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The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

meghanboilard.substack.com

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Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#111

Post by themaninthedark »

settsu wrote: post #91
themaninthedark wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from what I called out in my sibling comment these two are pretty snide: "A fortune built on the sales of sewing notions and glitter has paid for many of the country’s most influential megachurches and scriptures delivered to the most remote corners of the world. A careful calculation of potential proselytized souls drives every financial decision." "Perhaps the Greens, in their inexperience, did not understand…

> Aside from what I called out in my sibling comment these two are pretty snide to me - "Snide" is subjective. - It's a blog post not a news article or scholarly report. - The topic is a business run by people who ostensibly make decisions based on their faith to justify actions which cause various harm to others. Taking a critical view of those actions and the motivations is reasonable.

A snide comment is one that disparages or belittles another person, so I don't think it can be subjective.

Edit add:

I find this entire line of reasoning to be odd: >It's a blog post not a news article or scholarly report. - The topic is a business run by people who ostensibly make decisions based on their faith to justify actions which cause various harm to others. Taking a critical view of those actions and the motivations is reasonable.

I am being asked to take a critical look at Hobby Lobby, the reasons are outlined in the linked Substack. However, if I have any questions or criticisms of the Substack article, please note that it is not a professional work it is just a guy with a microphone.

If I can't trust the source material, how can I trust the claims?

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#112

Post by finnthehuman »

flocciput wrote: post #50

Is it just me or has HN as a whole become... more Christian lately? A lot more defensive comments here than I would've expected, and I've seen in other threads people actually openly recommending religion/Christianity specifically as something that solved their problems. What's the deal here? I would've thought this would be a relatively atheist/agnostic community, if not one that eschews discussion of religion entir…

Capital-A atheism is a dead fad. It was a few years of people loudly dunking on something that that was safe to dunk on. The overall culture found them grating and insufferable, even to other atheists. Over time we swung to the point where you see more discussions like these.

>What's the deal here?

Without making a jab at the bay area culture bubble, I dunno what to tell you.

I don't need religion to be bad, that was Capital-A atheism's thing. I just need it to leave me alone. And it does.

Some people are religious, and a lot of those who are would recommend it. When it comes to defending religion, as an atheist I still think bad takes are bad takes even if they're against the religion I left.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#113

Post by RavingGoat »

smithkl42 wrote: post #7

I wish the author was a little less over-wrought in her descriptions of the Green family's religious commitments. I've heard complaints before about the Green's artifact acquisition process, and they've had to return some manuscripts: it's a story worth investigating and telling. But it distracts from the author's main point when she's making snide comments about their faith. Yes, they're Christians who are successfu…

Please stop calling these people Christian, you have to follow Christ to be a Christian. They do not.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#114

Post by RandomBacon »

emchammer wrote: post #31
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. I think the author's tone in this article, in a nutshell, exemplifies what was a huge driving force of so many evangelical's in the US now being firmly in the MAGA camp, even though that seems paradoxical to many of us. For a long time now, many people who's religious values are deeply important to them have felt disrespected and looked down upon by "the left" (yes, I'm obviously painting with a bro…

A lot of it is just about maintaining healthy boundaries. I am a transgender person of faith. It’s not really a big deal except for the assholes.

I find it interesting that the Episocopal Chirch in the United States has both old conservative members and young liberal members, and they all seem to get along as far as I can tell (many of them also believe in Theistic Evolution and don't shun science like others seem to think). I think it's a flavor of conservatism that is more libertarian. The Episcopal Church also has openly-gay priests and women priests, all of which whom can marry.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#115

Post by duped »

gadders wrote: post #105
duped wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some beliefs deserve to be looked down upon and disrespected because they are backwards. I wouldn't call them "silly" because they're very serious. I don't believe in treating religious fundamentalists with compassion and empathy anymore. That's how we got the nutjobs in power, by not deriding them enough in public and private. There can be no tolerance of hate, and the people you are talking about are motivated by h…

Do you apply that rule equally to all religions, or just the ones that aren't likely to kill you/get you fired for expressing it? //edit//And I say this as an atheist.

I'm generally intolerant of the intolerant, religion doesn't get a pass for being religion.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#118

Post by turtlesdown11 »

piokoch wrote: post #46
1986 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "heist", which presumably gets covered in part 2, is that a lot of these items were originally looted from Iraq after the US invasion in 2003. US Customs ended up seizing a lot of them, and about 15,000 items ended up having to be returned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_Lobby_smuggling_scandal

Well, visit British Museum, you will learn what is professional looting (a.k.a. robbery), not some amateurish second hand purchases done by those hobbyists.

Whataboutism aside, claiming that collecting tens of thousands of artifacts for a museum operated in Washington DC, is a hobbyist endeavor, is clearly wrong.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#119

Post by themaninthedark »

jt2190 wrote: post #102
smithkl42 wrote: post #7

I wish the author was a little less over-wrought in her descriptions of the Green family's religious commitments. I've heard complaints before about the Green's artifact acquisition process, and they've had to return some manuscripts: it's a story worth investigating and telling. But it distracts from the author's main point when she's making snide comments about their faith. Yes, they're Christians who are successfu…

> Have been told that I have to “drop the sarcastic tone” if I want to be “taken seriously” as a “““reporter””” but the jokes on them because that criticism implies that I’ve crossed the threshold into being a “journalist” rather than a “guy with a substack” https://substack.com/@meghanboilard/note/c-102976235 ?

There are several comments here using the same logic, which I find to be rather...odd:

>It's a blog post not a news article or scholarly report. - The topic is a business run by people who ostensibly make decisions based on their faith to justify actions which cause various harm to others. Taking a critical view of those actions and the motivations is reasonable.

and the author shares the same view....

I am being asked to take a critical look at Hobby Lobby, the reasons are outlined in the linked Substack. However, if I have any questions or criticisms of the Substack article, please note that it is not a professional work it is just a guy with a microphone.

If I can't trust the source material, how can I trust the claims?

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#120

Post by eschulz »

damnitbuilds wrote: post #78
piokoch wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, visit British Museum, you will learn what is professional looting (a.k.a. robbery), not some amateurish second hand purchases done by those hobbyists.

The British Museum saved many artifacts which would have been destroyed by various nutty religious types ( a' la Greens ) over the centuries. In doing so, I doubt that they broke any export regulations. And entrance to the British Museum is free, for everyone.

Not taking any sides other than that of conservation, do you think it's possible that the Greens have already saved many artifacts from nutty religious types like ISIS, and that their efforts will continue to do so in the future?
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