RighteousnessTemperance&
Well-Known Member
Boy, you really went on a wild rampage there, didn’t you? Like I said, some people can have a harder time than others with certain rhetorical devices. You obviously fall into that category here, and it appears to lead you into inappropriate judgment and criticism. Realizing this, it’s hard to feel offended by your comments, and I expressed no offense.So, you consider sometimes it is good to lie just because it isn't "to be taken literally" and therefore is excused.
So, let's put this "figure of speech" thinking to a test in your own life experience.
Do you actually trust folks who are known to exaggerate, be outlandish, use overstatements?
How do you view folks known for exaggeration, overstatement, outlandish claims? Folks such as used car salesman, preachers, evangelists, missionaries, politicians, funeral directors, ... who are known to "stretch the truth," make outlandish claims, overstate results, exaggerate effects, use puffery to schmooze, ...
Do you view them as liars? Christ did. See John 8:44
What do you call such as use hyperbole? Liars, or do you trust their statements completely without any reservation and give all you possess into their keeping?
If Christ regularly, occasionally or even rarely used hyperbole, would that present His character as credible and reliable?
Just because it is written down (literature) doesn't make the use any less a lie, except that by adopting the worldly standard of what is right believers then can make excuse for their own exuberant expressiveness.
This thread sought to find whether God and Christ used overstatement, exaggeration, outlandish statements, puffery, ... but so far it seems that more folks are wanting to argue with me over what constitutes a lie.
Is it not true, that the enemy of believers is the Father of all lies and liars? What place has such in the mouth and witness of believers? That some actually excuse as if it were some literary contrivance mocks the very decalogue.
Yet, perhaps God and Christ do.
That was what this thread hoped to discover.
I took a strong specific stand.
It seems to have offended.
Wow, at first I was taken back, now I puzzle, why folks have such standard.
Like I said, I can agree that God doesn’t use “agedman hyperbole.” And I also don’t endorse it. That you can’t discern the difference between it and the legitimate use of rhetorical hyperbole is something all around you will just have to live with. I s’pose we could switch t’ talkin’ ‘bout the weather, but sure as shootin’ someone ‘d say it’s raining cats and dogs and purty soon we’d all be a fightin’ like ‘em.