The Amish Tragedy

With the USA’s non-Amish, (or ‘the English’ as they are called by the Amish), community still in shock over Monday’s killings of six Amish schoolgirls, the Amish community has forgiven the shooter, Charles Carl Roberts IV. The Atheologist cannot think of anything worse for a parent to go through than having their most prized and treasured possession instantly wiped off the face of the earth. How can someone, or in this case an entire community, so quickly forgive a crime as heinous and horrific as this one? The answer it turns out is a simple one as several Amish explained.

Sam Stoltzfus, 63, an Amish woodworker who lives a few miles away from the shooting scene, told The Associated Press that the victims' families will be sustained by their faith:

"We think it was God's plan, and we're going to have to pick up the pieces and keep going. A funeral to us is a much more important thing than the day of birth because we believe in the hereafter. The children are better off than their survivors."

An Amish woman, who did not want to be named, told CBS News Early Show national correspondent Tracy Smith:

"We have to forgive. We have to forgive him in order for God to forgive us,"

An Amish elder had this to add:

“We have heard that Mr. Roberts, (the murder of our children, whom we have forgiven), was planning to and would have raped them before killing them, had the English police not arrived when they did. We want God to know that we in the Amish community would have welcomed the raping so that we would now have much more to forgive Mr. Roberts for. It’s too bad that he didn’t burn down a few of our barns too while he was at it! We also forgive the English police for arriving too early.
Oh and though it is a very difficult thing for us to do we forgive all of you English who pronounce Amish as ‘aim-ish’ and not, ‘ah-mish’, which is the proper pronunciation.”

So there it is. The Atheologist now understands the Amish concept of forgiveness. When someone does you wrong, which can include messing with your family, (are you listening Steven Segal?), you should immediately forgive the wrongdoer. If you don’t and God gets the impression that you are upset and not willing to forgive, then he may not forgive you for your sins. These sins may have included littering, rape, murder, pedophilia or coveting anything that the English have and you do not. That seems very easy to understand for everyone, (except of course for the atheists.)


The Atheologist