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[hector13]

Yeah the excitement is because there’s a new candidate who isn’t an old white man. It’ll pass sooner or later and then she has to win hearts and minds in the lead up.

[Folly]

The Democrats definitely got extremely lucky on this one. Absolutely nobody knew what would happen if Biden stepped aside, and most suspected that it would go badly for them. This has really been the absolute best conceivable outcome.

[hector13]

This was pretty obviously going to happen, even Biden was saying the debate performance was bad. His most ardent supporters couldn’t run from the fact that it did make him look every bit the old man he is, and confirmed everything the Republicans were saying about him.

The only issue was if he had to get forced out, which would have made the Democrats look weak and disunited months before a major election. He did the right thing, looks strong for doing it, and the party can look strong uniting behind one candidate going forward. It’s wins all round for the blue team.

[anewaname]

There is gerrymandering, the election workers who quit due to threats, the certainty that some of their replacements include evil-doers, and there may have been shifts from electronic ballot systems to paper. That is a lot of vectors that could effectively bring an electoral college win.

[EuchreJack]

There is gerrymandering, the election workers who quit due to threats, the certainty that some of their replacements include evil-doers, and there may have been shifts from electronic ballot systems to paper. That is a lot of vectors that could effectively bring an electoral college win.

Only one side has agreed to abide by the Election results.
Democrats need an overwhelming win, or they'll get Bush over Gore'd.

[Criptfeind]

Are the polls actually that in favor of democrats? I'm seeing a lot of polls promoted on social media of somewhat useless stuff like Harris being more popular in places she'd be expected to win anyway, or more popular nationally, but neither of those really matter in the election, it's the swing states and ability to drive peoples enthusiasm to get them to vote is where her popularity matters and tbh a mild effort to track down polls about those lightly paint a picture of the democrats loosing?

Our elections are so fucked democrats sorta need to crush elections to actually win, I can buy more people voting for Harris over Trump but I'm sorta unsold on her crushing him.

[MaxTheFox]

I hate that behaviors like this get labelled "Christian", because they aren't.  I mean, "Christian authoritarian" is an oxymoron if there ever was one.  (Yes yes, I know what it means practically. Ontologically, however, authoritarianism is completely at odds with the teaching of Jesus and the New Testament.)

That's all I'm going to say, though, so I'm not tempted to rant.

*yawns* The Teachings of Jesus play a minor role in the ideology of Christianity. And many ideologies have self-contradictory elements in them. Christianity was authoritarian since it came to power in the Roman Empire, if not earlier.

Ah yes, the famous ideology called "Christianity". Because religions are monolithic and never change.

btw the imperial cult in Rome was rather authoritarian too, probably more so actually. "Christianity caused the Roman Empire to collapse/turned it into a dystopia" is widely considered by actual historians to be bull. Weird that you bring that up and not the Catholic church during the Middle Ages in Europe.

[pisskop]

Wait which roman empire? 

[MaxTheFox]

Wait which roman empire? 

Presumably he meant the OG one.

The Byzantine one (aka Eastern Rome, it's the same entity and arguably a direct continuation of it) was Christian from the start-- and was a beacon of science and even social progress all while Western Europe was in shambles. They had better rights for the peasants than most of the other nations in Europe.

[ChairmanPoo]

Wait which roman empire? 

Presumably he meant the OG one.

The Byzantine one (aka Eastern Rome, it's the same entity and arguably a direct continuation of it) was Christian from the start-- and was a beacon of science and even social progress all while Western Europe was in shambles. They had better rights for the peasants than most of the other nations in Europe.

. No offense but that sounds a bit like a 'Third Rome' myth spinoff. After the 6th-7th century the Byzantines were crashing down culturally as fast as anyone else. For a while they had more Alexandrine leftovers and cultural osmosis goodies of stuff the Arabs brought from the East, I grant you that..

I think blaming it on Christianity is also BS. Although I think its questionable to say that the imperial cult was any more or less authoritarian than post-Constantine christianity.  The Roman Empire fell because of a series of economic crises. I also think it'd be more accurate that the form both the official state Imperial Cult and post-Constantine christianity were dictated by the underlying political institutions, rather than the other way around. Arguably an authoritarian state sponsored monotheist creed was by definition more intolerant than an authoritarian imperial-cult-addon on polytheistic creeds, though.

[Frumple]

Are the polls actually that in favor of democrats? I'm seeing a lot of polls promoted on social media of somewhat useless stuff like Harris being more popular in places she'd be expected to win anyway, or more popular nationally, but neither of those really matter in the election, it's the swing states and ability to drive peoples enthusiasm to get them to vote is where her popularity matters and tbh a mild effort to track down polls about those lightly paint a picture of the democrats loosing?

Our elections are so fucked democrats sorta need to crush elections to actually win, I can buy more people voting for Harris over Trump but I'm sorta unsold on her crushing him.

As far as I'm aware, there's a decent amount of indication things are going pretty well on the polling front -- negative trajectories reversing pretty drastically, stuff like that -- but the topline stuff the polling companies are publishing is fairly even. It's painted as things being good for the dems mostly because polling was showing them pretty heavily underwater, heh.

There's just this massive pile of reasons why polling in general at the moment shouldn't exactly be trusted (most important and pertinent reason being polling is bloody inaccurate this far out even if nothing else is complicating things -- and there's a lot of stuff complicating things), so how much that actually means is deeply questionable.

[Strongpoint]

The claim was that Christianity can't be authoritarian because of some words in the Bible. It can. It was authoritarian many times. "Not all Christians" or "Those are not true Christians" or "Christianity changes over time" don't change the observation that "teachings of Jesus" and authoritarianism are perfectly compatible.

And very authoritarian Christians are getting power in the US and the whole world will be screwed should they get enough to destroy American democracy. This is why Christianity must be opposed instead of going "Those are not real Christians, everything is fine"

[Folly]

I was trying to avoid going off-topic, but since it seems we're going down this hole anyway...

McTraveller was not talking about the things that have been done in the name of Christianity(a lot of really messed up shit on that list), but what Jesus himself would have actually wanted.

But unless you can persuade the Demigod to come back to Earth and give us an interview, determining his will is entirely guesswork, going off texts which have undergone multiple biased reinterpretations and which depicted a time and place entirely different from the modern world. Anyone who says they know what Jesus would have wanted is either projecting their own will, or blindly accepting the preaching of someone else who is projecting.


Regarding Kamala's polls, all of the numbers I'm seeing have her right where Biden was before the debate, which is slightly trailing Trump but within the margin of error. The optimism comes from the fact that she is at that point without yet having started campaigning, giving a lot of room for her numbers to improve, while Trump's numbers are conversely seen as being at their peak right now with nowhere to go but down.

[McTraveller]

This is why Christianity must be opposed instead of going "Those are not real Christians, everything is fine"

I mean I guess maybe I don't understand your vision on reform, then? Do you mean you have to change the name of something, not reform it?  This isn't specific to Christianity by the way.  Say liberalism, or conservatism, or whatever.  I think it's very valid to say "look, stop calling this <name of thing> because the things you're promoting are so far from the original movement that it's clearly not the same thing, even though you're using the same name."

On one hand the name of a thing isn't what matters anyway, it's the actions taken and their outcomes.  On the other hand, you get easily persuaded people that say "oh we call ourselves members of group A, so we'll just blindly support anyone claiming to be from group A" - regardless of whatever it is that group is doing.

To say "we need to oppose Christianity" is also too broad - it's like saying we need to oppose cereal.  What we need to oppose is "authoritarian Christianity", even so far as saying "look guys, this isn't even Christianity to begin with, because you are peddling something other than the Gospel."  And yes, you can call people out on this - it's not subjective, and there are clear ways to determine what is and is not in alignment with the oldest copies of the texts we have.  It's really not as mysterious as people would have you believe; in fact, it's the people that make it "mysterious" that are most likely to be in it for themselves.

People are too afraid to tell others they are out of line these days...

[Folly]

People are too afraid to tell others they are out of line these days...

Maybe because those same people who are out-of-line have a long history of committing mass-murder? And don't think that you'll be spared just because you're trying to preach peace. When the Crusades start, you're either with the mob, or against them.