Thread: Stealing the Ark!

i have had a fascination about the Ethiopian Orthodox Church for some time; the Jewish history, Queen Sheba and Solomon, the orthodoxy and the broad canon. However, the claim by the church to have the ark of the covenant (intact) is by far the most interesting , and the whole culture an tradition built up around it. Recently, a church official announce a future unveiling of the ark and then later recanted his statements. Having looked at the historicity of the claim, the object being protected by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is most certainly not the Ark of the old temple period.
Regardless of my disbelief i have often talked about stealing the ark, mostly with my atheist friends a few of my more religious friends are somewhat insulted by the thought. Think of the questions it could answer.
if it is indeed the ark and still retains a power it could convert billions (to what i do not know)
if it is found not to be of any power or to not be the authentic ark, the legitimacy of the past monarchy and the Ethiopian orthodox church is damaged.
is it moral to steal the ark and what would be the consequences?

if some force could be put together to extract the ark the sale price on it would be fantastic, with bidders like the Catholic Church and the state of Israel, the Smithsonian would not have a chance, it would sell for billions regardless of any divine attributes.

of course this is all just fiction and imagination, but if accomplished the very least end result would be a load of cash (provided we are not killed over it).

Kinda like stealing a flying saucer engine from Area 51.

Originally Posted by Pong

Kinda like stealing a flying saucer engine from Area 51.

There is a fundamental difference here with regards to who its that claims that the object in question exists.

If you find the so called ark and steal it, then there would not be much surprise to find out that it is a fake, right?

But since the military denies that any such flying saucer engine exists, then why would the military have created a fake? The most sensible conclusion if a fake is produced is that it did not actually come from area 51 but from those that claimed that the flying saucer engine exists.

Okay, so like stealing the "very good intelligence" that Saddam "has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." (Dick "we have it on a laptop" Cheney)