Posted on 01/18/2013 7:05:13 PM PST by Olog-hai
Lance Armstrong may have been branded liar and cheat of the month, but experts say he's not as different from the rest of us as we’d like to believe. Lying, they say, is part of the human condition, something most people do every day. And that’s reflected in the cavalcade of celebrities cowed into confession after their deceptions were exposed—from Richard Nixon’s denial of the Watergate break-in to Bill Clinton’s denial of an affair with an intern, from drug-abusing baseball players to fraudulent Wall Street executives. …
“Lying is extraordinarily common and we couldn’t get along without it,” says David Livingstone Smith, a professor of philosophy at the University of New England in Maine, and author of the book Why We Lie. “It greases the wheels of society.” Lying, Smith says, “is as automatic and unconscious as sweating.” He points out that parents teach children at an early age that “it’s OK to lie, just not to me.” Kids are told to pretend to be grateful for a Christmas gift they don’t want. And they witness their parents lying—about the tooth fairy, and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.
Wise people throughout history have understood that lying and deception is part of life, Smith says: “There is no commandment that says ‘thou shalt not lie,’” though there is a commandment against bearing false witness. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
>> “Lying is extraordinarily common and we couldn’t get along without it,” says David Livingstone Smith
DON’T BELIEVE A THING THIS GUY SAYS.
Yeah, you know, every time I lie it costs other people millions of dollars and championships as well. /s
So they expect me to believe them?
We didn’t do the whole Santa Claus, Easter Bunny thing with our kids for just this reason. I couldn’t look my kids in the eye and lie to them. They’re all adults now, love Christmas and have no problem with our not playing the Santa Claus game. People used to tell me we were taking all the fun out of Christmas, but nothing could have been further from the truth.
No harm, no foul.
Sigh....Nixon never denied the Watergate break-in. I wonder how old this guy is.
This is the same stuff state-controlled media was saying about Clinton in the “I did not have sex with that woman” era.
This is article is BS!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with 3 Victoria Secret supermodels who will also be showing the latest lingerie line in a private suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel later tonight...
Certainly not the expert on deception he claims to be. Maybe an expert on self-deception?
I'm lying to you - Spock
There is some credence to what he says in general. You have to look at the motivation behind the lie and the age and experience of the individual as well as the circumstances. Some lies are told not to hurt the feelings of others while others are told for gain / profit or to outright decieve so the answer isn’t black and white because there is a wide spectrum. As you get older and more experienced you learn there are consequences to lying; damage to your reputation, harming others, lack of trust, etc... You also learn that you can just tell it like it is and not feel embarrassed about something that you may have told a white lie. It’s the human condition; we are not robots and were born into sin, however if the government can get people to feel guilt about it and regulate it they can figure out to turn a profit from it. Don’t buy into bs liberal ideaologies and news articles. There’s always a hook...
Forgot to mention I’m an investigator and lied to on a regular basis...
This is BS with an agenda. Sure, if someone asks me how I'm doing, I might say "I'm fine" even if I'm anything but.
However, if someone knows better and says so, I don't think I'll tell the world they're lying about me and then sue them, only to later cry to Oprah how they were telling the truth all along.
Speaking of liars, what is the real intent of the author of this article?
You mean....you mean.....There is no Santa Rabbit? Well, there’s another childhood memory shot in the donkey.
OK; to give testimony is to provide evidence in court to facts.
How is that different than bearing witness?
I believe the intent of the commandment is that one is not to give false evidence to a court and I have heard biblical scholars say as much.
We all tell ‘white lies’, I sure don’t want to tell someone their new baby is ugly. But - Armstrong told lies for his own glory and gain, and that makes it very wrong.
"Forget the truth! LIES keep you together! LIES enhance your relationship, they enhance your love..."
Can we conclude, then, tha these “experts” are liars?
Lol, that’s only if she askes you ‘does this dress make my butt look big’? Finesse it then.....
I have never lied. Not once in my life! And that’s the Gospel truth!
Live Strong!
Lie Stronger!
Well...the truth often does hurt, eh?
White lies are told not only to protect the other person, but to protect the teller from fallout .
You know how I found this out?
Trying on an outfit that I loved, I walked out of the dressing room and asked my husband how it looked, (though I sort of knew the truth).
“Honey” he says to me “that not only makes you look dumpy, but it looks like you are an old woman trying to stay young”
God bless him for not telling the white lie to spare my feelings - or himself from a pre conceived wrath of my feelings.
Yes, my feelings were hurt. But that was my problem and I loved him more for telling me the truth. Especially because I knew the truth, but wanted to hear something else.
White lies are complicated when told, simple and perhaps brutal when they are not.
It does not however make me disagree with the translation used by the author; namely the King James translation of the commandment against bearing false witness. Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of problems in the King James.
Yes perjury is lying however it is lying in court when one has spoken an oath (to god) that what one says is to the best of one’s knowledge the truth.
It is an important difference.
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.“Liars” here comes from Greek pseudesin.
I had the opposite experience. And I pity children who were raised by literal-minded parents who don’t know the difference between the world of the imagination and lying.
Desmond Morris pointed out that most people are very poor liars, but often get away with it because most people are also very bad at detecting lies.
There was a show on Discovery channel a few years ago, ‘Secrets of Interrogation’, despite the salacious title it was in great part about how cops and others tell if someone under interrogation is lying. Once the telltales were pointed out it was much more obvious.
Truly good ‘liars’ can make a lot of money, be it in sales. acting or politics.
All war is based on deception. (1:18)Earlier in the treatise, Sun Tzu admonishes adherence to what he calls the Moral Law (most likely Confucian morality).
Then “experts on deception” lie too. Being experts they’re probably better at it.
It cost 4 lives the last time Obama and hillary lied and is about to cost more.
I’m certain Helen O’Neill is a democrat.
Everyone does not lie.
I don’t associate with liars.
I haven’t lied to anyone since I became conservative.
Saint Nicholas was a real person. His story is inspirational and really should be part of what we teach our children.
It seems to me that this so called expert confuses the idea of being kind and polite with lying. When someone asks me something like ‘do you like my dress’, I find a way to say something positive to the person that is true with out actually answering their question. There is no reason for me to say ‘no I think it is the ugliest thing I have ever seen’. I see nothing good in hurting others feelings.
Well, there you go.
Boy, howdy. Just today we took down these puppets, or marionettes, that we had hanging there for years. I operated the horse in crude fashion, and my two year old grandson was instantly terrified! It was alive! Is that a lie????????
Perhaps you want to address this comment to
cantfindagoodscreenname
I couldn’t even lie about that. When my daughter would ask that question I’d tell it wasn’t the dress.
“There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood” Proverbs 6:16, 17 (the full list is Proverbs 6:16-19.) We have an example of this in Acts 5:1-11; I’m sure you remember Ananias and Sapphira and what happened to them when they lied.
Good point. We continuously learn...: )
> It seems to me that this so called expert confuses the idea of being kind and polite with lying.
I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing for about 20 years and considered an expert but there is one truth a mentor once told me - no matter how much experience or training the “expert” has he can always be wrong. He also said never call yourself an expert; let others do it because once you say you are an expert the vultures will come to pick you apart and destroy you in a courtroom. Basically just state that youve have been doing XYZ for o many years and that others have indicated that you are an expert. has worked for me so far...
I think Sun Tzu’s ‘Moral Law’ was also as much Taoist as Confucian. The Art of War seems very rooted in Yin/Yang duality and non absolutism.
And in my line of work we have a definition of an ‘expert’
x is the unknown quantity and a spurt is a drip under pressure
I think all apply
Lol, your daughter is one thing but what if a close lady friend asked, would you say the same?
I don’t actually lie, I’d probably say ‘the dress looks nice’ and just avoid the actual question.
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