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

141–150 of 214 posts

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#141

Post by lurk2 »

Arainach wrote: post #81
watwut wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bible is full of contradictions. And old testament is quite cruel at places. They are Christians. Destructive Christians on the quest to harm others ... but Christians.

There is no relevant contradiction. The entire New Testament is Jesus preaching love and forgiveness, Jesus practicing love and forgiveness - and not just to his followers - and explicit condemnation of wealth and instructing his followers to care for others. Anyone who takes that message and instead lobbies to destroy healthcare and welfare and to push hate and attack anyone who doesn't agree with them - and anyone…

While I don’t want to look like I’m going to bat for the Hobby Lobby people, this seems like a very convenient way for you to argue that everyone ought to agree with your policy positions, even when those policy positions are not explicitly biblical. How do you reconcile the welfare state with Thessalonians 3:10, or Matthew 7:6? How do you address the restoration of Job? Was God mistaken in awarding Job with material wealth?

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#142

Post by turtlesdown11 »

wrp wrote: post #128

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,…

The claims made above with regard to 3 and 4 are false.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/hobby-lobby-settles-3-mill...

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#143

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

duped wrote: post #135
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, in many ways I agree with you, but I guarantee that mindset is essentially doomed to failure if you want to win elections in the US where 68% of Americans identify themselves as Christian in some way. The problem is not so much wanting to coddle up to the fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists. It's that a lot of people who used to have what would be considered "standard", middle-of-the-road religious views have be…

This thinking is a memetic poison created by the exact people that need to be shamed out of the public discourse. I used to agree with it, but seeing how it's been coopted by the bigots, I reject the premise entirely. No one is calling Christians stupid. The nutjobs that want to tear down our secular society and replace it with a white Evangelical ethnostate are telling Christians that their political rivals are call…

Well, keep doing what you're doing then. I mean, we really showed them, the religious right is certainly in retreat after all that shaming.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#144

Post by SauciestGNU »

beedeebeedee wrote: post #23
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…

> 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 broad brush here). In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, the elite left essentially said "you all are backwards and silly" Most of the criticism that I have heard and read is not about evangelicals being "backwards and silly" but is about thei…

I'll cop to treating them as a mix of "backward and silly" and "malevolent violent threat to the continued existence of people I love". There are a lot of reasons to disdain American Christianity, and my personal experience with the exercise of that religion makes it extremely hard to treat its practicioners with anything other than distrust and contempt.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#145

Post by alwa »

eschulz wrote: post #120
damnitbuilds wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I mean I’m not a conservator of ancient artifacts, but the pictures [0] of them dunking mummy masks in dish water to decompose them so they could check whether they were made with scrap bible papyrus… those did make my stomach turn a little. Felt a little closer to desecration that preservation.

[0] TFA links to https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/dead-men-tell-tales/148...

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#146

Post by SauciestGNU »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #99
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…

Look, in many ways I agree with you, but I guarantee that mindset is essentially doomed to failure if you want to win elections in the US where 68% of Americans identify themselves as Christian in some way. The problem is not so much wanting to coddle up to the fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists. It's that a lot of people who used to have what would be considered "standard", middle-of-the-road religious views have be…

I think the biggest problem is that Christianity is a font of power for fascism in America. If we want to change that, people need to start protesting churches the same way they are Tesla. But for some reason, churches seem exempt from political responsibility in the minds of the average non-fascist American.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#147

Post by watwut »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #143
duped wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thinking is a memetic poison created by the exact people that need to be shamed out of the public discourse. I used to agree with it, but seeing how it's been coopted by the bigots, I reject the premise entirely. No one is calling Christians stupid. The nutjobs that want to tear down our secular society and replace it with a white Evangelical ethnostate are telling Christians that their political rivals are call…

Well, keep doing what you're doing then. I mean, we really showed them, the religious right is certainly in retreat after all that shaming.

They literally vote for the most insulting person available, again and again. If anything, Trumps winning twice and conservatives in general getting votes is that being polite and nice is completely failing strategy. Democrats and centrists were nice and respectful for years while conservative were increasingly insulting ... and increasingly oversensitive creating outrages over nothing.

This demand for one sided niceness that amounts to submissivity was is is contraproductive.

The meat of the article are actual bad acts. You are just using the tone to distract from the actual accusations.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#148

Post by ultimafan »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #15
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…

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…

I don't know why people are down voting you, your observations are something I've sadly noticed happening for a long time now.

The perception of Christianity among people who don't identify with any religion or people who fall into more "liberal" circles has absolutely been tainted by sects/members of Christianity that do not at all represent the teachings in the Bible. There is justifiable resentment towards these groups that spills over into unjustifiable resentment towards Christians as a whole.

I can't count the number of times I've heard, living in California, either said directly to me by someone who didn't know I was Christian, overheard in a conversation, or discussed at some event completely out of pocket claims or insults towards Christianity that most people would find absolutely inappropriate to say about other groups.

It doesn't bother me because I understand where those people saying it are coming from. But it absolutely leads to the phenomenon of otherwise moderate or formerly left leaning Christians moving towards the group that doesn't wear their not so thinly veiled hate openly on their sleeves for something deeply personal and important in their lives. You are the company you keep and shifting over like this brings you more in line mentally overtime with the kind of people you don't want to emulate.

Rational or not rational, it just doesn't feel good as a human being to receive hate and disdain for something you consider an irreplaceable part of your life and worldview.

This doesn't apply solely to Christians and is really something the left has been doing for a long time and why it's been "losing" the propaganda war to the right and seeing so many people who formerly wouldn't want to associate with the kind of rhetoric found there today at least passively accepting it. Rhetoric of the left seems to far more often embrace (at least on a smaller scale between people) snark, putdowns, wholesale "intolerance" ie making individuals feel some combination of bad/guilty/stupid/backwards for "ignorant" views instead of engaging with them openly. The right uses an approach of playing the "reasonable" man that is open to discussion, support, of all views and then slowly getting people to get on board with the more radical ones.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#149

Post by Arainach »

lurk2 wrote: post #134
MagnumOpus wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I.e. wealthy people who don’t give it all away will go to hell. Did Job go to hell? > And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends; and the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. > [11] Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house; and they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LO…

The New Testament is unambiguous. Jesus expels the money lenders from the temple and says it is harder for a rich man to go to heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Christians are, first, and foremost, followings of Christ and his teachings. That's the point of the entire name. Jesus's words have more weight than anything that came before.

The Old Testament is where fake Christians always go to pick and choose. If you believe the experiences of Job are relevant, do you also refuse to wear clothing made of multiple fabrics (Deuteronomy 22:9–11, Leviticus 19:19)?

Here, I'll let West Wing cite the sources for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1-ip47WYWc

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#150

Post by card_zero »

Arainach wrote: post #149
lurk2 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I.e. wealthy people who don’t give it all away will go to hell. Did Job go to hell? > And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends; and the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. > [11] Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house; and they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LO…

The New Testament is unambiguous. Jesus expels the money lenders from the temple and says it is harder for a rich man to go to heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Christians are, first, and foremost, followings of Christ and his teachings. That's the point of the entire name. Jesus's words have more weight than anything that came before. The Old Testament is where fake Christians always go to pic…

> than a camel to pass through the old testament

Some mistake here. Didn't the old testament pass through a camel? I forget.

Post reply on HN