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. 9. Excuses given for lying.
1. A matter of life or death:
"It is widely recognized that there are cases in which considerable harm can be done by supplying a questioner with the information he requested, or which he would find significant. This justifies withholding such information and thus misleading the person."
http://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000
This statement addresses the reality of living in a world full of evil, injustice and fear.
Excuses
"In the graphic hypothetical of the killer seeking his victim, we face an extraordinary situation. The rules have broken down (or the authorities who could apply them cannot reach us in time) and we are in a state of nature where the individual we are facing is prepared to apply force.
However, even in this situation we have other choices. We could respond with force, or run away, or refuse to answer. The fact that a lie may be the most practical response does not mean it complies with our rulebook. Nor are we compelled to rewrite the rules to accommodate it.
Here we face the old confusion between the moral and practical. Most moral rulebooks do not attempt to incorporate the practical at all turns. (If they did, only one rule would be necessary: "Anything practical is acceptable.") It may be highly practical to throw some people from the lifeboat when the waves get high or food is short (it may be even more practical to kill and eat them.) But under most of our rulebooks, it would be a highly unethical choice.
Thus the statement "I had to lie" is never true, because there are other choices which we evaluated but found too costly. A common experience of my generation was the choice of whether to lie to avoid the draft during Vietnam. (I turned 18 the year the draft ended. I had already formulated the ideas I am expressing here,but I cannot say with certainty that I would have had the courage of my convictions.) On the one hand, most people who evaded the draft had a genuine belief that the war was immoral. On the other hand, many missed the fact that draft evasion was not a moral choice, nor was it in any way (because concealed) an act of protest. On a spectrum of moral statement, two other choices were more honest. The highest form of protest, involving the most personal risk, was to refuse to serve and accept the consequences. Few people had the courage to do this. Another choice was to withdraw from the community altogether and go live in another country, which more people did.
Draft evaders, by contrast, became "free riders" who continued to accept the benefits of American society without paying the price that society demanded in return. As such, they were on the same moral plane as welfare cheats and anyone else who obtains something on false pretenses.
In a Hobbesian state of nature, we may face stark choices. In wars, good men may face each other every day in circumstances which they did not choose and from which only one can emerge alive. Still, there is a choice made, to kill and live, where another path was available (to die rather than kill.) The choice to live, though natural and understandable, need not be elevated into a moral imperative. In fact, it is not under most rulebooks; think again about the lifeboat example, where we are not permitted to kill other inhabitants of the boat, even to ensure our own survival.
Lies and violence can be viewed similarly. Lies are never "necessary" and when applied to protect an important interest, like survival, never need to be elevated to the level of a morally acceptable choice. Our rulebooks, after all, are compilations of the ways we should behave. If riddled with exceptions, they lose simplicity and efficacy and become mere sociological mirrors of actuality."
"Lying", by Jonathan Wallace
http://www.spectacle.org/0500/lies.html (emphasis ours)While many will appeal to the life or death argument to defend lying, most Americans will lie throughout their lifetimes without it ever being "a matter of life or death".
2. Situation ethics
"Can lying be okay under certain circumstances?
This question is really dealing with the subject of situation ethics. This is where one justifies any action that is wrong, when done under the right conditions. Take for example, the person who cheats on taxes because "he has already paid his fair share over the years!" Others become unfaithful to their spouse because "their mate doesn't understand them!" And there are the liars who feel that "the truth would do more harm than good!"
(source unavailable) (emphasis ours)When we reverse this philosophy it becomes, "Under the right conditions, every evil can be justified as acceptable."
"Situation ethics" is an oxymoron.
3. The "Because people in India are starving." Excuse:
"A fourth motive for lying occasionally arises -- to prevent a greater evil. Suppose a terrified mother appears at your door clutching two young children, seeking a place to hide. Moments later you hear a frenzied pounding at the same door. You open it to a disheveled man with drug-crazed eyes and a butcher knife glistening in his hand. "Where's my family?" he snarls. Would you say, "I cannot tell a lie. They're in the basement?" Or would you choose the lesser of two evils and lie, mourning such a necessity in a fallen world?"
http://www.ptm.org/01PT/MayJun/TellTruth.htm
We have to ask:
1. Why did you open the door to anyone holding a butcher knife? Your problem is not whether to lie, it's simple stupidity.
2. Why are you answering the door instead of calling the police? The police should have been called as soon as the woman explained her situation. Your delay is further endangering the refugees and your own family.
3. If this is your most frequent excuse for lying, then you live in the wrong neighborhood. Get out of that house NOW! . . . RUN!
4. Have you ever had to use the "life or death" excuse to lie? Have you ever met anyone who did? Was it your neighbor, who heard about a friend of his cousin, three states away, who knew a teenager whose grandfather's brother was in Poland in 1939? Exactly how does that once-in-a-lifetime lie justify your lifetime of lying?
4. Attempts at justification:
1. Lying may be a legitimate tool of defense, as in protection under repressive societies and regimes. It is crucial to see the distinction between the free-loading liar and a liar whose deception is a strategy for survival in a corrupt society.
2. Lying is as much a part of normal growth as telling the truth. The ability to lie is a human achievement that tends to set them apart from all other species.
3. Everyone lies; but it doesn't matter, since nobody listens.
4. Gypsies traditionally enjoyed telling elaborated stories and they not hesitate to invent many of them in order to reach effects they desired. Even direct cheating the "impure" gadjo people (the surrounding majority) was more of a challenge than an offense. Lying was part of their defense and survival strategy. Therefore, still today the popular image of Gypsies is the one of liars and unreliable people. Not surprisingly, if the word "Gypsy" is used as a verb, it is synonymous with "lying" in Slovak as well as in Czech language. Understanding these background cultural reasons is vital for removing old stereotypes.
Union of International Associations
Database selected: World Problems - Issues: Lying
http://db.uia.org/scripts/sweb.dll/uiaf?SC=6569&XP=UI&DD=PR&DR=B7600&PG=1&
God gives us a choice of "life and death, blessing and cursing" and encourages us to "choose life" (Deu. 30:15-19). He also gives us "common sense" principles such as, "if they persecute you in one place, go somewhere else" (Mat. 10:23). In those cases where it is truly a matter of life or death, we must decide whom we fear more, God or man. We must decide whether physical life is more important to us than eternal death.
If lying is to be considered an "achievement", then so should murder, stealing, adultery, lust, covetousness, cursing one's parents and idolatry. These are all frequent activities of mankind and are therefore equally as "normal" as lying.
What sets us apart from "other species" is not lying, but the ability to reason in abstract concepts. This ability is totally independent of the decision to lie or tell the truth.If lying is justified by the allegation that "nobody listens", then it must also be true that you do not care if everybody lies to you all the time since "you do not listen".
5. Survival:
"Teens Learn Early On That Lying is the Key to Surviving"
"Human beings--who, according to psychologist Gerald Jellison of the University of South California, are lied to about 200 times a day, roughly one untruth every five minutes--often deceive for exactly the same reasons: to save their own skins or to get something they can't get by other means."
by YO! Staff
"they make it so that we have to lie"
"We also b.s. to get ourselves to higher places, to look (or sound) better than others, to make money, to fool people, to manipulate the systems -- because in certain ways they make it so that we have to lie in order to survive. The people upstairs are the master con artists of them all. Hey, what can I say -- we learn from the best. Sometimes we are even brought up to be pathological liars who do it so much that we ourselves believe the crap that comes out of our mouths."
"All of a sudden in this country, when you tell the truth you're the bad guy."
By Hazel Tesoro, 18If we don't the next person will.
"So lying should be considered a skill human beings have developed to survive in an overpopulated world -- where if you don't get in where you fit in, the next person will. Lying is a tool of the masses -- a way to overcome injustices -- saying you have a child living with you who is not so you can collect a larger welfare check, or denying there is domestic violence in the home."
By Sayyadina Thomas, 18
Because I am "disadvantaged".
"I Bend The Truth To Get Ahead"
"It seems that lying to get ahead has become commonplace. After all, who can really say they have never lied in order to get ahead?"
"I try to justify lying at times by asking myself how I am going to compete with people who have been given advantages far superior to any I enjoyed."
By Anonymous, 18
http://www.youthoutlook.org/stories/1998/12/30/teens.learn.ear.html (emphasis ours)
6. Various excuses:
"It wasn't really a lie.", (by definition, qualification, etc.-- "the definition of 'is', 'alone', sex').
"It's not really any of your business.", the privacy excuse.
"I can explain.", attempts to justify.Jewish rabbis teach that some lies are ok:
"Even though the Tenach states that lying is one of the seven sins G-d hates, rabbium say lying under certain situations in not wrong. I agree! In addition there are category of lies. Some are more serious than others. That is true."
http://www.jewishpath.org/embracinglies(p2)1.html
7. "Free Speech"
That free speech is more important than punishing liars:
"Washington State Supreme Court overturns law against malicious lies in political campaigns."The high court said, in effect, that politicians shall not be held accountable for any lies they may tell in their campaign ads, speeches or literature.
http://exordia.net/pi/Calculated_lies_2.htm
8. Relativism:
"Briefly, relativism says 'Everything is relative'. You may recognize its ugly head when you have shared the Gospel with someone and they respond 'Oh well, that may be true for you, but it isn't true for me'. This laughable absurdity comes all too easily from the lips of the most intelligent and best educated of people, and it presents a devastating difficulty in dialogue.Think about it a moment. Think about the statement 'everything is relative'. Is it a relative statement? If so, it is only relatively true, and so there must be some things which aren't relative, and so there must be some absolutes . . . Or is it rather an absolute statement? If so, the very existence of one absolute statement means that not everything is relative! Do you see how absurd it is?
Perhaps you find the foregoing too complicated? It's the sort of thing some moral philosophers call humor ... Let's try a physical example. A hundred years ago, some people believed the earth was round and some believed it was flat. A few might even have believed it was some other sort of shape, but everyone believed that it was either round or flat or . . . they knew it couldn't be both round and flat at the same time depending on how you looked at it! Yet I have had this said seriously to me by medical students in public debate!
Relativism cannot be true. It is a lie, but one that is both laughably obvious and subtly all-pervasive at the same time."
http://www.cmf.org.uk/pubs/nucleus/nucapr92/truth.htm
Andrew Fergusson, General Secretary, CMF
9. Common Responses to Conceal Lies
"When confronted with their lies, people construct hedges of emotional-commotion to keep you at a distance, such as:
Strong denial. "I did not"
Blame. "He/she made me do it!"
Discrediting your support group so you'll keep your suspicions secret. "Your friends are such gossips." "Why do you have to tell your family our private business?" "Can I trust you to keep this between the two of us?"
Anger. Their anger intimidates you, so you'll back down. Your anger sidetracks you, so you'll forget the original issue. You can't think straight when you are angry or dealing with an angry person, but you may be close to the truth.
Arrogantly justifying their behavior. "Yeah, what of it? I can do what I want!" "I'm not accountable to you." These defiant responses shake you up and strip away your defenses so you acquiesce to their viewpoint.
Minimizing the lie by distracting you with another lie about your perception. "How could you even think that about someone you love?" Now you are diverted from the lie and occupied with the liar's feelings of rejection, hurt and dismay that you dare to question their motives.
Distorting your ability to see truth by packaging the lie in a half-truth. "The woman in the restaurant was my secretary. We were talking business."
Accusing you of being irrational. "You're crazy...too sensitive... a nag."
Arguing the lie is a one-time incident or the exception. "Everybody makes mistakes." "Give me a break. I made an error in judgment."
Hiding behind an honorable intention. "Yes, I was briefly involved with that guy; but when I thought about you and the kids and what we have together, I promised myself I will break it off."
Making it your problem if you don't instantly forgive despite a lack of remorse or change of behavior on their part. "What a goody two shoes you are!" "Why can't you just forgive me?" "And you say you're a Christian?"""Lying - Isn't Everybody Doing It?", by Kari West
http://www.ptm.org/99PT/MayJun/Lying.htm
10. The lessor of two evils:
This argument is used by "many" Christians, as stated below, despite the teachings of one of "Christianity's" own "Church fathers", Augustine.
" In De Mendacio [On Lying], Augustine argues against the possibility of there being any occasion in which a conscious utterance of falsehood is not a lie, and concludes that there is no instance in which a lie is not a sin."
"The question, then, which requires exposition is whether one can use deception for a noble purpose without reaping the Scriptural condemnation of liars. Can one deceive another with the intent (and perhaps consequence) of achieving good such that the deception deserves acceptance or even praise? Many believe so, . . ."
"This being the case, Augustine asserts that deceptions uttered in regard to doctrine of religion constitute the most heinous of lies 6 . In addition to this "capital lie", seven others are listed in descending order of sinfulness 7: 1) lies done in doctrine of religion; 2) lies wherein none are profited and some are hurt; 3) lies wherein one is profited by another's hurt (excluding defilement); 4) "unmixed" lies done through the enjoyment of lying and deceiving; 5) lies done with the desire to please others; 6) lies wherein another is helped and no one is hurt; 7) lies wherein several are helped and no one is hurt; 8) lies wherein one is preserved from defilement and no one is hurt."
". . . could we not still imagine a situation whereby a lie is to be condoned in order that a greater evil is avoided?"
"In this manner, Augustine demonstrates that all eight types of deception are lies to be avoided, and can in no way be condoned or recommended as acceptable behavior, and concludes, "Whoso shall think there is any sort of lie that is not sin, will deceive himself foully, while he deems himself honest as a deceiver of other men"
"His [Augustine's] answer is that no good can ever come of a lie. Therefore, although I agree with Augustine's position on the moral status of willful deceptions, I have yet to come to the conclusion that such deceptions, in all cases, yield no possible good or real advantage."A Response to Augustine's De Mendacio [On Lying]
© Scott David Foutz, principal editor
Quodlibet Online Journal of Christian Theology and Philosophy
http://www.quodlibet.net/mendacio.shtml
(Emphasis ours.)
11. Relativism and "political correct lying":
"What is truth anyway?
For the relativist there is no truth. Everything is, you guessed it, relative. Everyone is his/her own standard of right and wrong. Each individual has a right to express his/her own views as long as those views don't contain any suggestion of absolutes that would compete with the prevailing standard of relativism. Since there is no transcendent standard of right and wrong, judgments become merely expressions of feelings or preference. "Lying is wrong" becomes "I hate liars" or "I prefer that you not lie." Moral claims are reduced to the level of someone's opinion. What someone else accepts as truth is met with the mantra of the last four decades, "That might be true for you, but it's not true for me." Right and wrong have no meaning and moral judgments are based on nothing other than one's "feelings.""
BIG AL IS A BIG LIAR By Marsha West
http://onsolidrock.org/page249.html
---------------------------------------"Beneficial Lying":
" Isn't There Such a Thing as A Charitable Lie?
This is what the folks, who argue, call a lie for a greater good.
Consider, for a moment that in all of the situations that people bring up to justify lying, there is also a selfish motivation for telling that lie. Seldom if ever, are there only two choices i.e. Brutal truth or Charitable Lies"back homehttp://www.blountweb.com/churches/eastside/bestpolicy.html
Beneficial lying is also called:
Noble lies
Lying for the good
Benevolent deception
Crisis lying
Good faith liesLying is most often seen to be good in three principal cases
(a) where it averts a misdeed or crisis, particularly affecting an innocent or unrelated party;
(b) when socially considerate, helpful and complete harmlessness or trivial to the point where it seems absurd to quibble about whether a lie has been told; and
(c) when done as a duty to particular individuals to protect their secrets. In summary, beneficial lying is justified because it serves the public good and avoids long-range harm. However, what are thought of as "noble lies" may not in fact be justified by an immediate crisis nor by complete triviality nor by duty to any one person; but rather that the liars tend to consider them as right and unavoidable because of the altruism that motivates them. Error and self-deception can mingle with the altruistic purposes and blur them, making them some of the most tricky and dangerous of lies.
http://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000There are several fallacies in using the three cases above as excuses:
1. There are always more than two choices of truth or lying.
2. No lie is ever totally harmless, because of what it does to the individual and to society.
3. To be in a position of being tempted to lie requires some wrong choice previously. When we make the right choices, we should not be in a position of choosing between truth and lying. When we make the right choices, we should not have secrets that seem to require lying.
4. Our first duty is to fear and obey God more than we fear men. We are to love God and his laws more than we love mankind."Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this [is] the whole [duty] of man." (Ecc 12:13).
"And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that has left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's,
But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life." (Mk. 10:29-30).
----------------------
"Because the Bible uses lies.":What about fiction, novels, entertainment, prose, and Biblical psalms that use alliteration?
"Truth does not consist in minute accuracy of detail, but in conveying a right impression; and there are vague ways of speaking that are truer than strict facts would be. When the Psalmist said, "Rivers of water run down mine eyes because men keep not thy law," he did not state the fact, but he stated a truth deeper than fact, and truer. -Alford"
http://webpages.ainet.com/gosner/quotationsarch/quotations1/topics/truth.htm
This argument is used by both philosophers and religionists to justify lying, by proposing that there may be "greater truths", which brings us back to degrees of truth and "white lies" and "little lies", and finally to "acceptable lies" as told by "Christians" (who esteem the Bible, which condemns all liars,) and to "lies" as told by philosophers who esteem relativistic morality.
When Alford says "a truth deeper than fact", is he saying that some lies are more truthful than the truth? Scripture says otherwise. "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." (1Jo 2:21).
Or is he simply demonstrating the fact that some of us prefer lies to truth? ". . . they delight in lies: they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly." (Psa 62:4).
--------------------------------------------Self-destructive excuses:
"An excuse seeks to extenuate, sometimes to remove the blame entirely from something which would otherwise be a fault. It can seek to do this in three ways:
(a) it can suggest that was is seen as a fault is not really one;
(b) it can suggest that, thought there has been a fault, the agent is not really blameworthy because he is not responsible and
(c) it can suggest that, though there has been a fault, and though the agent is responsible, he is not really to blame because he has good reasons to do as he did.
Excuses take many subtle and devious forms. They are often chronic evasions of responsibility borne of irrational fear. One of the human animal's main and most dangerous tendencies is said to be that of trading survival for peace of mind. Excuses are one of these methods. Excuses prevent insights into personal problems and thus bar healthy change in personality. They are generally used to hide human fragility. Many lies invoke self-defense (the avoidance of harm to oneself) in the form of excuses.
Findings suggest that as many as 20% of American adults overuse excuses to a point that may be detrimental to their emotional health."
http://www.uia.org/index.html, Mar. 2002
© Union of International Associations 1997 - 2000
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12. Excuses are lies.
To "excuse" (the verb), means to "make apology for" and, "to try to remove blame from". When we attempt to "excuse" our lying, we are "apologizing for lying" and "trying to remove blame from ourselves for lying". As a verb, it also means "to justify". When we try to excuse our lying, we are not proving our innocence of not having lied, we are attempting to "make a justification" (1 a : to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable b (1) : to show to have had a sufficient legal reason) for our lying.
For a sin to be forgiven, it must be admitted (to God) (see Lk. 18:9-14). Justification that yields salvation must be by the justifying sacrifice of Christ, not an attempted self-justification to cover our own sins by human reasoning.
An "excuse" (the noun), is "something offered as justification or as grounds for being excused". Justification comes by repentance and Christ's sacrifice, not by our attempts to cover our sins, nor by our human reasoning. It is also "an expression of regret for failure to do something" (tell the truth) and "a note of explanation of an absence" (of the truth).
Main Entry: 1 ex·cuse
Pronunciation: ik-'skyüz, imperatively often 'skyüz
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): ex·cused; ex·cus·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Old French excuser, from Latin excusare, from ex- + causa cause, explanation
Date: 13th century
1 a : to make apology for b : to try to remove blame from
2 : to forgive entirely or disregard as of trivial import : regard as excusable <graciously excused his tardiness>
3 a : to grant exemption or release to <was excused from jury duty> b : to allow to leave <excused the class>
4 : to serve as excuse for : JUSTIFY <nothing can excuse such neglect>
- ex·cus·able, adjective
- ex·cus·able·ness, noun
- ex·cus·ably, adverb
- ex·cus·er, noun
synonyms EXCUSE, CONDONE, PARDON, FORGIVE mean to exact neither punishment nor redress. EXCUSE may refer to specific acts especially in social or conventional situations or the person responsible for these <excuse an interruption> <excused them for interrupting>. Often the term implies extenuating circumstances <injustice excuses strong responses>. CONDONE implies that one overlooks without censure behavior (as dishonesty or violence) that involves a serious breach of a moral, ethical, or legal code, and the term may refer to the behavior or to the agent responsible for it <a society that condones alcohol but not narcotics>. PARDON implies that one remits a penalty due for an admitted or established offense <pardon a criminal>. FORGIVE implies that one gives up all claim to requital and to resentment or vengeful feelings <could not forgive their rudeness>.
Main Entry: 2 ex·cuse
Pronunciation: ik-'skyüs
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
1 : the act of excusing
2 a : something offered as justification or as grounds for being excused b plural : an expression of regret for failure to do something c : a note of explanation of an absence
3 : JUSTIFICATION, REASON
synonym see APOLOGY
13. Various or extreme excuses:
Politeness
Politics
War or dealing with competitors and even enemies in a variety of circumstances.
Undercover police work
Investigative reporting
Deception in research
Talking with the terminally ill.
Answering children's questions.
The use of exaggeration in making a point.
In all of these the assumption is that there are only two choices. That assumption is a lie. There are always more than two choices.
In most if not all of these, the point at which one is tempted to lie could have been avoided altogether by making better choices previously.
Some of these deal with situations mankind has brought on itself by disobedience to God's laws. If we kill and steal, then we are more likely to be tempted to lie.Most or all of these presume that one desires to be successful "in the world" and accepted "by the world". God's way of life is not compatible with the "world" (Jas. 4:4). Christ spent considerable time explaining that if we followed his way of life, the "world" would not be happy with us (Jn. 15:18-19).
Christ always told the truth. One result was that the civil authorities suspected him of being a subversive. Another result was that the leading theologians of his time plotted his murder. Following Christ doesn't require martyrdom but it does require a choice between being approved by "the world" or being approved by God. (Rom. 12:2).Christ warned that we could have trouble from the world because we did the right thing (Jn. 16:33).
Paul explained that the right thing to do is not what the world would do: ". . . has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" (1 Cor. 1:20). ". . . we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes [leaders] of this world, that come to nothing." (1 Cor. 2:6). "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He takes the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." (1 Cor.3:19-20).
It always comes down to a choice. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust thereof: but he that does the will of God abides [lives] forever." (1 Jn. 2:15-17).