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 ...
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.
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