The Amish Population Boom

Thanks to high birth rates and few people exiting the sect, the Amish population in the United States is surging:

The Amish population — a religious group that limits its member’s access to conveniences like telephones and electric lights — is growing at an estimated 5% a year and now stands at 249,500.

A new Amish settlement is being created at a rate of once every three weeks, the study found. Sixteen were established over the past year alone.

Researchers estimate that 85% of people who are raised Amish stay in the group as adults.

Link via Marginal Revolution | Photo by Flickr user Alotor used under Creative Commons license

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Certain comments by certain people here indicate a lack of awareness of the Amish and their values.
They do not 'fear' technology. The Amish do not wish to be connected to the worldly system of dependence on large corporations which can, effectively, determine how, where and when a person may live their life.
Hence, the Amish strive to minimize any usage of 'grid' electricity, gas, cars, trains, transportation networks, telephones/cell phones, computers and anything else corporate.
They will use all of these to a degree - but not if using it means dependence on it.
Effectively, the Amish are amongst the most best equipped peoples on earth to resist every threat against civilisation - especially global-interdependence civilisation. If the 'System' crashes tomorrow, the Amish certainly won't have a community in chaos. Rather, they will have to bear the pressures of millions deserting violence-prone cities and running to them looking for a place to survive!

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sad that so many people will live their lives without 21st century education and modern understanding of science.

but don't get me wrong, i'll take the amish population growing rather than the islam population. at least jebediah doesn't want to chop my head off for being an infidel.

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@Erock - No, I don't believe I am. I believe I'm fairly accurate.

http://beawriter.tripod.com/amishmedicine.html
http://www.amishdirectfurniture.com/page.html?id=22
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/08/60II/main700519.shtml
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15211651

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Not all Amish are the same. Some even own cars. I went to a Beachy Amish home during college and they had a plain looking sedan. Maybe a Buick or Olds. They had painted over the Keystone on the PA license plate. I think they had also painted over some of the chrome on the car.

One reason Amish do not use modern stuff, is because they do not want to become dependent. We also went to a more traditional Amish farm and they even owned tractor, but had replaced the rubber tires with all metal ones so that they would not have to buy replacements.