BrokenArts on 27/9/2011 at 21:27

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Let's keep it simple, yes we all have, if you say other wise, you're a liar.

Xorak on 27/9/2011 at 21:33

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My point was that the liar is sometimes not morally obligated, or ethically-bound to tell the truth. And sometimes the right thing to do is to lie. You're the one attaching the viscidness of stigma to the lie, everyone else sees it as a fact of life and moves on.

It's actually more absurd to think someone never lies. That just strikes me as purposely attention-seeking and controlling. Which may be a fair way to live life, but morally, I have no desire to go down that road. Thus I can't not lie.

Harvester on 27/9/2011 at 23:00

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This is a fun topic to talk about on Christian forums. You'll get people who say you should never lie, as in: it's World War 2, you're in the Resistance and you're hiding Jews in your house so they don't get sent to Auschwitz. The SS comes knocking at your door and asks if you're hiding Jews in your house, and according to them, you're supposed to tell the truth and expect God to help you out.

That just illustrated an example in which I think it's okay to lie: if telling the truth has grave consequences for your own life or other people's life, and remaining wisely silent is not an option. That's also where I differ from Xorak: if my gf was nagging me where I went and wouldn't stop, I would say it's none of her business instead of lying about it.

demagogue on 28/9/2011 at 04:24

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Usually (basically every time) if I lie to people (it's not often) I'll tell the truth later... And they might say, but I thought you said X, and I'll say something like, yeah, I lied. It just sounded better at the time, and smile. And it usually passes because the lie does honestly make for the better story, and it usually *almost* happened that way except for a few details, so they don't even blame me... But people are interested to know if it "really" happened, so I'll let them know it didn't, but the story is still out there for entertainment value.

Edit: I can think of an example where I'm tempted to lie. I was staying with a friend on 42nd street in NYC, and it was the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death, and I could just predict people would meet at Strawberry Fields in Central Park, where the Imagine mosaic is, to play his music and sing. I was planning to go, it was just a few blocks away, it was a perfectly light snowy day, my guitar was missing a string but I could still strum chords and sing, but then just on that day my friend left town so I was afraid if I left the building it'd be complicated getting back in. Then later I heard that a small group met there and Yoko had come down to sing with everybody. I *almost* went except for one little nagging detail... So I'm tempted to just say I went and had that cool life experience. It's like I want to validate that I had that plan and everything was ready and just some little detail came up that complicated it, so it's not the same as somebody that just didn't think of doing it at all.

Tocky on 28/9/2011 at 04:54

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Spoken like a man who knows how to duck.