Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

meghanboilard.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 214 posts

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#121

Post by RandomBacon »

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…

Maybe people are more comfortable sharing online and in less fear of being ganged up on?

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#122

Post by schiem »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #108
sigzero wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus does not condemn wealth. If that is what you are taking away from his interaction with the rich man, you would be wrong. Wealth itself is never condemned in the Bible (Old or New Testament). God often blessed his servants with wealth.

Jesus very explicitly condemns wealth, in a directly quoted passage that cannot be misunderstood. Jesus as quoted in Matthew 19:24 is very very blunt: "I'll say it again - it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of god!" I.e. wealthy people who don’t give it all away will go to hell.

To head off typical response to that passage - the idea that "the eye of a needle" was referencing a literal gate in Jerusalem (changing the meaning of the passage from "impossible" to "you might have to squeeze a little bit") is a post-hoc justification with no basis in reality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle#Gate

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#123

Post by themaninthedark »

marky1991 wrote: post #74
Iulioh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My counterargument would be: If it is bellow ""living wage"" it should not be allowed. (that was easy) You can find other workarounds to incentive the hiring of disabled people and we (in italy) have a few: -Requirement of medium and big firms to hire them (reduced ability, they can still perform) For example where i work there is a janitor that has dawn syndrome and an IT guy with dwarfism -tax breaks (so the worker…

How is that an argument? That's just a position with no defense.

It ironically fits in with the article :)

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#124

Post by RandomBacon »

34679 wrote: post #62
michaelsbradley wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would've thought this would be a relatively atheist/agnostic community, if not one that eschews discussion of religion entirely. Briefly, why?

I can't speak for OP, but for me it's because this place is full of engineers who place their faith in evidence-based reasoning.

I have an engineering background, and was even gifted The Knack.

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

For example, there is the idea of Theistic Evolution.

I definitely like evidence-based reasoning, but it doesn't answer everything.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#125

Post by WillPostForFood »

turtlesdown11 wrote: post #106
WillPostForFood wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the people who took away healthcare benefits from all Americans because they didn't personally want to fund birth control and women's health. This is not true though.. Most Americans have these benefits. Hobby Lobby just pushed for an extension of the existing Religious exemption to also apply closely held businesses. It affected a tiny portion of the population.

> It affected a tiny portion of the population. > According to a 2009 research paper from NYU Stern School of Business, these corporations account for 52 percent of private employment and 51 percent of private-sector output in the country. Those percentages might be outdated now but still give a sense of just how many workers are employed at closely held corporations. Fifty-two percent of today’s private sector emplo…

And in the following paragraph:

Of course it’s extremely unlikely that all of those companies are about to claim a religious exemption from providing coverage of contraception. Aaron Blake at the Washington Post points to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll that found that 85 percent of large employers offered contraception coverage prior to Obamacare requiring it.

Regardless, this is nitpicking, and the grandparent claim that it blocked contraception converage for all Americans is wrong.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#126

Post by bee_rider »

34679 wrote: post #62
michaelsbradley wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would've thought this would be a relatively atheist/agnostic community, if not one that eschews discussion of religion entirely. Briefly, why?

I can't speak for OP, but for me it's because this place is full of engineers who place their faith in evidence-based reasoning.

Engineering (as distinct from something like math or science) is more about applying, rather than discovering, knowledge. Some folks just treat the models and equations as mantras handed down by some all-knowing being (the professor). The equation shall be recited in the homework, at length in the project, one final time in the exam, and then we shall release it to the universe and free our minds of it.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#127

Post by shaftway »

Every time I've shopped at a Hobby Lobby, I've gotten a weird feeling that there's something else shady going on. They don't use barcodes to price any of the goods. Everything has a sticker on it, and the cashier types up everything by hand. Your receipt ends up just being a list of dollar amounts and a total, nothing identifying your purchases in any way.

I just assumed that they're doing this so they can falsify audits. Similar to how they purchase land and donate it, claiming a bigger tax write-off, I assume they're doing the same with their merchandise. How could you audit it if there's no real stock tracking system?

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#128

Post by wrp »

Many upvotes here due to the political/religious aspect, but there should be some comment on the archeological issue. From what I've gathered in the past, the main points are:

1. An organization with very deep pockets sets out to collect Near Eastern antiquities.

2. Due to turmoil in the Middle East, many relics of dubious provenance are hitting the market.

3. The org decides to buy as much of this stuff as they can, knowing that some of it will be dubious.

4. The org voluntarily has their purchases inspected, knowing they will not be compensated for things that have to be returned to their rightful places.

In outline, this sounds like the buyers doing the right thing in a bad situation.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#129

Post by themaninthedark »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #58
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…

I'd hesitate to write off the severity of their difference to any Christianity you might recognize. The Green family wields a personal antinomianist doctrine reserved for the rich and powerful. Under their brand of Creationism, God has given them literal dominion over the world (Genesis 1:26-31), and not exercising that, whether or not in defiance of conflicting secular laws, would be a denial of the mission of their…

I think there is a little difference in culpability between directly sending money or traveling to a terror cell vs contacting buyers to purchase artifacts.

If my local church was attempting to support African businesses by purchasing goods but the buyer was getting good from a factory that used slave labor, I would expect the FBI to come talk to the church as well.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#130

Post by turtlesdown11 »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #125
turtlesdown11 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It affected a tiny portion of the population. > According to a 2009 research paper from NYU Stern School of Business, these corporations account for 52 percent of private employment and 51 percent of private-sector output in the country. Those percentages might be outdated now but still give a sense of just how many workers are employed at closely held corporations. Fifty-two percent of today’s private sector emplo…

And in the following paragraph: Of course it’s extremely unlikely that all of those companies are about to claim a religious exemption from providing coverage of contraception. Aaron Blake at the Washington Post points to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll that found that 85 percent of large employers offered contraception coverage prior to Obamacare requiring it. Regardless, this is nitpicking, and the grandparent clai…

The rights of millions of Americans were affected. Not a tiny portion of the population.

Also the grandparent comment correctly noted that all Americans lost rights in the ruling, which is accurate. Any American could get a job at a closely held company and not be extended contraceptive coverage.

Post reply on HN