What's a Lie?

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by orcot, Dec 23, 2012.

  1. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    Person A tell to party 1 Do not drink of the water because you will get burned
    Person B says water will not burn you
    Party 1 drinks water and doesn't get burned
    Person A noticed and attacks party 1 with a flamethrower, part 1 get's burned


    Who lied? (and is person B the one to blame here)
    Person A or person B?

    (it's a allegory of adam and eve's tempting of the apple feel free to point out where the similarities fail)
     
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  3. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    Neither lied. The water did not burn him, but he did get burned as a consequence of drinking the water. He simply did not heed the warning about consequences.

    Everything except "Person A noticed and attacks party 1 with a flamethrower, part 1 get's burned" is a fairly accurate analogy.
     
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  5. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    As an allegory, it doesn't quite work. The problem in the OP is a semantic one; in the bible story, there is no misunderstanding: "Of that tree, thou shalt not eat" is not a warning but a clear or-else command. The serpent saying "God will not kill you." is a either a lie or a strategic miscalculation (Satan may well have believed that God was too deeply invested in his creations to waste them, or perhaps that God would find them too interesting to kill, once they became as clever as gods - after all, he had lost his more challenging companions in the civil war; yes-angels are boh-ring!).

    As a mythological treatment of the human condition, the Eden story is right up there with Pandora's box. The loss of innocence is the beginning of mortality.
     
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  7. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    No one. Some people are just sadistic. You wrote about it, how you doin'?

    Did B man know he had the weapon? Did party 1 observe this flamethrower? It is not something to be hidden there. I would say man A is irrational, and both man b, and party 1 must have seen the weapon. No one lied, just three more idiots going their way.

    All hypothetical.
     
  8. Thoreau Valued Senior Member

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    And this deals with religion how?
     
  9. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    Because religions are all based upon lies.
     
  10. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Thus:
    It was included in the Jewish holy books among the earliest myths brought from Mesopotamia, along with the flood story and both versions of the fratricide story (Cain & Abel; Jacob & Esau: herdsman vs farmer). Before the nomadic tribes had written texts, they all shared a regional oral tradition. Myths are not lies; they are observations of the human condition and human nature, told in succinct and memorable language: they are identifiers of a culture, its origins and attitudes.
     
  11. elte Valued Senior Member

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    I'd say it's more like trying deflect blame than lying.
     
  12. gmilam Valued Senior Member

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    Neither lied. Person B said, the water will not burn you - that was true.

    Person A said, you will get burned - that was also true.

    Person A is also an asshole.
     
  13. Crunchy Cat F-in' *meow* baby!!! Valued Senior Member

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    ^^^^^^ Correct answer.
     
  14. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    A lie occurs, if you know the correct answer/information, but deliberately give false information or misrepresent the truth. Lying has more to do with motivation, than with the information itself.

    If you sincerely believed in misinformation, and you relayed that information to someone, in good faith, this is not a lie. There is no intent to decieve. A lie occurs when there is a conscious intent to decieve.

    Newtonian gravity has been superseded by Relativity. When Isaac Newton came up with his version of gravity, he sincerely believed this was true. When it taught it, he was not trying to lie or decieve, even if today it has been superseded. His intent was honest and he should not be judge out of the context of his time since information changes.

    In Adam and Eve and the tree of knowledge, Satan lies to Eve, since he was trying to con her about the truth. But Eve does not lie to Adam. since she naive of the lie/truth, but thought she was doing Adam a favor.

    Satan does not lie to Adam ,since Adam could sense the lie. But since Eve was not lying based on her intent, Adam believes her.
     
  15. Thoreau Valued Senior Member

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    That's a pretty bold and overly-inclusive statement.

    I wouldn't go so far as to say that they are based on lies. Rather, I would say that many are based on mis-truths and dis-information. If someone firmly believes something that they teach others, regardless of the lack of supporting evidence or believability, I wouldn't say that it's a lie, necessarily. It's a personal truth for them, even if it's not a universal truth.
     

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