Hey!, Wanna See Some Sin?
"Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet and show my people their transgressions and . . . their sins." Isa. 58:1
22. Lies
22.5a. What is a lie?
1. What is deception?
"Deception includes the range of means whereby people may be mislead. The most evident of these is lying. But it also includes withholding information which the person might find of immediate significance, as well as misleading the person into some alternative belief, or reinforcing such a belief. Then there are the more marginal forms of deception, such as evasion, euphemism and exaggeration; and the often unconscious forms of deception (without intention to mislead), such as the subtle changes of subject, the disguises, the gestures leading astray, and silence and inaction.
Individuals differ greatly in the relationship with deception in their lives. Some may declare their preference for honesty but be ignorant about deception and its alternatives, or lack any awareness of the presence of a moral problem in the first place; others are beyond caring. There are differences in the power of individuals to live a life without deceit given their environment. Many lack sufficient freedoms and security from repercussions should they challenge deeply-rooted habits of duplicity. The stress on individualism and competition generate intense pressures to cut corners and produces motives which may impel many to participate in forms of deception they might otherwise resist.
Deceit and violence -- these are the two forms of deliberate assault on human beings.
Dishonesty, including lying, is one of the major obstacles to appropriate relationships in society and is currently reaching epidemic proportions. It is not only practiced in personal relationships but as a routine at work, in religious life, and especially in politics. When people are unable to trust each other, the fabric of society is weakened and instability, chaos and violence often result."
References
Henderson, M Allen How Con Games Work (1986)
Hartshorne, Hugh and May, Mark Studies in the Nature of Character: studies in deceit (1975)
Witt, James G and Fischer, William E Deadly Deceptions (1987)
http://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000 (Emphasis ours)
2. Definitions (Webster):
Main Entry: 3 lie
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English lEogan; akin to Old High German liogan to lie, Old Church Slavonic lugati
intransitive senses
1 : to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2 : to create a false or misleading impression
transitive senses : to bring about by telling lies "lied his way out of trouble"
synonyms:
Lie, prevaricate,equivocate, plater, fib mean to tell an untruth.
Lie is the blunt term, imputing dishonesty "lied about where he had been".
Prevaricate softens the bluntness of Lie by implying quibbling or confusing the issue "during the hearings the witness did his best to prevaricate".
Equivocate implies using words having more than one sense so as to seem to say one thing but intend another "equivocated endlessly in an attempt to mislead her inquisitors".
Palter implies making unreliable statements of fact or intention or insincere promises "a swindler paltering with his investors".
Fib applies to a telling of a trivial untruth "fibbed about the price of the new suit".
lie 1 a : an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive b : an untrue or inaccurate statement that may or may not be believed true by the speaker
2 : something that misleads or deceivesMain Entry: false·hood
Function: noun, Date: 13th century
1 : an untrue statement : lie
2 : absence of truth or accuracy
3 : the practice of lying : mendacity
Main Entry: un·truth
Function: noun, Date: before 12th century
1 archaic : disloyalty
2 : lack of truthfulness : falsity
3 : something that is untrue : falsehood
© 1998 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
3. Definitions (By Scholars and Professionals):
"What is Lying?
A common temptation is to define a lie as a statement that isn’t true. But a little reflection will show that things are more complicated than this. Telling stories or jokes is not lying, even when falsehoods are involved, at least when the audience knows them for what they are. The same holds for exaggerations that are readily seen to be such. So, we might say that lying is the telling of falsehoods to people who don’t know that what one is saying is false. This is closer, but is still too broad because it leaves out an important qualification. One can say something false because one is mistaken or otherwise confused and the result is not a lie, but simply an error. Or suppose one says something untrue to check whether a microphone or tape recorder is working, and the remark happens to be overheard. What’s left out so far is the fact that lying is intentional – it is done specifically to get someone else to believe something that is false.
The intent to deceive is crucial, as can be seen when one final wrinkle is considered. Imagine someone who says something to another, believing it to be false, though it happens to be true. (Suppose that not wanting you to know where I put the keys to my car, I tell you that they’re in my desk when I in fact put them on the coffee table, but unbeknownst to me my roommate put them in my desk while tidying up the living room.) In such a case one lies even though what is said is in fact true. The importance of such (admittedly rare) cases is that they show that strictly speaking truth and falsity is not the issue. Rather, the intent to deceive is what is crucial. So lying is, on standard definitions, saying something one believes to be false with the intent to deceive.4"
4. Similarly, Sissela Bok, in her influential book Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, defines a lie as "any intentionally deceptive message which is stated." (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), p. 14.Samuel V. Bruton
Asst. Professor, Dept of Philosophy and Religion
University of Southern Mississippi.
http://ocean.otr.usm.edu/~sbruton/Lying.html (Emphasis ours.)
4. Definitions (Catholic):
"Lying, as defined by St. Thomas Aquinas, is a statement at variance with the mind. This definition is more accurate than most others which are current. Thus a recent authority defines a lie as a false statement made with the intention of deceiving. But it is possible to lie without making a false statement and without any intention of deceiving. For if a man makes a statement which he thinks is false, but which in reality is true he certainly lies inasmuch as he intends to say what is false, and although a well-known liar may have no intention of deceiving others -- for he knows that no one believes a word he says -- yet if he speaks at variance with his mind he does not cease to lie."
"According to the common teaching of St. Thomas and other divines, the hurtful lie is a mortal sin, but merely officious and jocose lies are of their own nature venial."
"Following St. Augustine and St. Thomas, Catholic divines and ethical writers commonly make a distinction between (1) injurious, or hurtful, (2) officious, and (3) jocose lies. Jocose lies are told for the purpose of affording amusement. Of course what is said merely and obviously in joke cannot be a lie: in order to have any malice in it, what is said must be naturally capable of deceiving others and must be said with the intention of saying what is false. An officious, or white, lie is such that it does nobody any injury: it is a lie of excuse, or a lie told to benefit somebody. An injurious lie is one which does harm."
"St. John Chrysostom held that it is lawful to deceive others for their benefit, and Cassian taught that we may sometimes lie as we take medicine, driven to it by sheer necessity.
St. Augustine, however, took the opposite side, and wrote two short treatises to prove that it is never lawful to tell a lie. His doctrine on this point has generally been followed in the Western Church, and it has been defended as the common opinion by the Schoolmen and by modern divines.""It rests in the first place on Holy Scripture. In places almost innumerable Holy Scripture seems to condemn lying as absolutely and unreservedly as it condemns murder and fornication.
Innocent III gives expression in one of his decretals to this interpretation, when he says that Holy Scripture forbids us to lie even to save a man's life. If, then, we allow the lie of necessity, there seems to be no reason from the theological point of view for not allowing occasional murder and fornication when these crimes would procure great temporal advantage; the absolute character of the moral law will be undermined, it will be reduced to a matter of mere expediency."
T. SLATER, Transcribed by Sara-Ann Colleen Hill
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX, Copyright © 1910
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09469a.htmNote: While scripture lumps all lies together, and the fate (death) of all liars together, the Catholic Church categorizes lies as either "hurtful", "beneficial", or "harmless". But this can vary depending upon which Catholic "father" you decide to quote as authoritative. Of course, it would be simpler to just to quote our one true Father and his word, the Bible.
1Jo 2:21 "I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth."
Rev 21:8 "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."
5. Doublespeak:
"Doublespeak is language that pretends to communicate but really doesn't. It is language that makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, the unpleasant appear attractive or at least tolerable. Doublespeak is language that avoids or shifts responsibility, language that is at variance with its real or purported meaning. It is language that conceals or prevents thought; rather than extending thought, doublespeak limits it." --William Lutz
Source: Double-Speak by William Lutz HarperPerennial edition published in 1990
http://www.zmag.org/quotes/quotesResults.cfm?topic1=Media
6. Gobbledygook: Incomprehensibly specialized jargon
"Awkward, contorted syntax and the use of unfamiliar technical terms impede the communication of specialized (particularly scientific, academic and professional) knowledge, both to specialists in other disciplines and to the general public.People are cut off from the world's knowledge by the use of specialized languages and forms. This has created a myth that only experts and intelligentsia can understand and use the wisdom of the humanities. People feel victimized by their lack of knowledge of 'in-group' terminology, believing that such wisdom is forever impossible for them to attain. The situation is further compounded by specialists who do not want to 'distort' their discipline through popularization. As an exasperated legal correspondent exclaimed, "Let the classics scholars argue in Latin and Greek, but let us get on with language of the people".
[In some cases,] If you do not understand a particular word in a piece of technical writing, ignore it. The piece will make perfect sense without it."
http://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000
7. Oxymorons: Self-contradictory terminology
"The epitome of consensual deception is the self-contradiction turned term-of-art, for example :
Open marriage
Revolutionary government
Law and order
Right to work
Liberation theology
Free schools""The corruption of language promotes the corruption of life. It is even its prerequisite."
"Lying In State - And Elsewhere", By Bob Black
http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~baitoven/interlink/lying.html
More contradictory terms:Situation ethics ("ethics --principles of morality or right conduct". That ethics are subject to time, place, situation, whim, mood, fantasy, etc.)
Relativism: There are no absolutes, everything is relative. (An absolute self-contradiction?)
"White lies"
"Gray lies"
Political Science
8. Lying and Deception by Deconstruction
"The language of deconstruction, full of long words and newly invented terms, is crafted to obscure and was created by a man who intended to disguise the truths of his own history. Deconstructionist theory is used to misdirect the attention of an audience away from explicit truths and meanings, toward fashionable concerns. Often these fashionable concerns have no relevance to the given text, but are forced into relevance by convoluted explanations. Deconstruction is a form of intellectual propaganda, which is ironically what this school of criticism claims to admonish.Deconstructionist criticism, a powerful intellectual movement of the 1970's (particularly in America), is a method by which scholars analyze given cultural "texts". These texts may include anything from sonnets to television programmes to cereal boxes. Particularly in the realm of literature and film, deconstruction is an analysis of what earlier critics thought to be textual meaning. The deconstructionist's basic objective is to divest a text in order to expose its elitist, anti-feminist and otherwise unpopular presuppositions. As the unpopularity of certain ideologies may shift with the time, fashion and the words to describe them, so may criticism of a given text. Thus, the meaning of such a text is based on an individual's perception and reaction to it at any moment in time, as meaning is never permanent. Deconstruction aims to expose contradiction in the very idea of meaning of a text.
Deconstructionist theory was, for the most part, created by Paul de Man, a prestigious literary critic of the 1960's and 1970's and former fascist. De Man died in 1983, prior to the discovery of articles he had written for a Nazi newspaper during WWII. Jacques Derrida, a follower and former colleague of de Man, later used deconstructionist jargon in order to defend and possibly obscure de Man's already ambiguous past.
Counter-claim: Deconstruction enables more profound reflection on the cultural texts of everyday life. Prior to the creation of deconstructionist criticism, elitist, anti-feminist and otherwise exclusionist ideologies remained undetected in popular texts of the time. An audience has the right to be aware of subliminal and potentially harmful ideologies underlying the words and images of cultural texts. New methods of detecting hidden meanings account for the creation of newly invented deconstructionist terminologies."
References
Elam, Diane Feminism and Deconstruction: Ms en Abyme (1994)
Lehman, David Signs of the Times: deconstruction and the fall of Paul de Man
Silverman, Hugh J Textualities: between hermeneutics and deconstruction (1993)
Silverman, Hugh J Derrida and Deconstruction (1989)http://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000In other words, subliminal meanings and motives can be read out of a text, or read into a text. This may or may not have been intentional on the part of the author. This exercise can be an expose of hidden motives or attitudes, or simply another way of looking at the printed symbols and their meaning according to cultural usage. It can be used to discover a deeper meaning, an unintended meaning, a hidden meaning, or a false meaning. It can either accidentally or purposefully, discover the truth or proclaim a lie.
9. Lying by Fraud (Swindling)
"Misrepresentation of facts intended to gain for the falsifier tangible or intangible property constitutes fraud. Criminal fraud occurs with the loss of a valuable possession by the victim. This can be money, real estate, jewels, securities, collectors items of diverse kinds such as paintings, historical documents; but also copyrights, patents and other ownership intangibles. Omission or concealment of facts constituting fraud may be prosecuted as criminal under European and derivative legal codes, but under Anglo-American legal systems may be treated as deceit in civil, rather than criminal legal actions.
Common types of criminal fraud include the use of bank cheques for which there are no funds; the confidence game; filing false claims for insurance, government subsidies and compensation; under stating the value of taxable property, over charging clients by, for example, stating higher costs in billing clients; not paying clients the full proceeds of sales; kickbacks; manipulation of prices; taking an advanced fee without delivering services or goods; using credit cards and other financial instruments without authorization; and impersonation.
Neglecting national variations in the basis of statistical estimates, figures from Interpol indicate that in 1990 there were approximately 1,779,000 cases of fraud reported from 91 countries worldwide, namely 58.7 per 100,000 population; some 1,470,000 (namely 83%) were claimed to have been resolved. In the UK the amount of fraud brought to the courts increased in 1993 by 11% rising to £704 million."
References
Comstock, Anthony Frauds Exposed: or, how people are deceived and robbed, and youth corrupted
Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants Fraud and Error (1982)
Common forms of fraud:
Forgery
Mail fraud
Bogus firms
Grant frauds
Embezzlement
Cheque fraud
Maritime fraud
Ghost employees
Telephone fraud
Medical quackery
Investment fraud
Commercial fraud
Credit card fraud
Documentary fraud
Front organizations
Ignorant pretension
Scientific misconduct
Deception in the media
Exploitation of the elderly
Unethical real estate practice
Defrauding of secured creditors
Military-industrial malpractice
Corruption in sports and athletics
Unnecessary health system referrals
Obtaining property by false pretenses
Fraudulent mineral exploitation claims
Trafficking in government benefit coupons
Fraudulent acquisition or use of passports
Misrepresentation of information to consumershttp://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000
In the United States alone in the year 2000, there were 6,965,957 larceny/thefts reported.
Source: FBI, Uniform Crime Reports
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
10. Lying by Tokenism
False empathy
Token representation
Exploitation of sympathy for discriminated people
Insincere interest in human rights
Pretense of concern for the disabled
Tokenistic acknowledgement
Unsympathetic token services
Deceptive political proposals
Token development initiatives
Tokenistic meeting resolutions
Token humanitarian intervention
Deceptive advocacy of human rights
Insignificant community celebration
Symbolic international agreements without substanceAggravated by problems:
Intolerance of criticism
Pursuit of personal prestige
Pursuit of national prestige
Pursuit of corporate prestige
Avoidance of negative feedbackhttp://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000
11. Lying by Affectation
Affected behaviour includes:
Artificiality - unnatural behavior, an imitation, a sham.
Blatancy - being noisy especially in a vulgar or offensive manner, (as a distraction, i.e. planned demonstrations).
Censoriousness - criticism as a deception or misdirection.
Conceit - excessive appreciation of one's own worth, virtue or opinion.
Elaborateness - lying by planned complexity, fullness of detail, or ornateness.
Fakery - counterfeit, simulate, concoct, doctor,
Insincerity - not sincere, hypocritical
Ostentation - excessive display, pretentiousness .
Pomposity - having or exhibiting self-importance.
Pretentiousness - expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature.
Sanctimony - affected or hypocritical holiness.
Self-importance - an exaggerated estimate of one's own importance, self-conceit, arrogant or pompous behavior.
Stuffiness - self-righteous.
Sumptuousness - magnificent.
Unnaturalness - perverse, contrived.Moral pretension
Unconscious patterned behaviour
Proscribed thinking and behaviourhttp://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000http://www.m-w.com/
12. Lying by Perjury:
"Perjury is the deliberate concealment of facts or conscious distortion of the truth by a witness or victim, either during a preliminary investigation or in court. Perjury could result in the conviction of an innocent person, or the acquittal of a criminal, thereby rendering court decisions vulnerable.
Perjury can include:
False evidence
Failure to appear as witness to produce information or to be sworn
Swearing falsely
Committing perjury
Incriminating falsely
Fabricating quotations
Providing false evidence
Giving false information
http://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000Examples: Presidential scandals, celebrity murder trials, corporate testimony before Congress, etc.
13. "White lies" ("Harmless" or "Trivial lies")
"Although a white lie may be a minor falsehood not meant to injure anyone, and is of little moral import, the accumulated effect of white lies may be confusion, misunderstandings and distress. White lies are rarely told just to be socially adept, they are rarely told in an isolated incidence, and they are rarely totally innocuous.
A common example is the giving of a false excuse so as not to hurt the feelings of someone making the request or giving an invitation. They may also include exaggerated compliments, embellishment of gossip, the substitution of a quick lie for a lengthy explanation, gratitude expressed for unwanted gifts, inflated letters of recommendation, and the like. A leading authority on lying suggests that women tell four white lies every 15 minutes to men's three. These figures take into account social courtesies like pretending to be amused by bad jokes.
Even though some people may defend the telling of white lies as being falsehoods not meant to hurt anyone and as being of little moral import, they are, regardless of their description, lies, and their cumulative consequences do harm."
White lies also include exaggeration and parental lying.
http://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000 (Emphasis ours)
14. Black lies:
"Telling an untruth and attributing it to a false source." For instance, fabricated quotations.
http://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000
15. Lying by Inappropriate Arguments:
"A well-defined group of fallacious arguments may be used to promote or oppose new projects. They may include: fallacies of logic or syntax; arguments from authority; posing of an incorrect question; suppression of relevant information; utilization of ambiguous terms; omission of a relevant concomitant variable; use of biased samples; use of samples which are statistically too small to give meaningful results; misleading use of graphs and pictures; and dependence on erroneous presentations of statistical data. Such methods of argument may over-simplify, over-complicate, ignore the opposing position, accept the authoritative position too readily, accept the position because it is detailed in print, place excessive reliance upon some formal system or formula or reject such a system too readily."
References
Warner, Martin The Bible as Rhetoric: studies in biblical persuasion and credibility (1990)
Inappropriate Arguments include:
Fallacious arguments
Spurious arguments
Cheap argument
Bad arguments
Improper forms of debate
Fatuous reasoning
Flaky arguments
Polarizing rhetoric
Obfuscatory arguments
Misuse of plausible arguments to conceal nefarious benefits
Oversimplification
Defective reasoning
Terminological ambiguities
Misconceived moral equivalence
Overreliance on proximate explanations
Failure to distinguish between opinion and facthttp://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000
16. Lying by Unethical Intellectual Practices:"Intellectual capacity can be misused, for commercial or immoral purposes, to: achieve indoctrination; promote oneself and one's own interests at the expense of others; obtain high profits without due regard to the consequences; devise inhumane uses of scientific techniques; develop brainwashing and torture techniques; develop weapons and sophisticated warfare techniques; develop information against the public interest in favour of vested interest."
Intellectual corruption includes:
Academic scandal
Intellectual fraud
Intellectual blackmail
Intellectual crime
Academic misconduct
Illegal intellectual activity
Plagiarism
Deconstruction
Scientific misconduct
Avoidance of copyright
Corruption of documents
Inappropriate arguments
Deceptive misuse of research
Politicization of scholarship
Unethical practices in economics
Endorsement of false government claims
Unethical practice in historical disciplineshttp://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000
17. Paternalistic lies:
"To act paternalistically is to guide and even coerce people in order to protect them and serve their best interests. Paternalistic lies are told for social benefit and for the supposed benefit of the deceived persons themselves, in the name of altruism. In addition to guidance and persuasion, the paternalist can also manipulate by force and by deception. Once having assumed a paternalistic stance, it is easy to condone one's lies under the argument of their necessity for the good of children (or childlike adults) whose lack of independent action does not warrant total truth; children are the most often deceived with the few qualms.
Deceiving the people for the sake of the people is a self-contradictory notion in a democracy, . . .
Counter-claim: Lies to protect close human bonds carry a special sense of immediacy and appropriateness. To keep children from knowing that their parents' marriage is dissolving, to keep up a false pretence of good health, to assure that good fortune will return again, are all paternalistic lies which are told to comfort, protect and support the deceived."
Includes:
Medical paternalism
Religious deception
Terminological deception
Oversimplification
Political deception
Institutional lyinghttp://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000In response to the counter claim above, how many times have you discovered that you were lied to and you appreciated it? No one ever does. To say that lying is justified because it is in someone's best interest is itself, a lie.
18. Lying by "False Memories" (Unreliable evidence of children)
False testimony of children"Repeated questioning may provoke young children to fabricate events that never occurred. Although a child may first deny an event, false memories often develop through the imagination's response to persistent inquiry. Because a certain amount of suggestive questioning may be needed to convince a child to disclose information, difficulty lies in determining whether the child's response is authentic or induced by repetition. Accounts of false memories are often quite believable. This substantiates concern over the reliance of judges and juries on a child's testimony when it is the only available evidence in a legal case.
Until recent years the testimony of small children was deemed truthful unless proven otherwise. Psychologists believed younger children, who were less inhibited, were less likely to fabricate events even in the face of repetitive interrogation.
In a 1993 study of children ages 4-6, researchers from Chicago found that after 11 weeks of personal questioning, 56% of children reported at least one false event as true. Some children reported all false events as true. The testimonies of children are often the only evidence in cases of sexual abuse, and are therefore crucial. Approximately 20,000 children testify in sexual abuse trials each year, and as many as 100,000 are involved in investigations, many of which never go on trial. In 1988 a pre-school teacher from New Jersey was convicted on 115 counts of sexually abusing 19 children. The charges were based solely on testimonies of 3- to 5-year olds, who were subject to prior interrogation. Following four years of further investigation her conviction was overturned, as researchers raised more questions about potentially unreliable evidence of children after persistent inquiry.
Problems caused by false memories:
False accusations
False confessions
Defamation of characterSome causes of false memories in children:
Inadequacy of psychiatry
Investigatory malpractice
Disruptive personal prejudices
Official fabrication of evidence
Substitution of fantasy for realityhttp://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000
19. Falsity (non-truth):
"Falsity may exist in the perceiver or in the object perceived. In the perceiver it arises from errors in sense interpretation, unconscious expectation and bias, and, ultimately, incorrect or partial reasoning to a conclusion. Objects, human activities and events and the like may bear false appearances, by intent or by accident.
In diplomacy falsity may be the instrument to gain advantage: for example, the pro-Hitler non-aggression pact. In politics falsity may be employed in promises or in allegations concerning opponents. Optical illusions illustrate falsity in sense data. Supernatural phenomena, sightings of monsters and unidentified flying objects may be false perceptions. Overly-optimistic and overly-pessimistic outlooks falsify probable outcome anticipations. Polite behaviour may be an inculcation to practise falsification. Several crimes involve falsity: impersonation, signature forgery, hoaxes, currency counterfeiting, art forgery, 'confidence rackets', fraudulent claims for products, false arrest and, in some jurisdictions, transvestism.
Includes:
False claims
False confessions
False political evidence
Inappropriate assumptions
Abuse of health welfare benefits
Falsification of programme evaluations
Propaganda
Historical forgery
Deception:
Lying
Fraud
Hoaxes
Tokenism
Cheating
Betrayal
Living a lie
Mutual deceits
Self-deception
Medical deception
Denial of evidence
Front organizations
Political deception
Religious deception
Incorrect information
Deception in business
Deception in the media
Deception by management
Deception by government
Terminological deception
Withholding of information
Bogus public interest groups
Deceptive social science research
Fraudulent nature of inherited titles
False positive representation to authority
Misrepresentation of geographical information
http://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000
20. Lies we tell ourselves:
We tell ourselves how strong and capable we are, that we don't need anyone or anything.
I am not an alcoholic. I can quit any time.
I can quit smoking anytime I want.
I am not a racist.
I am not addicted.
I can not use a computer, set the time on a VCR, (or do whatever).It really doesn't matter to me how much money he has.
I don't know why he/she broke up with me.
I'm more interested in brains than looks.
He's truly sorry for beating me. He promised it won't happen again.It's not my fault. It was his/her/their fault.
I don't lie as much as others do.
I only tell harmless lies.
I never want others to lie to me.We tell ourselves that everyone else does it (lie, steal, cheat, etc.)
"What wonderful tales we tell ourselves. We tell ourselves that someday we are going to follow our dreams. We tell ourselves that a bad relationship will work out even when we know better. We tell ourselves it is worth sticking out some awful situation because it will get better when deep down we don't believe it."
(source unavailable)
21. Hoaxes and Community lies: (Including Urban Myths)
In God we trust.
The water is safe.
That xmas is about Jesus Christ.
That everyone does it (including lying).
That democracy is "of, by and for the people", when it has become, "of, by and for" the special interest groups and corporate sponsors that fund the politicians."Religions" lie to their followers, about other religions (Islam, Protestantism, Judaism) http://abbc.com/luther/
"The Hoax Files: The Truth Isn't Out There"
"read about some of the greatest hoaxes in sports, science, art, and the Internet.
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/hoax1.html"Internet Scams: Don't Believe Everything You Read"
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/webhoaxes1.html
--------------Common hoaxes include:
False alarms
Sick jokes
Literary hoaxes
Scientific hoaxes
Historical forgery
False bomb warnings
Pseudo-paranormal claims
Email chain letter hoaxes
Unethical practices in religion
Cliff Pickover's Internet Encyclopedia of Hoaxes
http://www.pickover.com/hoax.html.Encyclopedia of Hoaxes
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/.References
Wade, Carlson Great Hoaxes and Famous Impostershttp://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000
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MENU: CHRISTIAN URBAN LEGENDS
Neat stories of events that never happened.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_cul.htm
22. Lies women tell men:
Their age, their weight, their true hair color.
That they do not lie, only use "feminine guile".
"You're so big."
"Yes, it was good for me too."
I'm not normally like this.
I've never been to a place like this before.
I'm busy that night.
This is my phone number.
He's just a friend.23. Lies men tell women:
Their income and the importance of their job.
I am not lost.
It looks good on you.
Your hair looks fine.
No, it doesn't make your backside look big.
Their own height.
"What am I thinking?", why about you, dear.
I'm sterile, so birth control isn't necessary.
I'm going to leave my wife.
I'm working late.
I'm going out with the guys.
It didn't mean anything.
I'll call you.
I respect you for your mind.24. Lies told by both men and women:
I've never felt this way before.
I've never said this to anyone else before.
It was a mutual decision.
I lost your number.
I just want to be friends.
You are better looking than my ex.25. Sex lies:
"I don't have STDs or HIV."
I'm not married.
Gender identity.Deception between sexual partners
"Aside from the many classic reasons for deception, a 1989 study in the USA has shown that potential sex partners will lie as to whether they have AIDS or are at risk. Over 30% of the men and 10% of the women surveyed indicated that they had told a lie in order to obtain sex. When asked hypothetically whether they would lie about testing postively for the AIDS virus, 20% of the men and 4% of the women said they would.Sexual deception can include:
Adultery
Faked orgasm
Silence about illness
Unsafe sex
Parental lying
Marital stress
Heterosexual infection of women with AIDS
http://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000
26. Lies told by children:My dog ate it.
My little brother/sister spilled milk on it.
I didn't do it. "Who did?", I don't know.
I am not . . . (having sex, doing drugs, smoking, drinking, or ?).27. Lies we tell our children:
If you don't stop making that face, it will stick that way.
Santa Claus
Easter Bunny
Tooth Fairy
The doctor's needle will not hurt.
The dentist will not hurt.
Babies come by Stork, or from a cabbage patch.
We do not tell lies in this house.
28. Romantic deception: "Romantic Deception: The Six Signs He's Lying."
1. "Romantic Liars are very good at what I call information control. So that's the first sign -- if your partner knows far more about you than you know about him, there's a chance there's a hidden agenda in play."
2 Another sign is the presence of a lot of "impression management" -- you have an idea of what your partner is like, but you've never really had any of the information verified.3. A third sign -- and this seems to apply in so many cases -- deceptive relationships usually take off like a rocket... like love at first sight, if you know what I mean.
4. Another sign is all the "tending and narrowing" that takes place in the relationship. Romantic Liars have a built in need to keep their partners on a short leash -- out of contact with the real world -- out of contact with people who might know the truth. As a result, it is common for Romantic Liars to go to some rather extraordinary lengths to limit a target or victim's contact with friends, family, co-workers, etc...
5. A lot of Romantic Liars tell "availability" lies -- they present themselves as being more available that they really are. A married man claiming to be single would be an example.
Some Romantic Liars specialize in "status" lies -- they lie about their educational background, their occupation, social connections, and so forth.
One of the more interesting themes I discovered is what I call the "personal tragedy" lie -- this involves a lie about a personal tragedy such as the sudden and tragic loss of a loved one or something along those lines.
And finally, there's the category that I ultimately called the "just plain crazy" lies -- the lies some me tell about working for the CIA or the FBI or lies about being a war hero.
6. Finally, a very strong sign that you're mixed up with a Romantic Liar is that your intuition will eventually signal you. That's just the way it usually works.
The following is a question and answer session with the author:
Q.What was the most extreme set of lies that you heard while doing your research?
A. The first case that comes to mind would be the case of a phony physician -- a fellow... a doctor -- who moved to the US from England to get away from socialized medicine.
He drove his girlfriend all over town in an expensive car, took her to the finest places for dinner, even took her out to his lovely home. Then it was discovered that he wasn't a doctor and he wasn't from England, even though he could come out of a dead sleep speaking in a British accent.
An equally dramatic case involved a phony attorney. He met a woman, dated her for about 10 days, and then had to go out of town on business. He called her each day just to tell her how anxious he was to get back into town.
He eventually got back, and they continued to date for many months. Then, quite by accident, she discovered that his business trip was actually his honeymoon.
Q. Where did these stories come from? How did you research this subject?
A. The stories came from women all over the United States. I also had a couple of stories from women in Canada.
Q. Were these women fairly forthcoming about these stories?
A. Yes; the women I talked to were fairly forthcoming about their stories. But I should point out that I talked to women who were ready to tell their stories. A lot of women remain very embarrassed about an incident of Romantic Deception.
The really sad thing about that is that the women end up taking their feelings (the shame and embarrassment) underground. Many just don't want to discuss what happened. If more women would step forward, we could really bring this into the spotlight.
There's also another thing that operates against women telling their stories. It is not uncommon for people to blame the victim when it comes to Romantic Deception. In other words, it is common for people to assume that somehow it was the fault of the woman. I deal with that issue at length in my book -- it is a very important issue to any woman who has been though an experience of Romantic Deception.
Q. Is there a specific type of woman that attracts these men?
A. No; there is no profile that I was able to discover. The women come from all walks of life and all backgrounds -- some highly education and others with minimal education -- some in modest circumstances and others very well off.
I would also add that the women are not necessarily emotionally or psychologically vulnerable -- even though part of the conventional wisdom on the subject says that this is something that happens to emotionally vulnerable women.
Q. Are these men mostly out for money or is there some other motive like adventurism?
A. That is a really great question because it points out one of the common assumptions -- namely that a Romantic Liar is a fellow who is trying to con a woman out of her money or other material possessions.
I didn't find that in my research at all. I really think that is part of the myth that is portrayed in the media -- a myth than can, in a way, be a dangerous one. I suspect there are a lot of women who see stories about Romantic deception on television (say a made for TV movie) and they tell themselves it is all very interesting but it "couldn't happen to them" (presumably because they don't have a lot of money). Unfortunately, that is the sort of thinking that sets up a woman as a perfect target -- the woman who thinks it could never happen to her.
As to why these guys do this --- I don't know. I suspect there is a strong strain of power/control motive operating here. Indeed, I'm inclined to see this as a form of intellectual abuse, so I think you can link it to a power/control desire.
Q. Do you have any idea how many people are affected by these men? Are we talking dozens... or millions?
A. I have no quantitatively based method to estimate the number, but I suspect the cases run into the millions. I say that because it is rare for me to discuss this topic with any woman who doesn't claim to have been through an experience of romantic deception or who doesn't mention someone she knows who went through it.
In short, I'm afraid this is one more "dirty little secret" about the way life gets lived in our society.
Q. What is it that makes women so susceptible to these people?
A. I think women are vulnerable to lying the same way men are vulnerable. We're all vulnerable because most of us operate with a "truth bias" -- the assumption that people are telling us the truth unless we have evidence to the contrary. We're also vulnerable because we are socialized to tell the truth and socialized to be polite.
In fact, many people are socialized to hold truthfulness and honesty in such high regard that they can't imagine that they could ever end up in the company of a liar -- at least not in an intimate relationship. Besides that, the subtle rules of etiquette work against us. Someone tells you that he's divorced, do you say "prove it!"
Q. Should I do a background check on the men I date before I trust them?
A. In my opinion, yes... it is something you should do. How formal and detailed you want to be is up to you. But I think it is something that a prudent woman would do. I can tell you this, most of the women I interviewed are certainly of that opinion -- at least now they are.
Q. Is this specific to men or can women be romantic liars too?
A. There's no doubt about it. Women can be Romantic Liars. In fact, I received several calls from men who wanted to tell me their stories... stories about how they were deceived by women.
I'm thinking about [a sequel]. I'm still collecting stories. I can't turn loose of it. So with more and more stories, the idea of a sequel is a natural. By the way, anyone can e-mail me or call if they have a story to tell. The e-mail is SC14@swt.edu, and the telephone (toll-free) is 888-283-9009.
Q. When you find out he's lying, what should you do?
A. Another really good question... another very important question. It is natural for someone to want to confront a Romantic Liar -- the desire can be overwhelming. But you couldn't make a bigger mistake.
I would tell anyone to simply exit the relationship as soon as possible, saying as little as possible. It is safe to assume that some of these characters have some strong narcissistic tendencies. Let someone in that category know that you've caught them in a lie and you should take cover. Many Romantic Liars become very abusive when they are confronted.
I always suggest to women that they ask themselves what they would consider to be a successful confrontation in the first place. Confronting a Romantic Liar is not a good idea, plain and simple.
. . . the recovery from a relationship such as Romantic Deception can be very different from recovery from other relationships gone bad.
Probably the first thing a woman should do is find someone she can tell her story to -- a trusted friend, family member, therapist -- someone who will be very high on the trust level. It has to be someone in that category because that's what this is all about.
It is also very important that the woman realize that recovery won't be immediate. For all practical purposes, recovery from an experience of Romantic Deception can be similar to recovery from having spent time in a cult. There are many similarities between the tactics used by a Romantic Liar and classic brain-washing. Those are just some of the things I would emphasize. Remember ---- Romantic Deception involves the alteration of perception. That is serious business.
I guess I would just mentioned what I noted earlier -- namely that I'm afraid that this business of Romantic Deception is just another dirty little secret about the way life gets lived. We probably don't want to think about it too much, but I'm afraid that's just the way it is ---- there's probably a lot more of this going on than we're willing to admit. I wish I could be more positive about the future on this, but the evidence won't let me.
Sally Caldwell, PhD. "Romantic Deception: The Six Signs He's Lying."
"Copyright (c) 1998 – 2001, WebMD, Inc. All rights reserved"
http://webmd.lycos.com/content/asset/chat_transcript.533102
29. Types of job application lies:
"Denial - Giving a false answer to a direct question is the most stressful of all lies, so much so that most people will attempt other forms of deception. Denial creates an imbalance in the mind that psychologists refer to as dissonance. On the one hand liars practicing denial have a need to protect themselves from the consequences of discovery. On the other hand they must also consider the prohibitions against lying they have received from society, religion, and parents. The mental conflict creates avoidance behavior.
Omission - The most common form of deception is omission or evasion. The applicant does not really tell a lie, just omit information that they do not want to communicate. Stress is limited because they are not directly lying to the interviewer and there is limited exposure if they are discovered withholding information. The answers, "I forgot." or "I didn't think it was important at the moment" leave the interviewer to prove that the information was intentionally withheld.
Fabrication - Making up a story is the most difficult type of lie to attempt. Here applicants need good memories and must be quick thinkers. They must constantly test the lie against what has already been told. Fabrication may be discovered when interviewers compare stories against the investigation or when inconsistencies in sequence or detail appear during the retelling. Unfortunately for the liars, phony stories are anchored only at the beginning and the end. When applicants are asked to begin in the middle or move forward or backward in the retelling they often lose the sequence of events as previously told.
Exaggeration - This form of lie is often employed during pre-employment interviews. The applicants exaggerate work experience, responsibilities, education and other factors. Careful questioning to reveal their knowledge often reveals this form of deception.
Minimization - This type of deception is used to downplay problems faced with previous employers for example, "Well, they were not really unhappy with my work." What does that mean? Was the employer happy or not? Again, careful questioning will determine the truth."
Investigator's Corner,Pre-Employment Interviewing Pt. 2
David E. Zulawski and Douglas E. Wicklander, September, 1996
http://w-z.com/pre2.htm
30. Political lies:Campaign promises.
Denials of guilt when caught."There is a good reason that perjury is a felony. There absolutely must be extreme consequences for lying under oath. To do anything less undermines the very fabric of the legal system. We need to keep this in mind when dealing with our political leaders. We must expect them to be honest, and when they are caught lying we must punish them. If we allow a leader--any leader--to lie in a court of law with impunity, we are saying in effect "It's ok to lie if you are doing it to save yourself embarrassment." And when we do that, we are telling every petty thief, and every child abuser, and every murderer, and every sexual harasser, and every rapist that it is ok for them to lie as well."
copyright 1998 by Rev. Charles S. Mims
http://www.claimthevictory.org/sermons/liar.htm"If a President of the United States ever lied to the American people he should resign." Bill Clinton in 1974.
"[I]t depends on how you define "alone" ... there were a lot of times when we were alone, but I never really thought we were."
. . .
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is".
- excerpts from Bill Clinton's grand jury testimony
31. Medical lies:
The doctor will be with you in a minute.
Prescribing placebos for patients, in the hope that it will help.
Prescribing placebos in clinical trials for incurable diseases, to those thinking they are receiving a drug, when they are being used merely as lab rats.
Not telling you their true opinion of how long you have left to live, when you are terminal. http://www.biol.tsukuba.ac.jp/~macer/EJ94/ej94l.html
Münchausen syndrome:
"The affected person seeks unnecessary medical attention -- often including repeated surgery. Patients usually travel widely and tell false stories. They may use trickery to produce symptomatic indications of illness or conditions. Part of the attraction for medical treatment is the care and attention they receive. Another is that being ill carries other tangible gains, such as sick leave from work.The condition was named in 1951 after the fictional 18th-century German baron, a fanaticist who wove fantastic stories around his wartime adventures.
One woman in the UK had national health medical treatment estimated at £500,000, including 42 unnecessary operations on her stomach. A man convinced 23 hospitals that he had a kidney stone by putting a pebble under his back when he went for X-rays.
Those who feign sick are really sick after all: they are suffering from the psychiatric disorder of pathological lying. The pretenders are generally misdiagnosed: they are sent for surgery when they should be sent for psychiatry.
A deeper problem is at issue: the seemingly irresistible tendency in modern society to medicalize everything. All facets of the human condition are now routinely translated into disease-language -- we have traded in original sin for original sickness; and we are encouraged to believes, in our therapeutic society, there is a pill for every ill. So long as we promote disease-mongering attitudes, we cannot expect that people will not play the system -- and it can be no accident that a third of all "pretenders" are themselves health-care professionals."
References
Feldman, Marc D and Ford, Charles V Patient or Pretender: inside the strange world of factious disorders (1993) http://www.munchausen.com/
Includes:
Münchausen by proxy syndrome
Hospital addiction
Illness addicts
Compulsion to have medical attention
Feigned disorders
Pretended illness
Elaboration of symptoms
Addiction
Self disorders
Personality disorders
Narcissism
Hypochondria
Low self esteem
Body dysmorphia, a condition in which people crave the removal of limbs.
http://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000
"The range of faked symptoms they will undertake is enormous. People will heat up a thermometer so it looks as if they have high fevers. They will inject themselves with their own saliva, or writhe on the floor in a mock seizure. Dr. Feldman describes a woman who claimed she had breast cancer. She shaved her head and lost 60 pounds by dieting to look convincing to her sympathetic friends.
Munchausen syndrome is a severe and chronic form of factitious disorder. It only affects about 10% of all of the people with factitious disorders. However, the Munchausen patient is the one we usually read about in the media. People with Munchausen syndrome travel from city to city, telling tall tales about their illnesses. They may manufacture a host of illnesses over the years. One of Dr. Feldman's former patients first said she had deaf-mutism, then multiple sclerosis, then quadriplegia, then multiple personality disorder. People with Munchausen syndrome will even undergo surgery or painful treatments just to continue their charade."
Munchausen syndrome and factitious disorders: fact and fiction
by Monica Zangwill, MD, MPH
Copyright © 2002, HealthGate Data Corp. All rights reserved.
http://www.munchausen.com/
32. Educational lies we are told in school, college:Everything we teach here is of value in the real world workplace.
This campus is safe for single women.
Our faculty is 100% competent.
We want to educate these children.
Teachers care about their students.33. Employment lies our employers and supervisors tell us:
Work hard and we will take care of you.
Work cheap now and we'll make it up to you later.
You (employees) are our most important asset. (Bus. school teaches that it is capitalization.)
I really want to see you get credit for this project.
Honesty is what we want in this company (as long as you don't tell me what I don't want to hear).
Our company has no plans to relocate to Mexico.
This company is in excellent financial condition. (ENRON)34. Employment lies we tell our employers:
Our resume.
Why I was late.
Why I was absent.
Yes, I did (whatever was expected) . . .
I'm feeling sick so I won't be in.35. Business lies:
We're ahead of schedule.
The check is in the mail.
Look, no bugs in the program.
Not available in stores.
This offer will not be repeated.
Going out of business sale.
It was owned by a little old lady who only drove it on Sundays.
He/she is out of the office at the moment.
He is in a meeting.
Yes, I'll be sure he/she gets this message.
Someone will call you right back.36. Informational lies we tell insurance companies.
About our health, habits, activities, who drives our car.
37. Environmentalist lies:
Exaggeration, mis-statements, deception, or other deliberate falsehoods.
http://www.bolsa-chica.org/hameedbolsa.htm"Silent propaganda", By Joseph Kellard
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0898silprop.htm
38. Pro-abortion lies:
"List of pro-abortion liars grows longer", By Cal Thomas
Abilene Reporter-News
http://www.texnews.com/opinion97/cal030697.html
39. Religious liars (esp. New Age):
http://www.ancientmassage.com/nightowl/nightowl2.htm
40. Lies of silence:"An innocent face hides more than a lying tongue." - Ovid
41. Spreading gossip or conspiracy theories:
"I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him." - Abraham Lincoln
http://webpages.ainet.com/gosner/quotationsarch/quotations1/topics/truth.htm
A rule related to Ockham's Razor, which can be used to slice open conspiracy theories, is Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity''.
http://phyun5.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node10.html
42. Common, ordinary everyday lies:
Any statement made in place of admitting: "I made a mistake".
What a beautiful baby! (It looks like Winston Churchill.)
Your baby looks just like you. (You both look like Churchill.)
Glad to meet/see you. (This is as positive as I can be to you.)
I'm fine, thank you. (You don't want to know, and I don't care to explain it.)
Gosh, we'd love to come over, but we're just really busy this weekend. (Inventorying our toilet paper.)
Sorry we are late, we got lost. (We ran out of excuses to delay coming.)
Great party. (Yawwwwnnnnnn.)
Thank you. It's just what I wanted. (If it were the last gift on earth.)
Your new haircut is so cute! (Gaaaaaaggggghhhhh.)
"I don't want to be rude, but . . ." (Meaning "I don't want to be accused of being rude, because that's exactly what I'm going to do."
43. Religious lies that churches tell us:
Ministers, preachers, priests, bishops, popes, claiming to represent God.
That pedophila (sexual child abuse) is not a problem among the Church priesthood.
The message to the church at Ephesus admitted: “…And you have tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and have found them liars…” (Revelation 2:2)."Centuries ago the Catholic order of Jesuits gained a reputation among Protestants for deceiving without falsehood, by using common words in equivocal senses. Hence the disparaging term jesuitical, a synonym for equivocal quibbling.
In our own time liberals — politicians and jurists alike — have learned to do likewise."How To Avoid Lying by Joseph Sobran
http://www.lewrockwell.com/sobran/sobran108.html
44. "Evangelical Lying"You've probably heard it by now. Henry Lyons, president of the [African American] National Baptist Convention has been telling some whoppers. The National Baptist Convention denomination turns out to not have 33,000 churches and eight million members after all. It is more like 3,700 churches and less than a million members. A bit of exaggeration there, Henry.
I suppose one might argue such number stretching was all done for the kingdom's sake, of course. Henry's sake too. He is currently facing criminal investigation for accepting commissions as high as 75% from businesses trying to reach his denomination's members in marketing schemes for long distance telephone service, credit cards, and funeral services. When the story breaks we'll all be embarrassed that he is one of us, and we'll scold all denominational leaders who stretch the truth for financial or political purposes.
Sure, denominational leaders sometimes stretch the truth. They don't even have to tell outright lies to do it. Statistics provide a dozen ways to make bad numbers look good. We can talk about growing segments, growing elements, or worldwide growth (most denominations, faced with stagnant North American numbers and burgeoning overseas numbers, now prefer worldwide figures). It is simply putting a positive spin on the numbers. Face it, that's what Americans pay their leaders for -- boosterism, not bad news. Henry might have gotten away with his number stretching if he hadn't gotten into accepting commissions.
Get ready. Once the story breaks most ministers will loudly condemn Henry Lyons' fibs. OK, reporting numbers at a factor of eight is a little much, but the real question is what numerical beam sticks out your own eye? Local pastors sometimes lie too.
Perhaps you've heard of the church in Iowa who regularly added 50 to their attendance each week to cover those in the rest rooms? Or, about the church that consistently averaged 350 until their pastor retired and the church dropped a hundred in average attendance. The predecessor admitted he had simply looked over the crowd each Sunday and estimated the crowd at 350. The new pastor's mistake: actually counting heads. And, who can figure out how to sort out double-counting the choir in multiple services? Not me. Apparently neither can most pastors -- they count em twice. And, I suppose we've all heard the joke about the pastor who counted cars in the parking lot and multiplied by four. But, the real stories are almost as crazy. One Michigan pastor's exaggeration had become such a laughing matter to the town that they secretly dubbed him Pastor Pinocchio.
Worse, some evangelicals have even slipped so low as to kiddingly call this sort of lying, evangelistically speaking. Shame on us. This is not evangelistic. It is devilish.
So, why do evangelicals exaggerate? The simple answer is, it works. We've been taught how to create a growth climate, how to cast a vision. We know that growth breeds more growth, and stinking thinking brings decline. So we let our vision leak into our reporting. Leaders are dealers in hope. So we sell hope by announcing victory before it happens -- sort of faith-promise reporting. It seems like good leadership. Announcing growth will breed more growth. So, we take a short cut. We announce the growth before it actually happens, and presto, the (fabricated) numbers create a growth climate that produces the growth we have already announced. Exaggeration sounds like good leadership.
It might be good leadership, but it is poor Christianity. The Christian way is to let your yes be yes, and your no be no. Your 100 be 100, and your 350 be 350. Anything more comes from the evil one. . . "
By Keith Drury, 1996. You are free to transmit, duplicate or distribute this article for non-profit use without permission.
http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday/liars.htm (Emphasis ours)
'Time to pay the piper' for preacher convicted of grand theft
March 31, 1999 CLEARWATER, Florida (CNN) -- The Rev. Henry Lyons, former head of the National Baptist Convention, was sentenced Wednesday to 5 1/2 years in prison for his convictions last month on state charges of racketeering and grand theft.
. . . for the theft of almost $250,000 from the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, money intended to rebuild burned churches.
Lyons was convicted in February of swindling more than $4 million from companies that wanted to market life insurance, credit cards and cemetery plots to his convention members.
Lyons and his alleged mistress, convention publicist Bernice Edwards, were accused of spending much of the ill-gotten money on a lavish lifestyle, including fancy cars, jewelry and a pricey waterfront home.
He pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax evasion, fraudulent activities and lying to officials. His sentencing on those charges is set for June 18."
http://www.cnn.com/US/9903/31/ministers.mess.02/index.html
45. Lies the media tells us:
"Let's examine how the newscaster does it: For a week now, we have seen the minority leader of Florida's House of Representatives interviewed roughly four times every day. The same person, the same message, the same words, even. Each and every time, she begins by repeating, "We ought not to think that the majority Republicans have any say in what the House does - all of it is run by the Bush brothers." Not once does the reporter ask for the source of her information. The network simply puts her on several times every day - that is how the network lies."
http://www.newata2ude.com/FF_accustomedtolies.htm
46. Other kinds of lies:
False or misleading, inaccurate gossip which is slander.
Exaggeration is a lie when presented as fact. Exaggeration is common in our conversations. Why is that? Are we using it to get attention to ourselves? Are we using it to prejudice our listeners toward others? Do we use it because we are too lazy to be accurate in our speech? It is often used in attempts to be humorous, which is okay unless we are using it to ridicule others. Exaggeration can be a lie. It also can be a sin simply because of our motive in using it.
Attempting to conceal the truth, speaking half-truths, deliberately leaving something unsaid,
or deceptively causing someone to believe anything other than the truth are all forms of lying.
47. Fiction for purposes other than deception ?:
What about fictional entertainment such as novels, plays, and movies? Usually there is a disclaimer in the credits (in fine print) that the characters and events are fictional. This is often used whenever there is a risk of a lawsuit because the story is so similar to a real one. In other words the disclaimer is a legal lie to protect the owners of the production who used the story without paying those who were originally involved. Other times, it is to prevent a lawsuit because of accidental and unintentional similarity.
These works are clearly labeled as "fiction", as "not true". There is no attempt to deceive anyone.
There are also works labeled as "a true story", "based on real events", or "based on the book by . . .". These are usually fictionalized accounts which may have little or nothing in common with the actual events. The deception is not only in the story but in the advertising of the story as being factual. If fiction is presented as being the truth, then it is a lie. The purpose of this lie could either be to promote a political viewpoint or to sell the show to advertisers and viewers, or for reasons both political and commercial.
What about jokes or amusing stories? This is a popular activity among some church leaders, in which speakers will tell jokes or stories, inserting each other's names to make it more topical to the congregation. Sometimes even the brightest of the audience are unable to discern if the story is true or not, but sensing that it is presented as entertainment, don't really care. Sometimes even adults believe the stories. Small children, unless told otherwise, will take it as truth, particularly coming from an authority figure, and this can contribute to a loss of creditability of the ministry, and to a lesson that lying is acceptable even in church.
What about contests for "tall tales" or lying? While God gave us the talents of imagination and creativity, it is doubtful that lying contests were what he had in mind.
Lying contests and tall tale competitions are popular and the web sites are not hard to find:
"Cumbrian Liars"
http://www.grizedale.org/lying/history/"An 81 year old woman wins Iowa lying contest."
http://captimes.com/news/local/9512.php"15th November – Lying Day.Traditional day for lying contests, in which entrants compete for prizes by telling the most appalling whoppers. Mainly associated with the north of England, so the Celtic connection is thin, but it sounds like fun."
http://www.wicca-wgtn.8m.com/R-CCalender.htm
The purpose in these contests is entertainment and there is neither intent to deceive, nor does anyone seem to be deceived.
What about the fiction found in the Bible?
In 2 Sam. 12, God sent the prophet Nathan to David. It does not tell us whether the method which Nathan used was God's idea or Nathan's. Nathan uses a parable, but one based on fact, to convict David of his sins in dealing with Bathsheba and her husband. Since it was based on fact, and after telling it, Nathan explains how it applies factually to David, there is no deception. David didn't understand at first, that it was about him, but that was as much (if not totally) due to David's voluntary blindness to his sin, as to Nathan's "fictionalizing".
Nathan's purpose, which he effectively accomplished, was not to deceive, but to convey the truth, without provoking the King's wrath.Jotham also used a parable to illustrate a current political situation (Jud. 9:8-15). He also explained the parable (vss. 16-21). There is a difference between parables which illustrate a truth and fables which have no basis in truth (1 Tim. 1:4; 4:7).
Elijah used sarcasm when mocking the prophets of Baal, by proposing that perhaps Baal was "talking to someone else at the moment, or in the toilet, or out of town, or asleep", as possible reasons why he was not responding to the false prophets' cries (1 Kings 18:27). Since false gods are described as "nothing" by God, then Elijah was making up suggestions about "nothing". The false prophets may or may not have been deceived about their god being imaginary, but Elijah's comments were in the nature of "answering a fool according to his foolishness" (Pro. 26:5).
Christ used parables (Mat. 13:11-17; Mk. 4:2, 33-34) so that those who were/are willing to learn, can, and those who aren't willing to learn, won't (vss. 11-15). Lying is sin and leads to eternal death (Col. 3:9; Lk. 18:18-20; Rom. 12:9; Ex. 20:16; Rev. 21:7-8). Christ did not sin (1 Pet. 2:22). Therefore, Christ's parables are not lies, but illustrations of truth which can be properly understood through the Holy Spirit (Jn. 16:13), or not, according to one's desire (Deu. 4:29; Psa. 119:2; Jer. 29:13; Rom. 3:11).
All of the accounts in scripture which are used by "Christians" or atheists in attempts to justify lying or to discredit the Bible or God, can be correctly understood by studying them in the immediate context, in the context of all the rest of scripture ("line upon line" Isa. 28:10,13) and, if one has the Holy Spirit (Jn. 18:13).
Anyone who attempts to justify lying is not imitating Christ, and is by definition then, not a "Christian" in the true sense of the word. To be a "Christian" or "Christ-like", requires that we speak only the truth.