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X Amish Atheist

~ fighting dogma from behind the lines…

X Amish Atheist

Category Archives: Early Life

The Genius Kid in Amish School

02 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by xamishatheist in Early Life, The Amish

≈ 28 Comments

Tags

amish, astronomy, education, genius, intelligence, IQ, parochial schools


My first eight years of education, and so far, my only “formal” education has been in an Amish parochial school. How quaint to have been educated in a small one-room Amish schoolhouse with about a dozen other students, you might effuse excitedly. Well screw you! Amish parochial school stunted my intellectual growth and that pisses me off.

When I was a young Amish boy, perhaps eight or nine years old, I was fascinated with the night sky. I looked to the stars and I marveled when comet Hale-Bopp appeared in 1997. I dreamed of becoming an astronomer or an astronaut but of course I knew that I would never become either of those–I was Amish. Sometimes I wished my parents were normal so that my dreams would have a fighting chance of becoming reality.

My Dad, who was a great father despite all the religious crap, gave me one of those little rotating star charts one Christmas. With a cheap pair of binoculars and that star chart, I spent many enjoyable evenings outside, identifying constellations and writing notes about individual stars and planets. I read many astronomy books and taught myself ‘stargazing’ until I was able to find most specific visible stars, several of the brighter nebulas, and of course the Andromeda galaxy and the visible planets.

Academically, I did well in the Amish parochial school compared to the other students. I found the work easy and would work ahead on my material because I found it fun. My Amish teacher didn’t find that amusing and warned me several times not to work ahead of the other students. One day she had enough of it and spanked my offending hand with a ruler. That day I learned that it was important not to take initiative and not to do more than is asked of me.

I was always the nerd in school. As soon as I had an individual lesson finished I would go to the small library along one wall and grab several books to read. Often during my schoolwork I would think of some subject (e.g. radio astronomy) that fascinated me and upon completion of my schoolwork, I would go to the bookshelf and select the “R” encyclopedia. After reading the entry I would go back and select several more encyclopedias so I could read related subjects or more in-depth entries. This behavior was of course not normal and the other Amish students, many of whom had nothing but religious books at home and didn’t particularly like reading, would mock me for it. I became used to the word “bookworm” being used like most people would use “child rapist”.

Many of the Amish in our community liked to hunt. The men were quite competitive about it and always bragged about who shot the deer with the biggest antlers. I felt compassion for the helpless animals and told my fellow classmates that I would never harm an animal. I quickly became used to the word “environmentalist” being used like most people would use “child rapist”. Of course I didn’t like being mocked and after many hours of heart-wrenching rumination, I decided that I would show them and would become a better hunter than any of them. Years later, I actually did.

One day while reading through our encyclopedia set at home, I learned that Jupiter had quite a few moons. I was amazed by this knowledge as I had only been aware of one moon up to that point. Some weeks later I mentioned this fact in passing to my fellow classmates. They informed me none too politely that there is only one moon. It didn’t take long for me to get used to “stargazer” being used like most people would use “child rapist”.

That evening I told my Dad what had happened when I tried to enlighten my classmates. My Dad told me gently that he believed me that Jupiter had more moons and told me that the other students just didn’t know any better. It wasn’t very consoling, I wanted my friends to like me, not my Dad. To me, the concept of intellectual superiority was alien. I was told that I was “good at school” and “good with numbers”. Nobody told me that I was smart. Nobody helped me understand why I was so different or how my weirdness would help me later in life.

I stopped gazing up at the night sky and I put away my star charts and astronomy books, thinking wrongly that it was something that only weird people do. I stopped reading so much, tried harder to fit in, and withdrew into myself, intellectually. To this day I would rather sit silent than correct, even a friend, a factual error that he or she has made. It is a tactic I learned in Amish school to appear normal.

I can’t help but think that if my parents had been a normal family and had provided me with the education that I needed and desired, I would be doing great things by now. I like the idea of freedom when it comes to the educational system. I fear that if primary education is restricted to only state-run or heavily regulated schools, we could end up with a propaganda problem down the road. But Christ! Being intellectually stunted in a religious school just doesn’t feel fair to me.

Many years after leaving the Amish, I discovered a webpage with an experimental high-range I.Q. test designed by a psychologist and research scientist. I decided to try the test and after working through the number sequence problems, I submitted my answers. A day or so later, I received my score report. According to the associated statistical report for that test my score equates (at least theoretically) to an I.Q. a little higher than 160 (s.d. 16). To the ***holes who mocked me in Amish school–take that! Now if only I could get over it.

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The Intelligence of Atheists

03 Thursday May 2012

Posted by xamishatheist in Early Life, The Questioning

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

atheism, belief, intelligence


When I was a child (maybe 9 or 10 years old) my Dad while reading the newspaper stated matter-of-factly that, “There are no smart criminals.”

His reasoning was simply this; Criminals always go to jail. Nobody (not even criminals) wants to be in jail. Therefore, criminals are stupid.

Me, bright kid that I was, took that logic and applied it to atheists. My reasoning was this; Atheists go to hell, Nobody (not even atheists) wants to be in hell. Therefore, atheists are stupid.

However, it did not take me long to discard this as faulty logic when I discovered the disturbing fact that some very smart people are atheists. Einstein was a hero of mine and when I discovered that he didn’t believe in a personal God, it troubled me. Later, when I really started delving into the forbidden territories (e.g. learning about evolution) I realized that these people were very smart and they knew a lot more than I did.

Later, my Dad again made that same claim about there being no smart criminals. This time I disputed him. My reasoning was that some criminals plan and successfully commit intricate crimes and it would take a very smart person to plan such a thing and pull it off. He admitted that I could be right.

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The Reading Habits of one Little Amish Boy

14 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by xamishatheist in Early Life

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

amish, books, encyclopedia set, encyclopedias, Family Life, learning, parenting, reading, The Budget


When I was a child, I did a lot of research. From the time I could read until I moved away from home and got my first laptop, I spent a lot of time buried in my family’s encyclopedia set.

Our encyclopedia set was outdated. It was more than 20 years since it had been printed but this 24-book set, measuring about three and a half to four feet wide when all the books were set upright beside each other, seemed to hold an almost infinite amount of knowledge for me.

I would spend hours on the floor with open encyclopedias scattered around me – taking notes in one of my many notebooks. I enjoyed how, at the end of each entry, there was always a list of related entries. Some question, such as, ‘how do radios work’ would pop into my head and I would go to our bookshelves and pull out ‘R’ from the stack of encyclopedias. After studying the lengthy entry, I would go through the list of related articles and realize excitedly that there was still more to learn about the topic. Back to the bookshelves I went to select still more encyclopedias. Due to the way these entries cross-referenced each other, I would often spend hours and hours researching a single topic. My exasperated sisters would tell Mom, “**** is up there with his encyclopedias all over the floor again!”

In this manner I learned about everything from cuttlefish to deoxyribonucleic acid. My favorite subject by far was cosmology and I spent a large chunk of my childhood research time studying this subject. The distance between the stars and the galaxies fascinated me to no end. I learned why the stars shined and I learned about the moons of Jupiter (I got mocked in school for suggesting that there is more than one moon).

I did more than studying when I was a child. Oh, yes. My first love was The Hardy Boys. Because Dad’s work would often take him through town, he would often stop at the town library, just for me, and pick up another stack of Hardy Boys. I also read classics such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. When my Dad deemed me mature enough, I launched into Louis L’amour’s and Zane Grey’s western thrillers. To this day, a good fiction thriller (preferably science fiction) can still be the highlight of my day.

Most Amish parents don’t read more than the Budget (Amish newspaper), Family Life (inspirational magazine for plain people), and several other such materials. They think that learning beyond that which is necessary to please God is not only a complete waste of time – but that knowledge can actually be treacherous (Well, Duh!).

Luckily for me, my parents are not your typical Amish parents. They are voracious readers and have never discouraged the gathering of knowledge through reading. On top of reading The Budget, my parents would read USA Today from cover to cover every day and weekly they would read U.S. News & World Report. After that, Mom would curl up on the couch with the latest Reader’s Digest or something similar and Dad would lay on the floor with the latest western thriller, political thriller, or even technological thriller.

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My First Radio

12 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by xamishatheist in Early Life, My Story

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

amish, music, radio


Growing up as an Old Order Amish kid, I was sheltered from worldly music of any kind. In fact, I was so sheltered from worldly music that I remember clearly the first time that I heard rock and roll music.

I was probably about 11 or 12 years old and riding my bicycle to school. As I pedaled my way around a corner in the road, I heard the beautiful clash of drums (any music with drum beats, we called ‘rock and roll’). Some non-Amish person had their home stereo system cranked so that I could clearly hear the music from the road. I stopped pedaling and just listened for a bit. The music washed over me and it was an intensely pleasurable and naughty experience. I knew that if I were a good little Amish boy, I would’ve kept pedaling and would’ve tried to block the music from my awareness.

In our young sheltered lives, we Amish children rarely had the opportunity to listen to worldly music. When picking a local taxi to drive us to town every couple months or so, my Dad would take into account the music that the driver was known to play. We would hire a rock and roll taxi only if it was an emergency. Such was the completeness with which we were sheltered from music.

I’m not exactly sure why the Amish frown on worldly music so much. I guess they fear that it has a corrupting influence on young minds. I suspect that a lot of the frowning stems from the Bible’s proclamation that music should be for God’s enjoyment.

In Amish church services and Sunday evening singings, there would be no bands and no instruments of any kind – there would only be a capella singing. The singing was nice but I would’ve preferred the head-bouncing rhythms of rock and roll.

One of my Amish friends, whom apparently had heard way more rock and roll than I ever had, was pretty good at beatboxing. Every time I heard him do it, I would mentally compare it with the music that I had heard on the way to school that day long ago. Using only his lungs and his mouth, he could belt out rhythms and drumbeats that sounded exactly like rock and roll music to me. It sounded so good to me that I would often encourage him to do it again, and again.

One day, my Amish friend, who was quite the rebellious kid, took me to some English person’s barn. The barn had electricity – the perfect place to hide and listen to a stereo if one had the balls to do it. We were trespassing of course – the owner of the barn had no idea what my friend’s older brother had hidden in his barn. We slipped into the barn, dusted the older brother’s stereo off, plugged it in, and for the first time ever, I heard “Way down yonder on the Chattahootchie”. It was the best ‘rock and roll’ that I had ever heard.

For years after that, I loved country music because of the experience I had listening to Alan Jackson songs in that old barn.

When I was about 14 years old or so, our community had another one of its annual school benefit auctions. This auction drew thousands of Amish and non-Amish from around the nation to buy and sell stuff. A portion of the proceeds went to supporting the local Amish parochial school.

In this auction there were always a lot of vendors selling products from booths (rather than on the auction). These vendors were often non-Amish and not limited by Amish beliefs in what they could sell. Luckily for me, one of these vendors was selling a bunch of little radio sets for about $10 a piece.

I checked around to make sure that no Amish people were watching me and with the encouragement of my two like-minded Amish buddies, I got up the nerve to buy a little radio. After procuring batteries for it, we spent the rest of the afternoon listening to the awesome quantity of rock and roll music that was being broadcast over the airwaves. It was my first big step into the larger universe.

Several days later my little radio found itself in Dad’s possession. I’m not sure how he had gotten hold of it. Perhaps my mom had discovered the radio in one of her periodic checks for contraband in my bedroom. He called me into the shop for a “talk” and there it was – sitting on the desk.

Surprisingly, he was very understanding of my “bad” behavior. He didn’t rebuke me very strongly but he did tell me that he had to destroy it. Having an interest in how things work I decided to give him an alternate course of action. I told him that rather than destroy it, I wanted to take it apart to see how it worked. I promised that after I was finished with it I would no longer be able to listen to music with it. To my surprise, he agreed to it. In this way, he was a very good Amish Dad. Most Amish Dads would have destroyed the radio, preached to the boy about the dangers of worldly music, whipped the boy severely, and then grounded him for several months.

While that was my first radio, it was by no means my last. Over the next several years I acquired quite a few more “boomboxes”. Some of them were destroyed by Dad, and others he never found.

My enjoyment of music hasn’t waned to this day although my preferred genres have changed. I have gone from country music to classic rock to contemporary rock and now I enjoy listening to pretty much everything but country music.

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