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The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

meghanboilard.substack.com

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Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#171

Post by pesus »

ultimafan wrote: post #148
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…

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 g…

> 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.

If you're talking about Christians moving to right wing political groups because people were insulting them, then they're proving their detractors' points and actually encouraging this phenomenon.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#172

Post by Arainach »

lurk2 wrote: post #162
Arainach wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other humans are not "dogs" or "pigs". Jesus was unambiguous. "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:30–31) Or, even more explicit, Matthew 25:31-46. "Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, w…

> Other humans are not "dogs" or "pigs". So why is the verse there? > Jesus is explicitly advocating welfare - providing food, drink, clothes, healthcare, and more to anyone in need. There is nothing in this verse which says that property is to be expropriated for the purposes of assuring others a particular standard of living, and I don’t think you’ll be able to find one. > Jesus was also unambiguous on wealth. Chri…

>So why is the verse there?

You're the one who cited it, it's up to you to demonstrate that it's relevant in this context.

>There is nothing in this verse which says that property is to be expropriated for the purposes of assuring others a particular standard of living, and I don’t think you’ll be able to find one.

The verse is literally instructing that anyone in need is to be helped. It does not specify the source of the help. Anyone professing to be a Christian should be in favor of those with plenty providing for those in need.

>You’ve ignored my question. If Jesus is God, and God rewarded Job with material wealth in this world, how can Jesus be said to offer an unambiguous criticism of wealth?

Ignoring the theological debate on if "Jesus is God", Jesus' statements and commandments came later and supersede anything which came before.

Oh, and since I missed (or you later added) the Thessalonians verse, how convenient of you to leave out its context:

> We did this, *not because we do not have the right to such help*, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to imitate.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#173

Post by Iulioh »

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's an argument in the same way "human rights" are an argument.

Can we justify giving disable people less rights?

Sure.

Let me tell you _a modest proposal_ .

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#174

Post by kalensh »

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 really don't think we can lay the responsibility for this at the feet of "the left."

I don't doubt there are those who have had uncomfortable, rude encounters with anti-religious people, but I do doubt how frequently this occurs. I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family and we openly prayed before meals at restaurants and never had a single issue. I attended a public school and had plenty of friends who were remarkably tolerant of when I got a bit weird about religion (including calling a friend's family "heathens" for not following the right type of Christianity). Yes, there was one classmate in high school who was outspoken, a bit angry and sometimes rude about her "leftist" beliefs but she was one classmate among many! And yet every week in Church I heard about how the world was against us, we were so persecuted and hated, silly comments like "oh you'd get in trouble if you brought a bible in your backpack to your public school" which wasn't true at all.

In my experience it's an identity built on being "different", on believing that others want to tear you down because of your beliefs. And a narrative that pushes this identity, by amplifying anything that could come across as disrespectful or dismissive, setting it up for someone to come in and say "you should be proud of yourself." And when this includes stupid things like Starbucks changing their cups to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, I really don't think "be nicer" is going to help.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#175

Post by MrMcCall »

lurk2 wrote: post #162
Arainach wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other humans are not "dogs" or "pigs". Jesus was unambiguous. "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:30–31) Or, even more explicit, Matthew 25:31-46. "Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, w…

> Other humans are not "dogs" or "pigs". So why is the verse there? > Jesus is explicitly advocating welfare - providing food, drink, clothes, healthcare, and more to anyone in need. There is nothing in this verse which says that property is to be expropriated for the purposes of assuring others a particular standard of living, and I don’t think you’ll be able to find one. > Jesus was also unambiguous on wealth. Chri…

> There is nothing in this verse which says that property is to be expropriated for the purposes of assuring others a particular standard of living, and I don’t think you’ll be able to find one.

You're right; we have the free will to be as miserly as we choose. But if you want to be of Christ, you'll give your 5% or 10%, at least.

Our societies also have the free will to choose to tax the rich to help the poor. A govt run by actual Christians would not let the rich trample the poor and our shared environment, our human family's inheritance and future.

Yes, everyone is free to be a selfish asshole -- "there is not compulsion in religion" is God's command, too -- but our govt should reflect the generosity of spirit we are called to manifest.

If you don't like the taxes, find another place to ply your wares.

> You’ve ignored my question. If Jesus is God, and God rewarded Job with material wealth in this world, how can Jesus be said to offer an unambiguous criticism of wealth?

If one has acquired it by cheating or abusing others or selling harmful products or without paying one's fair tax rate, then those are ill-gotten gains are bad for the person who chose to live that way and bad for the society they are parasitizing.

So, yes, God's Messengers of love can have whatever beneficience our Lord bestows upon them, but it will not be ill-gotten and it will not be for the selfish pleasure and will never be wasted, for "God does not love the wasters".

Most of all, what is important to remember is that we cannot love both God and money, i.e. we cannot serve two masters. We must be generous with others out of love for them, and be grateful to God that we have been granted God's generosity to have better circumstances.

To love someone means wanting them to be happy. Any kind of "love" that does not result in effortful action -- i.e. actual service -- for the other person is nothing but empty words, and we must live the truth of God's teachings of love.

"Love thy neighbor as your own self." Not more, not less. We are given the choice in money matters and it is a sore trial for most human beings. But God's teachings of love are clear as day to those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart that understands.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#176

Post by xboxnolifes »

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.

This kind of implies you believe there are no Christian (or any religion) engineers. Which is very clearly not true.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#177

Post by shepherdjerred »

EnergyAmy wrote: post #168
shaftway wrote: post #127

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 au…

There's no barcodes because they're batshit insane and believe in the "bar codes are the mark of the beast" thing that was popular back in the 90's. People deflecting in this thread are either ignorant or also batshit crazy and should be ignored.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hobby-lobby-mark-of-the-be...

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#178

Post by turtlesdown11 »

wrp wrote: post #153
turtlesdown11 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claims made above with regard to 3 and 4 are false. https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/hobby-lobby-settles-3-mill...

The article confirms #3 and contradicts #4.

The press report from ICE does not confirm that they "knew some would be dubious". The press report makes it clear that all the purchases were not done above board.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#179

Post by MrMcCall »

watwut wrote: post #136
MrMcCall wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beautifully said. To expand on that beautiful theme: Animals compete, human beings cooperate. Animals take advantage of others, human beings care for others by helping them and protecting them from harm. May compassion rule our hearts for the benefit of one and all and the Earth, herself. We can choose to end suffering. As the "$6 Million Man" intro said in the 70s, "We have the technology." The world has already lea…

> Animals compete, human beings cooperate. Animals do cooperate, a lot and frequently. Including predators like lions. There are solitary animals, but cooperation is not rare. > Animals take advantage of others, human beings care for others by helping them and protecting them from harm. Animals do help others and try to protect them from harm.

> Animals do cooperate, a lot and frequently. Including predators like lions. There are solitary animals, but cooperation is not rare.

That is just pack behavior. Animals are nearly always at war among their own for territory, and will often attack other kinds animals that compete for their food sources, unless there is mutual benefit (e.g. deers and monkeys sharing alarm calls for tigers).

> Animals do help others and try to protect them from harm.

Not their competitors, friend.

I've seen all of Sir David Attenboroughs' nature serieses multiple times, save the Antarctica one, including the "Trials of Life" where the decades-ago TV commercial here in America had the line, "the relentless pursuit to continue the bloodline".

I know what happens when a bear comes upon a wolfpack's kill. Ain't no sharing there, friend.

Lions clawing the balls off a young wandering, trespassing male is the baseline root of animal nature. Any student of history knows this lionine behavior is closer to the driving impetus for human nature than pursuits of selflessly loving peace.

"They are like the animals, only worse." That is our negative potential, each and every one of us. Only we have a mind to learn how to contemplate our potential self-evolution and our current amount of progress. And we are free to instead use our minds to just pursue worldly pleasures at the expense of anyone else's happiness. All potentials are available to us, though we cannot escape the price of karma we must each pay, and do, for better or worse, always accurately reaping what we have sown. Not a jot unaccounted for.

God's teachings of love are here to help us self-evolve ourselves out of our selfishly animalistic negative potentials towards a peaceful, harmonious universally-compassionate integrated society of equals of different paths and cultures, sans abuse or oppression of any kind.

One great example is how Guru Nanak (Sikh founding Guru) set his table where everyone sat together, not stratified by caste. That is the Way of human love, born of God's love for us.

Re: The great Hobby Lobby artifact heist

#180

Post by [deleted] »

armchairhacker wrote: post #63
themaninthedark wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author's tone is...definitely not neutral and it make it hard to believe them when they put pure conjecture in: "Between the high demand and likely paying workers a subminimum wage" with footnote "...While this practice was completely legal (current federal law permits employers to pay disabled workers a fraction of minimum wage), it’s certainly questionable practice coming from a guy whose entire schtick revolve…

Although it sounds very bad, there’s actually a good argument for paying disabled workers below-minimum wage: - Disabled people get paid (what is supposed to be, but not actually, a living wage) by the government, so they aren’t living on the wage. - No company would hire them if they were forced to pay minimum wage, because companies are greedy and would always hire a more productive non-disabled worker. - Many disa…

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