DescentBB

Jeff250 wrote:You haven't made any argument for your position yet

My position is that potential outcomes carry great weight as a factor for me when voting. Especially if the competing likely outcomes are divergent, and my most preferred outcome is exceedingly unlikely. It's a moral equation for me, and I don't see that I'm getting it wrong. It's certainly not the most accurate way to discern the will of voters, but it's what we're working with right now.

Until there is ranked choice voting so that I can officially specify who I want vs who I'll settle for, I'll continue to factor in outcomes in my decisions. And even with ranked choice, given a close enough election, I might alter my ranks.

Krom wrote:The argument that voting for the candidate that most aligns with your values would normally be a good idea, if one of the major parties guaranteed to get more votes than whatever candidate you actually align closest to was not currently being taken over by a fascist death cult.

This.
Normally I'd be with Jeff250 on this. Actually, for 30 years I argued the same position he is defending. And in 2016, I voted Libertarian. And I loudly defended that vote by saying it was more important to vote for a party that was closer to my views than to keep Trump out of office.

Over the next four years, I repented of that position. I didn't repent of letting George W Bush get elected, even though he started a war over lies. I didn't repent of letting Barack Obama get elected, even though he drastically increased mass surveillance of our own citizens. But I repented of letting Trump get into office. And I repented of giving the insane cult that worships him power. And I repented in dust cloth and ashes for giving power to the rest of the Republican political machine that supported the mad man because they were either afraid of his cult or lusted after the power that cult offered them.

Analogy:
Normally I'm very picky about what pets I allow into my house. But if a rabid dog is loose in my house and actively trying to bite my family, and the neighbor says "My overly violent pit bull can kill that rabid dog" I'm going to tell him to let his pit bull loose. We can figure out how to deal with the pit bull later. But whatever it does won't be any worse than the rabid dog, and probably will be much less damaging. The analogy isn't perfect, of course, because in reality, there would be more reasonable ways to deal with the rabid dog than letting a violent pit bull lose. (yes, I know not all pit bulls are violent) But this is the situation I think we are in. There is a rabid dog running lose. It's bite is worse than fatal. The first priority is stopping it.

I think Jeff250 is right, under any normal circumstance. This isn't normal. The threat of this cult is more important than any of my other political views.

Kilarin wrote: ↑Tue Apr 27, 2021 4:37 pmAnalogy:
Normally I'm very picky about what pets I allow into my house. But if a rabid dog is loose in my house and actively trying to bite my family, and the neighbor says "My overly violent pit bull can kill that rabid dog" I'm going to tell him to let his pit bull loose. We can figure out how to deal with the pit bull later. But whatever it does won't be any worse than the rabid dog, and probably will be much less damaging. The analogy isn't perfect, of course, because in reality, there would be more reasonable ways to deal with the rabid dog than letting a violent pit bull lose. (yes, I know not all pit bulls are violent) But this is the situation I think we are in. There is a rabid dog running lose. It's bite is worse than fatal. The first priority is stopping it.

And when wintertime rolls around the gorillas simply freeze to death... :crickets:

I totally get the argument. Suppose you normally believe from first principles that torture is always wrong, which is a commonly held ethical belief and government policy position. Now you, an agent of the CIA, are confronted with a criminal who intelligence reveals will reveal the location of a bomb if and only if subjected to extensive torture. Do you torture the criminal if the bomb would destroy extensive property? If the bomb would kill a person? If the bomb would kill a million people? All but the most hardened deontologist would concede that there exists some number of casualties under which someone should betray the principle that torture is always wrong. You're saying that Trump is *that* large of a bomb, and so in voting against your conscience the ends justify the means.

In general, I totally agree with this sort of reasoning, and, although I'm supposed to be against the use of torture, there would be some extreme situations in which the consequences would compel me to violate my principles (whether or not that would be right). I can even imagine situations in which I would vote against my conscience. But I just don't think that our current situation is one of them.

Everyone here has emphasized how horrible Trump is, and I completely agree. He has injured me, this country, and the world. He is likely the worst president that we have ever had. However, if you believe that the ends justify the means, then we should be precise about exactly what those ends are here.

When you are voting (let's assume for President), you aren't of course choosing the next President. You are casting a singular vote for electors who will themselves cast votes for the President. So let's consider a concrete example. Suppose I live in California, a solidly blue state where in the last election Trump lost to the winning candidate by over five million votes. What would be the "end" worth accomplishing by making it five million and one? For those who believe that we normally have a democratic duty to vote for the best candidate, what about that end would make that duty be worth betraying? Lightning would have to strike a million winning lottery tickets before my vote would affect the outcome of that election. It's just not that big of a bomb.

Jeff250 wrote: Lightning would have to strike a million winning lottery tickets before my vote would affect the outcome of that election.

This election was a LOT closer than it should have been. So was the last one.
'Even the smallest person can change the course of the future'

Jeff250 wrote:although I'm supposed to be against the use of torture, there would be some extreme situations in which the consequences would compel me to violate my principles (whether or not that would be right)

Absolutely agree. My stance on torture is the same as my stance on vigilantism. There MAY be times, very rare, very extreme times, when it is the right and ethical thing for an individual to do. But it should ALWAYS be illegal.

Kilarin wrote: ↑Wed Apr 28, 2021 4:20 pm

Jeff250 wrote: Lightning would have to strike a million winning lottery tickets before my vote would affect the outcome of that election.

This election was a LOT closer than it should have been. So was the last one.

Yeah Jeff, I think is this specific example you may be downplaying the effect of single votes. I voted third party in 2016 because I live in California, but in swing states that same vote has a much larger impact. Let's not derail this further by getting into a discussion about gerrymandering, the Electoral College, and whatnot.

Again, in this specific example of voting in the 2020 election, a vote for Biden is a vote for someone who is basically an old school Republican -- someone more like John Kasich than Trump.

I just tried Googling what the probability is of a single vote changing the outcome of an election, and there has actually been some work done on approximating this. In a swing state, there is a 1 in 10 million chance. However,

Gelman et al. wrote:for voters in states such as New York, California, and Texas, where the probability of a decisive vote is closer to 1 in a billion, any reasons for voting must go beyond any instrumental rationality.

Thus, in such states, the consequentialist justification is a non-starter, and voting for President can only be justified under a sense of democratic duty. Approximately 90 million people live in those three states alone.

Jeff250 wrote:voting for President can only be justified under a sense of democratic duty.

The problem with this is, if you can convince more of one group that their vote doesn't count than the other, then it really DOES count.

Ok, that didn't make much sense. Let me rephrase. I vote, even though my vote is only a tiny percentage, because I hope that MY voting will inspire other people to vote. If we all stand up and vote, it makes a difference. If we all decide that our vote doesn't count, then we are NOT counted, and our voice is not heard.

Catholicism at it's "best", especially when it's used as a tool for government sanctioned assimilation of resident native peoples (no, it's not in the U.S., but our neighbor to the north).

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/cana ... s-n1269456

Tired of all these fake versions of Christianity, Jehovah's witnesses, Catholic church, Mormons, Hebrew Israelites... am I forgetting one?

Burlyman wrote:Tired of all these fake versions of Christianity, Jehovah's witnesses, Catholic church, Mormons, Hebrew Israelites... am I forgetting one?

Unless you are talking about Messianic Jews, Israelites are certainly not Christians.

No version of Christianity is perfect, because they are all made up of humans, who are by very nature, imperfect.

Some of the Hebrew Israelites believe in Jesus but with another name, but they're too separatist. I'm not sure about Messianic Jews. You're also implying that no version of Christianity can lead to salvation, which is false.

Christians are deluded if they firmly believe in salvation for themselves just for following Christ, even though in their daily lives or church activities they're just as evil as everyone else. Isn't arrogance an evil too? Tsk, tsk. By the way, more evil has been perpetrated by the followers of Christ since the inception of Christianity than almost any other reason. The Crusades, the forced conversions or murders of native peoples by missionaries doing the "work" of Christ, predatory priests and church leaders with no sexual control using kids as prey and even slavery has been justified through Christ and the Bible. All three major Abrahamic religions have been using their "superiority complexes" to justify wars for one reason or another against each other for millennia. If there was a true religion based solely on Jesus' teachings, why are there so many different factions of Christianity right now? There have even been wars BETWEEN factions of Christianity because one thought their beliefs were the "truth" and the others were based on perversions. My sister firmly believes that her form of Evangelism is the "closest" to Jesus' teachings and all others are blasphemous. Holy crap! Jesus is probably weeping right now at the state of the "religion" that was born of his words and deeds, all because the humans who came after Him couldn't even agree on the meaning of His teachings, or worse, changed things to suit their worldview and opinions as time passed, which split the religion into more and more factions. So who's going to be the "saved" in this mish mash religion? For most of them, NOT, all because they're human, including you Burlyman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: ... l_families

Burlyman wrote:You're also implying that no version of Christianity can lead to salvation, which is false

No, I didn't. I said "No version of Christianity is perfect."
Jesus said "No one comes to the Father except through me." But He never said "No one comes to the Father except through denomination X"

Please don't misunderstand me. I believe in truth. And I believe that truth is important. I just don't believe that any Christian denomination has ALL of the truth. And I know that all of them have flaws, because they are made up of flawed humans.

Tunnelcat wrote:more evil has been perpetrated by the followers of Christ since the inception of Christianity than almost any other reason.

You would have to support the "more" part of that sentence. Drop the more and you'll get no argument from me. And I won't even swear the "more" is wrong, but I strongly suspect it is. There are a LOT of people on earth, less than 1/3rd of them claim to be Christian. And all of them are pretty much evil.

The problem of "evil" is a human one. Take away religion, and people just find other excuses to be cruel and horrible to each other.

Tunnelcat wrote:Jesus is probably weeping right now at the state of the "religion" that was born of his words and deeds,

SO TRUE!

So here is the thing to notice. The Jewish religion was founded by God. It went off the rails before Moses could even get the 10 commandments down from the mountain. It never really got back on the rails for more than a very short distance. But still, to be a Jew was to be a member of the religion that God created. The religion that was closest to the truth at the time. But John the Baptist made it clear that just being a Jew wouldn't save you (Mat 3:9)

Christianity was founded by Christ. The church was a mess before He even died. The church treasurer was embezzling funds. One of the leaders of the church denied Christ in public. Another one publicly expressed doubts about the resurrection. Even after Christ's ascension, the church was still a mess. There were scandals over money, Fighting among the church leadership. Disagreements over doctrine. Christ is perfect. Christians are not.

I believe that some churches have more truth than others. But being a member of a particular church will not save you. That requires having a personal saving relationship with Christ. And, as you point out, it seems pretty clear from their "fruits" that a LOT of the people who claim to be Christians know nothing about Jesus and what He stood for.

Unfortunately, I often find myself in that same failing group.