Experts Believe Hobby Lobby Stole Biblical Antiquities From Iraq. Here’s Why.

a reply to: dawnstar
We (USA) still don't agree with all aspects of international law, torture being one of the topics.

If you're hung up on waterboarding, I would really advise you to worry more about live stoning, live beheading, live burning, live drowning, live electrocution, etc. I really would suggest that this will make you look more credible.

I was educated in one public high school, two public universities, and one military graduate program.

My sons were both home schooled, for reasons that you need not comment on.

I know the details on the different approaches.

Yes, I'm sure that the UN / world court / IMF have done a few other things besides continually railing against USA / Israel. But I'm impressed that you will admit their well-worn bias.

a reply to: stevieray

they weren't tiles, they were tablets, very old tablets....
labeled as handmade tiles.....
well the handmade part might have been right, but not the tiles part....or the estimated values.

considering that Hobby Lobby was collecting genuine artifacts for their museum, well, it's hard to believe that they would have even been interested in these things if they were priced at such a low price. one would assume that they were either fake, and therefore not really of interest to hobby lobby, or that there was some criminal involvement connected to them some way.
so well, either that museum is likely to have quite a few fakes in it, or they ran across some "too good to be trues" on their artifact hunt.

a reply to: stevieray

gee, we used to agree about torture being wrong..... at least publicly. ya it might of went on secretly, but it wasn't untill bush came into office that anyone had the nerve to admit openly that it was happening and justify it!

I would really advise you to worry more about live stoning, live beheading, live burning, live drowning, live electrocution, etc. I really would suggest that this will make you look more credible.

why are there mass stoning, beheadings, burning alive, drownings, ect going on in the US, or is this just another attempt to convince us that if we dont accept the neocon's theocratical rulership then we are going to have sharia law in the states....as if those are the only two choices....
I don't buy that...

and don't be too impressed, I am sure that if I look hard enough I can find reasons to knock the UN also....
although I could also find reasons to knock Isreal, the US, Russia, China, and any other country.

a reply to: stevieray

Evidence of the crimes. Not the tiles.

LOL! Desperate much?

The tiles ARE the evidence, together with the improper paperwork that they tried to pass off.

a reply to: dawnstaryep good for them you know when they went and took over Egypt they were talking about leveling the Spinx and the pyramids so hobby lobby probably saved these antiquities.

a reply to: proteus33

yep, and quite possibly made some terrorist group (possibly ISIS) a tad bit stronger by helping to create a demand for looted antiquities. so a much stronger ISIS can go on to another country and do the same danged thing and find more ancient artifacts to sell, of which hobby lobby just might be more than happy to buy....
got it!! laws and treaties just don't matter anymore, as long as there is good intentions behind the lawbreaking.
are you gonna sign the petition pleading for the gov't to not press charges on me at the end of the month when I rob the bank so I can pay my rent. after all, it's not like I am trying to fill my new museum with a bunch of rare artifacts, I am just trying to replace the money that was swiped from me to pay the taxes on a house we went bankrupt on years ago that I was counting on to help pay the rent.

originally posted by: dawnstar
a reply to: proteus33

yep, and quite possibly made some terrorist group (possibly ISIS) a tad bit stronger by helping to create a demand for looted antiquities. so a much stronger ISIS can go on to another country and do the same danged thing and find more ancient artifacts to sell, of which hobby lobby just might be more than happy to buy....
got it!! laws and treaties just don't matter anymore, as long as there is good intentions behind the lawbreaking.
are you gonna sign the petition pleading for the gov't to not press charges on me at the end of the month when I rob the bank so I can pay my rent. after all, it's not like I am trying to fill my new museum with a bunch of rare artifacts, I am just trying to replace the money that was swiped from me to pay the taxes on a house we went bankrupt on years ago that I was counting on to help pay the rent.

Everything you've written or claimed is your own speculation.

The tiles are just that, tiles. Until somebody comes up with a rational means of declaring them priceless gems. This discussion and the legal case won't be running on your personal definitions and declarations.

Despite your cute little dodge of "we should all dislike torture", the problem is in what's torture and what's not. But you knew this, full well. Just playing the game, lol.

Anyways, always nice to hear from you.

a reply to: dawnstar

OK so you don't buy the antiquities, what happens to them? Will ISIS accept and store them away until the Iraqi government can take them back? Doubtful.
Sell them onto a more unscrupulous buyer who cares little about international law and only wants it for his own private collection? Probable.
ISIS can't find a buyer, so they destroy them.

Either way, it's not good for the artifacts.
The best option was the one that the Hobby Lobby took and I still say well done to them.
We get it you've got morals, no need to batter our heads with the righteous indignation though.

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: stevieray

Evidence of the crimes. Not the tiles.

LOL! Desperate much?

The tiles ARE the evidence, together with the improper paperwork that they tried to pass off.

Tiles are tiles.

Tell us what makes them priceless, invaluable, and subject to your intense scrutiny.

Then we may have a rational basis upon which to discuss your mountain of opinions !

originally posted by: mclarenmp4
a reply to: dawnstar

OK so you don't buy the antiquities, what happens to them? Will ISIS accept and store them away until the Iraqi government can take them back? Doubtful.
Sell them onto a more unscrupulous buyer who cares little about international law and only wants it for his own private collection? Probable.
ISIS can't find a buyer, so they destroy them.

Either way, it's not good for the artifacts.
The best option was the one that the Hobby Lobby took and I still say well done to them.
We get it you've got morals, no need to batter our heads with the righteous indignation though.

It's a sad state of affairs.

They would indeed rather see ISIS blow these things to smithereens, than allow someone to safeguard them, who practices the evil capitalism, Christianity, conservatism, caucasian-ness. The C4. Pure evil, unlike the misunderstood ISIS.

a reply to: stevieray

Tiles are tiles.

Simplistic ignorance doesn't cut it.

But when the family tried to get the collections through U.S. Customs—having declared them, according to the Daily Beast, as “hand-crafted clay tiles” worth a collective $300—their actions triggered an F.B.I. inquiry.

According to Col. Matt Bogdanos, a single, four-inch cylinder seal from ancient Babylonia can sell for nearly $250,000 alone....

SOURCE

Ah, so you have two other opinions to go with yours. Call us when someone actually rules on it. Legally, lol.

And a tile is not a tile.....it may be a tablet. Wowzers.

I love getting into these endless, bitter arguments where someone WILL NOT accept that their opinion is not the final word. It's kinda funny and kinda fun. Or kinda sad, as well. They will not acknowledge how it's registering with the people reading it. The "WTF ?" crowd, haha.

What is it about..."if you take something that doesn't belong to you, it's called STEALING" you can't understand.

Would it be ok for me to take your belongings because I deem you unable to properly care for them.

Perhaps this is the reason I have a very hard time trusting anything a Christian says....holier than thou morality games are BS.

even Fox news reported that they were tablets!

The tablets, which The Daily Beast reported are thousands of years old and inscribed with text used in ancient Assyria and Babylonia, were seized by Customs agents in Memphis, Tenn., in 2011, but were on their way into Green’s collection of the “rarest and most significant biblical texts and artifacts ever assembled” including “cuneiform tablets dating from the time of Abraham, Dead Sea Scroll fragments, biblical papyri and manuscripts, Torah scrolls, and rare printed Bibles.”

www.foxnews.com...

the issue is can it be proved that they weren't illegally taken from the middle east recently, and weather the buyer (we really need to stop saying it was hobby lobby, it was their owners, although I do believe they might have been addressed to hobby lobby... who gee, don't they sell decorative tiles for crafts... but well the owners) had reason to suspect that these things were black market, or maybe even knew they were.
if so, then they legally have to be returned to the country of origin and hobby lobby might have to pay a fine (as if that's gonna hurt them, unless of course, all 40,000 are black marketed items then well, ya it might!

and if you are worried about the terrorists destroying them once they are returned home, fine, find a safe place to store them in a county that wasn't so involved in creating such a violtile condition the middle east so bad that it put these national treasure in danger to begin with. The western world probably holds more artifacts from the middle east, central america, africa, heck even the native americans than they the countries of origins do probably! we don't need more. and well, there's always been a kind of arrogance involved in obtaining them, a kind of oh, but they are better off here, where we can study them, preserve them-- destroy them if they don't mesh up with our worldview.

a reply to: windword

OK so they've imported antiquities and by doing so they may well have broken the law, what's the sentence for the type of crime they are alleged to have committed?.
And why are people getting their panties in such a twist over this story? It's not as if the hobby lobby killed someone trying to get them.
Also the Hobby Lobby didn't actually steal them so they aren't breaking any commandments. The bible states as follows regarding possession without theft.

“You shall not see your countryman’s ox or his sheep straying away, and pay no attention to them; you shall certainly bring them back to your countryman. And if your countryman is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall remain with you until your countryman looks for it; then you shall restore it to him. And thus you shall do with his donkey, and you shall do the same with his garment, and you shall do likewise with anything lost by your countryman, which he has lost and you have found. You are not allowed to neglect them. You shall not see your countryman’s donkey or his ox fallen down on the way, and pay no attention to them; you shall certainly help him to raise them up" Deut. 22:1-4

So the hobby lobby are doing no wrong as Christians as long as they return them to their rightful owners once requested.

originally posted by: olaru12
What is it about..."if you take something that doesn't belong to you, it's called STEALING" you can't understand.

Would it be ok for me to take your belongings because I deem you unable to properly care for them.

Perhaps this is the reason I have a very hard time trusting anything a Christian says....holier than thou morality games are BS.

haha, a continued reliance on your hate for Christianity will really get you nowhere in a contest of logic and the details of what really happened.

Last I checked, H.L. paid for things. If you buy something that's stolen, typically the law says "sorry, needs to go back to the owner". If that happens, it happens.

Nowhere do I see a legal pathway to punishing your hated Christians here. Unless you're hanging all your hopes and dreams on the valuation or descriptions.

a reply to: olaru12

The Hobby Lobby didn't steal them, whoever robbed them from their original site are the thieves.

This is what happens with antiquities and has been happening since for millennia, usually it's the British Museum that acquire them and then the countries they were stolen from ask for them back and eventually they get repatriated.

The only way to get these historical artifacts are by dealing with thieves because generally it's thieves that have them, you know because they stole them in the 1st place. If some one like HL don't buy them, they end up in the black market and end up in some wealthy persons possession and not seen the light of day for quite a while.

originally posted by: mclarenmp4
a reply to: olaru12

The Hobby Lobby didn't steal them, whoever robbed them from their original site are the thieves.

This is what happens with antiquities and has been happening since for millennia, usually it's the British Museum that acquire them and then the countries they were stolen from ask for them back and eventually they get repatriated.

The only way to get these historical artifacts are by dealing with thieves because generally it's thieves that have them, you know because they stole them in the 1st place. If some one like HL don't buy them, they end up in the black market and end up in some wealthy persons possession and not seen the light of day for quite a while.

Dude, you are totally guilty of logic, accuracy, and clarity. Shame on you !!

Totally gumming up a good hate fest and fake story.

a reply to: mclarenmp4

OK so they've imported antiquities and by doing so they may well have broken the law, what's the sentence for the type of crime they are alleged to have committed?.

Jail time and fines.

And why are people getting their panties in such a twist over this story? It's not as if the hobby lobby killed someone trying to get them.

Because, most likely the proceeds went to fund terrorism.

So the hobby lobby are doing no wrong as Christians as long as they return them to their rightful owners once requested.

LOL..You Christians like the Old Testament when it suits you. Christians are supposed to respect governing authorities and follow the law.

Romans 13
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.[/b[

2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

Still 100% wishful thinking and generic hate. Works for me.