no skin off my nose. But the Amish right to swing his fist, same as yours, stops where my nose begins.
I’d go for that except that they use some things, such as refined kerosene, that were not documented in Biblical times. It’s like a snapshot of 1800s technology rather than “no” technology.
It’s the leachate to the neighbors that is the issue in this case. The authorities don’t care that much about the Amish home gardens.
And how many of these Amish wear reading glasses? How many go to the doctor when they get sick? How many will get a ride in a car when someone else is driving? How many buy fabric woven on a modern power loom? How many buy clothes sewn with an industrial sewing machine powered by electricity? How many go to a grocery story with electric lights and refrigeration? The Amish make a lot of compromises with the modern world. They are rather selective and hypocritical in what they choose to consider evil.
it is possible that at some point the Amish will be driven out of the area. Just like homeschoolers will be driven out. And groups that don’t want to be involved with “gay marriage”.
And doctors who don’t want to be involved in physician assisted suicide. We’ve lost the culture war, so the persecution is turned up a notch.
All true!!!
If bacteria laden leachate is getting out in either case, it needs to be dealt with. At least Pennsylvania isn’t afraid to test the rivers.
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