Hypothetically, allowing an examination of whatever artifact they may have in the church could help them in some ways if the date and construction were accurate, or if it could melt Nazis.
Well, it’s didn’t seem to do them any good against the Fascists in WWII.
Thanks, all, for the info on the etymology of ark. I never realized any of that before. It’s interesting how the suggested translation of vessel also contains both meanings - a container and a boat.
I think I follow where you are coming from, but it looks as if you are veering between extremes.
Since it is very hard to prove a negative, I’m not prepared to be certain that there is no ‘god’, but if there is one it does not seem to give a toss about humanity, and would appear to be a pretty nasty piece of work.
Christain principles are not that bad, a bit limp wristed, but workable - sort of, beats me why they tacked on the Old Testament - I suppose they needed to beef up the size of the book.
I would not be at all suprized if the myths in the Old Testament were based on some form of fact - grossly distorted but I doubt if people just made the whole thing up from thin air.
I don’t see why there should not have been some sort of box, people like symbols and golden calf was off the menu.
There is a short story by H G Wells called ‘The Last Trump(et?)’ you might find it amusing.
Pascal decided to opt for the safe approach on the existence of ‘god’, personally I don’t think it matters either way - but object to seeing people using ‘god’ to further their own ends.
Now, let’s not get bitchy! 
Huh? It’s under that pyramid thing in front of the Louvre.
Look, I’ll be over here in my bath with my rubber ducky, talking to myself. At least I’ll know what I’m going to say half the time.
Ah HA! So…you ARE on the ‘C’ ark then? Were you, by chance, a Phone Sanitation Engineer???
-XT
Almost right.
It is in France, sealed in an orange box and buried bebeath the Arc :dubious: de Triomph
Pascals wager requires you to ignore so many things, such as:
- Which version of god are you supposed to believe in? Even within Christianity there’s boatloads of different views.
- Is it actually possible to choose to believe something?
- If it’s not possible to choose, will I still be better off picking one of the hundreds of religious practices available? Or will I just be pissing off the “real” one more by worshipping a false god than by being a nice guy atheist?
Most likely burned in a fire, along with “Rosebud”. 
The ironic bit (in the movie) is that not only is the Ark a total McGuffin, but if Indy had just stayed home, the Nazis probably wouldn’t have even found the Ark, and if they had they would have been vaporized anyway. He’s not quite as useless as James Bond in Goldfinger–at least he doesn’t get any of his compatriots killed–but ultimately his adventure is irrelevent to the stated goal of keeping this dangerous weapon out of enemy hands.
I’m totally unclear with what the OP is asking, or how the Ark of the Covenant bears any direct relationship to athiesm (which is what the OP seems to be really on about), but while the Ark probably existed at some point, I don’t think any of the powers attributed to it by Indiana Jones (“Lightning. Fire. The power of God or something.”) have any Biblical validity. If you’re taking notes on Hebrew history from Raiders of the Lost Ark, you’re probably not going to pass the pop quiz. Hell of a movie, though…one of the best:Indiana: Meet me at Omar’s. Be ready for me. I’m going after that truck.
Sallah: How?
Indiana: I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.
With regard to the philosophy of athiesm, I think Douglas Adams hit all the high points in most entertaining fashion in the first couple of Hitchhiker’s books. You can expand, but probably not improve, upon his observations. It’s kind of boring topic at length, really, like talking about how “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.” It makes for a good three minute skit or a brief aside, but doesn’t really hold up to
movie or novel length.
Stranger
I saw that the OP said he was an atheist and that he was studying atheism, but I missed the part where he said that he was studying atheism so that he could become an atheist.
Why are some folks jumping on this guy for studying atheism? What’s wrong with that? I think more it would be great if, for example, some universities offered “history of atheism” studies. If this guy wants to study it on his own—sounds like fighting ignorance to me. So it is discouraging to see him berated for it.
I know what the “accusation” is. It’s that he was studying to become an atheist, which, according to SDMB conventional wisdom, is not necessary because atheism is not a faith or religion, it is merely a disbelief in god. Yes. We hear this repeated here often, and for the most part, I agree with it.
But I never saw where this guy said he was studying atheism, poring over some atheist’s bible so he could become an atheist. He stated that he already was an atheist AND that he was studying atheism. I might have just missed where he wrote it, though.
I’m not clear where anyone has “berated” the OP for his studies (though I just skimmed through the thread, so I might have missed it) but save as an objective counterpoint to religious studies from a philosophical standpoint, I don’t know what you would get out of a “study of atheism”. It would be a relatively humdrum set of journal articles (No Sign of God: A Study in Absence of Divinity, God Still Missing: Looking For Signs of the Unseeable, Credibility of God In Doubt: Lack of Evidence Fails to Dissuade Believers, et cetera) that would all sum up to the same thing; religious faith has no objective basis. Evolutionary zoologist Richard Dawkins has made a second career as a pole-bearer for the atheism crowd (or as he refers to them, the “Brights”), and frankly it gets kind of tiresome even for those of us who agree wholeheartedly, a big philosophical yawn of a topic.
At any rate, the existence or lack thereof has essentially nothing to do with the Ark. Plenty of archeological sites and artifacts are mentioned in the Bible that have factual validity but were not, in fact, delivered from Heaven or otherwise demonstrate the existence or lack thereof of any god or gods. It is, like Communism, a red herring.
Stranger
I’m still anxiously awaiting a response to this.
Is there a hard atheism so hard that religious terms themselves are considered obscene or… uh, blasphemous?