[Delta 21]

Why? YES. YES I DID.

Fiction - the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author or actors.

Why would you believe anything someone that does this for a living would say? How can you tell when they are not just doing their job, or using their job skills to try to persuade you to different thinking?

You can believe what you want.

[Lady Lucky]

Why? YES. YES I DID. [equate the art of fiction with lying]

Well, that's far and away the most ignorant remark I've heard in a very long time. Logically you would have to say that any painting or image in any other media, of an unspecified person, is also a "lie." And therefore a sin. Poems too. And parables. Shakespeare, Milton, Michelangelo...Jesus -- all liars?

How can you tell when they are not just doing their job, or using their job skills to try to persuade you to different thinking?

How can one tell...? If you can't, you have a second serious problem there.

[OneWingedShark]

Fiction - the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author or actors.
Why would you believe anything someone that does this for a living would say?

Maybe because the author is dealing with a philosophical situation; your mode-of-thought rejects hypothetical situations... and parables.
In fact, let's take one famous teller of parables: Jesus. Given that a parable is a fiction then, by your own words, you should not believe what he has to say using them, no?

How can you tell when they are not just doing their job, or using their job skills to try to persuade you to different thinking?

Maybe by their fruits?
Maybe by the message of their fictional work... like this:

Or this:

Or this:

But perhaps the ultimate foolishness of your stance is to equate imagination with lies; wouldn't that make the imaginative little boy at play on-par with the most dastardly perjurer? the little girl playing with dolls and a doll-house on par with the common liar?

[Revolting cat!]

I suppose we learned nothing from all those fiction books like Goodnight Moon that were read to us as children. A book of Aesop’s Fables contains more truth than the Collected Works of Ann Coulter. A novel by Christopher Buckley has more truth in it about Washington D.C. than all the self-important memoirs of the politicians there, and the puffed up non-fiction by experts, journalists and others. But then, if your interests lie in the “truths” of the passing day, then go right ahead, read and re-read Ann Coulter’s 10 year old tomes. Who needs Shakespeare’s lies!

A well known film director told me years ago, that if I was interested in truth, I should pursue fiction writing and filmmaking, and if I was interested in lies then write non-fiction and make documentary films. He was right.