4 ms·

Hunh. Title is a bit misleading, but anyways. Does Germany not have populations religiously opposed to banks or electronic currency, similar to the amish? Whe

by 542458 11y ago

Hunh. Title is a bit misleading, but anyways. Does Germany not have populations religiously opposed to banks or electronic currency, similar to the amish? When I was younger, I would sometimes help out at the family lumber yard. Local amish folks would occasionally come in and purchase enough lumber to build one or more barns and/or houses, all in one go. This could easily be thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in lumber, all paid in mixed bills (and sometimes rolled coins) or varying sizes. They never tried to cheat us, but we had to spend they day sitting around counting the money anyways out of principle.

johnchristopher 11y ago
I am not aware of any active Amish communities in Germany or Europe. http://amishamerica.com/do-amish-live-in-europe/ http://amishamerica.com/do-amish-live-in-europe/ There seems to be some small congregations but nothing like the Amish living in America.
pluma 11y ago
The reason there are so many Amish in the US is that they emigrated from Europe. I think there are more Mennonites in Germany than Amish (not sure what the two groups think of each other) but even they are a tiny minority. The two biggest politically organized religious groups in Germany are the Catholic church and the Evangelical church (which is a union of various Protestant churches, mostly Lutheran). Then there's Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians who exist but barely ever make the news. There's also the Jewish Council but Jews in Germany are a minority (for obvious historical reasons) -- though they do get a significant amount of attention (again, for obvious historical reasons). There is no Muslim church because there are too many different groups (and despite what some people will tell you about Europe, not enough of them in any one group or coalition of compatible groups). There are various other sects of Christianity and other religions but most of them are tiny and not taken particularly seriously. Most Christians I've met think of groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses, LDS or Mennonites as eccentric but non-threatening cults. Then again, I haven't yet anyone in Germany who considers Scientology a religion by any standard (which it seems to be recognized as in the US). Germans as a whole tend to be opposed to electronic currency, though. Credit cards are practically useless in everyday life (except for hotels and expensive restaurants). Most places take debit cards instead but it's generally a better idea to ask because many places only take cash. Additionally €2 and €1 are coins not paper and most vending or ticket machines only take coins, so Germans are used to carrying around coins (and having a €1 coin handy because you need them for shopping carts). American style cards+clip wallets are basically unusable for most Germans. However things seem to be changing thanks to e-commerce (Amazon and eBay pretty much started it) and most people are extremely uncomfortable carrying around large (i.e. €500 and up) sums of money in cash. Besides, "exporting" large amounts of cash (€5000 and up, I think) out of the country without notifying the authorities in advance is illegal even across EU borders and Europe is considerably smaller than the US and has more national borders (obviously). OTOH we don't use checks. Like, at all. And using debit cards means electronic charging with chip and pin, not any of this "make an imprint of the front on paper" nonsense.

by 542458 11y ago

johnchristopher 11y ago

I am not aware of any active Amish communities in Germany or Europe. http://amishamerica.com/do-amish-live-in-europe/ http://amishamerica.com/do-amish-live-in-europe/ There seems to be some small congregations but nothing like the Amish living in America.

pluma 11y ago

The reason there are so many Amish in the US is that they emigrated from Europe. I think there are more Mennonites in Germany than Amish (not sure what the two groups think of each other) but even they are a tiny minority. The two biggest politically organized religious groups in Germany are the Catholic church and the Evangelical church (which is a union of various Protestant churches, mostly Lutheran). Then there's Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians who exist but barely ever make the news. There's also the Jewish Council but Jews in Germany are a minority (for obvious historical reasons) -- though they do get a significant amount of attention (again, for obvious historical reasons). There is no Muslim church because there are too many different groups (and despite what some people will tell you about Europe, not enough of them in any one group or coalition of compatible groups). There are various other sects of Christianity and other religions but most of them are tiny and not taken particularly seriously. Most Christians I've met think of groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses, LDS or Mennonites as eccentric but non-threatening cults. Then again, I haven't yet anyone in Germany who considers Scientology a religion by any standard (which it seems to be recognized as in the US). Germans as a whole tend to be opposed to electronic currency, though. Credit cards are practically useless in everyday life (except for hotels and expensive restaurants). Most places take debit cards instead but it's generally a better idea to ask because many places only take cash. Additionally €2 and €1 are coins not paper and most vending or ticket machines only take coins, so Germans are used to carrying around coins (and having a €1 coin handy because you need them for shopping carts). American style cards+clip wallets are basically unusable for most Germans. However things seem to be changing thanks to e-commerce (Amazon and eBay pretty much started it) and most people are extremely uncomfortable carrying around large (i.e. €500 and up) sums of money in cash. Besides, "exporting" large amounts of cash (€5000 and up, I think) out of the country without notifying the authorities in advance is illegal even across EU borders and Europe is considerably smaller than the US and has more national borders (obviously). OTOH we don't use checks. Like, at all. And using debit cards means electronic charging with chip and pin, not any of this "make an imprint of the front on paper" nonsense.