The one that seems to actually work for me, obviously.
And it may be all of those, none of those, or something entirely different.
A doctor cannot prescribe one drug to cure all ills.
An ad hom would be me saying “Jesus is a poopyhead”; however, just stating that I think that a man claiming to be both the son of God as well as God concurrently is a little off is a justified statement.
“Jesus is a poopyhead” is a statement. A single statement like that does not an ad hominem make.
And regardless of whether or not the statement is justified is utterly irrelevant.
To this: Now which is the logical path to follow?
You wrote this: Not the guy with delusions of graduer?
As such, you are concluding A had delusions of grandeur and as such, his path X is not the logical path to follow.
But his delusion can in no way tell you that his path is somehow wrong. You would have to examine the path and justify your conclusion from it. It may well be that it’s the wrong path to follow, but you can’t know that simply because he was deluded.
As such, you are using an ad hominem. “Jesus is coo-coo for cocoa puffs and therefore he is wrong”, is your statement in a nutshell.
I don’t think this is correct. It depends on whether you think “delusions of grandeur” are hard evidence of wider delusional behavior. Thus the delusions of grandeur and statements about the “path” may fall into the same catagory and are not as easily seperated as you are insisting. Thus…
Person A makes a clearly delusional statement but also asks you to follow his advice.
It is not ad hominem to discard this advice since it may be founded on the same delusion.
“May be founded” and “is founded” are two different things. The burden of proof is now on you to prove this is so.
Since, “love thy neighbor as thyself” in no way is dependent on or based in “I am the light and the way”, it’s going to be a difficult thing to do.
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You have to prove that the advice/statement is somehow dependent upon the delusion (that is, if the delusion were not present then the statement would not be made).
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You have to prove that the delusion somehow invalidates the advice.
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You have to prove that the statement is somehow incorrect in and of itself, because even if it were based on a delusion, and the delusion as argument/support of the statement makes it faulty, the statement may hold ground independent of the delusion.
So, even if the statement is based on delusion, that does not mean the statement is false. At best this gets you “the statement/claim is questionable” but questionable is not the same as false.
An insane person might think he’s on fire, but not actually be so, and he only believes so because of his insanity. Yet, I would be making an error if when he made the statement I didn’t at least check to be sure, since he may say that he’s on fire and it actually be the case. In this instance his insanity doesn’t actually invalidate the claim even though his statement is based on his delusion, but instead is invalidated empirically.
If you want to simplify things, just stick with step 3 and examine the statement on its own merit.
In short: yes, it’s still an ad hominem.
To refresh your memory, the question was: who would you follow.
Now, let’s see who would you take advice from:
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A prince slumming it, while claiming to have memories of all of his past lives.
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A rabbi who claims he is the son of God as well as God, at once.
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A failed politician who runs a school on politics.
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A judge from a prominent family claiming angels speak to him
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A guy living out in a cabin in the woods, all by himself.
Regardless of message, which one of those guys sounds the most on-keel? While that doesn’t make the messages the others teach invalid, you’ll forgive me if I don’t take them at face value. A broken watch is, after all, right twice a day.
As to which one I’d follow . . . well, I’d like to follow the teachings of someone I am pretty sure is sane. I don’t see any problem with that.
Who, Buddha?
Didn’t he say when we die we get re-born into new bodies and new “abodes”?
He cooked that up out of his own head, so how can you be sure he’s saner than Jesus?
Where in the world did you get the idea I was Buddhist?
And how did you infer that I thought Buddha (#1) was any saner than the rest?
I disagree. Both statements are highly interdependent and are predicated on claims that Jesus is the son of God. It is true that they are slightly different since one deals with ethical behavior and the other with the nature of Jesus himself. Indeed you may try to follow the ethical teaching without accepting the divinity of God. However, it is clear from scripture that this was not Jesus’ intent when making these statements. His moral instruction was directed only to those who first accepted his divinity. Thus, the nature of Christ and his ethics cannot be separated. He did not intend for anyone to follow the latter without accepting the former. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to reject both or accept both. It makes no sense to accept one and not the other.
I would argue that moral instruction to “love thy neighbour” is not an independent moral instruction and cannot be understood or followed apart from accepting “I am the light of the world”. You’ll probably disagree. But of course you’ll be wrong 
Loving your neighbour is not a statement, it is a moral directive. Furthermore, the person giving this moral directive also requires you to believe that he is God. If you believe him to be delusional with regard to his nature, his capacity for giving moral instruction is more than “questionable”.
Yes, I understand what you are saying but this is not a good comparison. The issue of fire and insanity are not inter-related enough. Imagine your insane friend who thinks he’s God telling you that he knows the future and that you should sell your house and possessions and bet all your money on one hand of blcakjack and then you’ll be rich. Would you do it?
is it ad hominem to say no?
You’re entitled to do so.
And thus, you are not required to believe in the divinity of Jesus in order to believe the statement is valid.
Irrelevant. What he wants me to do has no bearing on whether or not the moral imperative is sound. His intent has no bearing on the statement. It’s either my moral duty or it isn’t. And his justification for making it my moral duty only negates his argument, something like “Do so because I’m God and God is always right”. But even if that isn’t the case, it still may be the case that I should love my neighbor as I do my own person. I cannot negate the imperative this way. I must somehow say that I am in no way obligated to do so.
Sure they can.
Again: not relevant.
Actually, that’s not at all required.
I can agree with Kant’s conclusions and not agree with his basis for morality (“how” he came to those conclusions). Indeed, many people will come up with many of the same conclusions as Kant did (Hume, Aristotle, The Buddha) and do so in VERY different ways.
“How” one comes about a conclusion does not negate the conclusion. It may still be right for very different reasons than the person thinks they are right.
Makes perfect sense, actually.
I think I see the problem now. You’re not just reading my statements and making a reply. Instead, you’re just wanting to satisfy your intellectual ego. If this is the case (correct me if I’m wrong, please) then you have nothing further to add to this discussion. If that is the case then I’ll only say: good day to you, sir.
The moral directive was stated. Things which are stated are statements. Is there a reason you’re getting bogged down in semantics?
Wrong. That’s the most you can get.
If you’re saying no simply because he thinks he’s God and knows the future (one or both): yes.
You shouldn’t bet all your money on one hand of blackjack because it’s irrational to do so. The odds are in favor of the house and so the odds are against you initially. Additionally, you’ll likely be playing with other players, and it’s just as likely as not that they’ll win.
His statement about the blackjack game, regardless of his divine nature or not, is simply not sound advice. The advice is bad regardless of his justification for believing it. The math just doesn’t work out in his favor.
Again: his advice is negated not due to his mental state, but due to things which are entirely independent of his mental state.
There’s a character in Stephen King’s The Stand who spells every word m-o-o-n. By far and large, of course, he’s wrong about the spelling of words. But toward the end he spells moon m-o-o-n. If I were to discount his statement simply because of his mental state (and he is “mentally challenged” as we say) then I would be the one in error, because moon actually is spelled m-o-o-n. Whether or not moon is spelled m-o-o-n is not dependent upon his mental condition, or his delusion that every word is spelled m-o-o-n. He believes it is the case due to his mental state. However, the truth of how to spell moon is entirely independent of him or his beliefs.
The truth of whether or not it is a moral imperative to love my neighbor as myself in entirely independent of Jesus’ state of mind, or his beliefs regarding divinity. It either is or isn’t the case, and I cannot discount the moral imperative, or his statements about moral duties, simply because of his delusion. They must stand or fall on their own.
You’re conflating epistemology and metaphysics, which seems to be your real problem. Whether or not someone can “know” something is a question of epistemology. Whether or not it “is the case” is a question of metaphysics. They are not the same thing.
why are you always trying to convert people Mick? If God (your Jesus) is so mighty, why doesn’t he just fucking convert us himself, why does he need some biased human like you to do his work? huh? Can’t he do it himself? I though he said he had power to do all things?
Your god is just your creation. Stop trying to make it everyone else’s creation. You are starting to get really annoying, because your mind is shut off to learning truth.
And your selective mind is giving Christians a bad name everywhere, and making them seem like idiots. Stop hi-jacking Jesus please?
Your spirituality might be your prison.
You keep referring to the “validity” of Jesus’ statement. However, the example you used was not a “statement” but a moral imperative to love. A moral imperative cannot be proved valid or invalid. “Don’t steal from your mummy” is not a statement that can be proved valid or otherwise. “I am a thief” is a statement that may be proved valid or invalid. If you’d rather choose a different quote from Jesus without a moral imperative I’d be happy to go along with that. But it was your choice.
Nonsense. Morals aren’t just plucked out of thin air. They are tied to a value system. In this case, the moral directive of God is directly related to whether or not I think he is actually God and also what I understand to be the specific intent of his direction.
If you take the phrase “love your neighbor as yourself” out the framework that you originally found it in, I would argue that you have created a completely different moral directive than the one Jesus actually commanded. Who do you define as your neighbor? What do you understand by the term “love”? It may bear absolutely no relevance to the action that Jesus was commanding. Therefore, Jesus may as well have said “do whatever you think is best”. You may really like your isolated Jesus quote, and you may wish to follow it, but in reality you have actually created a different frame of reference altogether and changed it’s meaning. Christian ethics cannot be separated from Christology without changing their nature. Thus, I go back to my claim that following Jesus ethical instruction makes no sense outwith acceptance of his divinity.
I agree that people can arrive at similar conclusions from different starting points. However, I do not think the ethics of Jesus can be understood by those who do not accept him as divine.
Calm down, I tried a little joke and you go all defensive. I’m listening as best I can to your position. I can’t make any claims about being ego-less so you’re free to disappear if you choose.
There is actually. A moral directive cannot be proved valid or invalid. Again, if you’d rather choose a different quote feel free.
I agree with your assessment of other independent factors, and I would note that the same is true of Jesus. when he directs you to love your enemies and give up your possessions, there are also independent factors that come into play. However, this does not change the fact that you are using your understanding of his mental state to direct you actions. If the mad man tells you to love your daughter or go have a drink, you will probably do it anyway since it suits you to do so. However, in the example above, if he tells you to bet your house on blackjack you will not. However, if you truely believed that he was God, you might actually decide to go for the blackjack deal, despite the odds. The issue of following moral imperatives is therefore only really observable under conditions where you would choose to do something that you would otherwise NOT DO. You are only really following Jesus when you are actually doing something you would otherwise not do.
But here you are referring to a verifiable FACT. Moon is spelled m-o-o-n except in some first grade classes. “love your neighbor” is not a fact that can be independently verified. Thus it’s value is tied to you acceptance of Jesus staus. And I have also argued above that understanding what it actually means is also tied to acceptance of Jesus status.
If your position is correct then you should have no trouble telling me whether the moral imperative to love my neighbor is correct/true. Is it? On what basis?
I may well be confused, but I suspect the next time a mad friend who thinks he’s God asks you to bet the house on blackjack, you will decline. And your decision will be rooted in your assessment of the mental status of your friend and not just on the odds of losing.
There is no proof for X is moral and Y is not. This is also largely beside the point. The statement, the moral claim, is either true or it isn’t. Any moral claim in fact will be either true or not (as with any claim at all), and the fact that determining the truth of a moral claim is difficult, if not outright problematic (or even impossible) is largely beside the point.
This is why in doing ethical theory inconsitencies and intuition come into play.
A thief is one who steals. I either steal or I don’t. Fine.
It either is a moral obligation or not a moral obligation to love my neighbor as myself. The fact that this is far more challenging is again, beside the point.
The moral directive of God is true or false independantly of God. In fact, it can’t be dependent on God, because then we have a relativity notion in regards to a factual claim. What if some other God contradicts him? Which God do I follow?
It either is or isn’t the case. It can’t be maybe the case and maybe not the case.
And you’re right, morals are not just plucked out of the air and used at random. But whether Jesus’ justification for his belief is right or wrong is not at question here. The question is whether his moral imperative actually is a moral imperative or not. That is: whether or not it actually is the case that I should love my neighbor as myself.
Argue it all you want. But until we have a notion of what Jesus meant in regards to this (which is impossible, especially since the New Testament was actually written after his death) you’re on very unsure footing. We can only interpret its meaning.
Note also that what you’re saying here has nothing to do with whether the imperative is truly an imperative or not.
You’re questioning whether or not we understand what is being said and if we understand it wrongly or rightly. This is a question for the philosophy of language. It may be that we (Jesus and I) understand love, and neighbor quite differently, and so I would be following a different imperative than what was given, or it might be that we’re very much on the same page.
But in the end, this has no importance to the discussion we’ve already begun, so we’ll have to set it aside for another time.
His instruction may be perfectly fine even without the notion of divinity. And since we don’t have Jesus here to help us in understanding, it’s also a largely fruitless question.
But, the actual claim “love thy neighbor as thyself” does not contain any relation to God, divinity in general, or the nature of Jesus’ own being within the imperative statement. Thus, it seems quite easy to divide it from such a claim as “light and way” without doing any damage to it.
Again, this (what you’re saying) deals with the grounds for making the imperative, and not with the imperative directly.
And what basis are you using for making this claim?
You came off as being snotty, whether you intended it as a joke or not. I can’t hear your tone of voice on here, so please keep that in mind.
Not necessary. A moral claim is a still a claim. Claims are either true or false.
Granted.
Are you actually presuming to know how “I” determine “my” actions?
Granted.
Granted.
“Might” being the operative word there I suppose?
I might not be following “Jesus” per se, but I might be following the same moral imperative (or one so similar as for the distinction to be unimportant).
I might love my neighbor as myself with or without Jesus coming into play. How am I not following the same imperative?
I may choose not to lie, as the Buddha would be happy with (Right Speech), as Yaweh would be happy with (Thou Shalt Not Lie), and as Kant would be happy with, so the question is: does this matter?
Their justifications are different. We have virtue based conceptions, utilitarian conceptions, etc. in ethical theory, which we can understand as being the “right” way to conceive of ethics, but at the end of the day Buddha and Jesus will probably both refrain from lying to you, as will Kant, Hume, and Singer.
So my question is: is it the actual moral imperative that has changed? or is it simply that the understanding behind it has changed? That’s an interesting and excellent question, that I honestly don’t have an answer to at this time.
This of course would be relevant to your “What does Jesus mean/What do I mean?” dilemma.
It’d also be worth examining which is more important, the actual moral imperative or the moral understanding. If you get the “right” imperative, is the difference in understanding more or less important than this? It seems if you get the right understanding, then the right imperative would necessarily follow, but if you get the right imperative with the “wrong” understanding, is that acceptable, or ought you change your understanding? That’d be an interesting discussion all its own.
See previous responses.
Also, it might be useful to understand what you mean by “independently” verified.
Read multiple previous statements.
Again, you’re making an awfully large presumption about my way of determining my actions, something you can’t possibly know, and so you really shouldn’t venture to discuss such. But if you want an honest response: nope. His insanity would have no bearing on the action. I wouldn’t be inclined to do so, and I’d be no more or less inclinded to do so regardless of his mental state.
I would however be inclined to get him some professional help.
Note: I have things to do, and I’ll be busy all day tomorrow. If when I check back on this you’ve had something particularly interesting to say I’ll be happy to respond, but I’m thinking we might have drained all the blood from this discussion.
Ok. I think I’m done here too. But the issue of “understanding” what Jesus means is important. You basic assumption seems to be that Jesus can be “understood” by a non-follower. I agree that this is logical since the comments of anyone should be largely interpretable assuming a little context is provided. However, I would argue that Jesus’ comments are in a different catagory and this is probably the basis of our disagreement. Obviously as a Christian I have a non-reason based foundation for stating such and it would probably be fruitless to continue debate on the topic unless you are particularly interested. However, I’ll finish by noting that Jesus stated as much in his teaching, so my view is internally consistent…
Mark 4
10When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12so that,” ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’"