Why I am not a Friend (Christian, Budhist, Atheist...)

[Terrance]

Dave Monroe wrote:
> 
> Aagin, not taking sides.  But I'm constantly astounded
> by what proves to be contentious here, so ...

Oh Stop. You're not taking a side? OK, good shepherd and goat keeper get
the hell out of no man's land while my machine gun is jammed. What about
that oooops offlist? Ooooops, did you forget about that one? Oh come
now, please. It's a very old war and you know it. How can you continue
to talk with Hollander and Doug offlist and  pretend you're not taking
sides here? You can't and that's why you're full of shit. 

So what? Who cares? Back to the book. What does Dixon have to do with
Afghanistan? Nothing at all. 

What does he have to do with American literature? A whole bunch, like
the great tradition of American Literature is full of Quakers from Ben
Franklin's Captivity Tale to Cooper's novels, Melville's, Quaker
City.....it goes on and on and I'm trying to think of a Quaker-pacifist
who doesn't lose his or her temper (kinda like that Jesus in the
Temple), but I can't...Daniel Boone.....

http://home.att.net/~quakart/texts/artgood.htm#brittain

Interesting web page on Quakers and the Arts. ALso, do note that Dixon
was read out of meeting at a time of extreme conservatism in the Society
of Friends and that the Hunter family and the Raylton family were also
read out at this time. Why? Business, books, music, violence, drinking,
marriage, Popery? 

Would make for an interesting course--The Violent Dilemma for the Quaker
in American Literature. 

I wonder how many Quaker-Pacifists we have and how many we can come up
with wherein the Quaker acts violently. Seems  to be a favorite theme in
American Literature. 

Like Dixon, Daniel Boone was read out of meeting. 

http://websites.quincy.edu/~hardeja/cemeteries/Boone-obit.html

Franklin, Poe, Melville, Cooper, Whitman, Hawthorne, Irving, Dickenson,
Alcott, Alger, Stowe, Lippard....lot of Quakers in American Lit.