Well, here's another of my pet topics for this forum. I'm sure every reader here has been impatiently awaiting it.
While there should be no question at all that lying is a sin, suppose then people-- certainly myself; likely some of you reading this-- have a conviction against lying. What will they/you/I do? Always tell the truth to admit all the embarrassing details? Say almost nothing about anything? Even in the latter, there are going to be times when refusing to say anything will cost you-- maybe not just a job or relationship, but fines and jail or prison time.
So, there is that thing about telling the truth in a misleading way. Probably all of us have seen movies or read stories where a person said he or she "calmed him/her down to where (s)he no longer cares," when they actually mean they murdered that person. More reasonably within our domains [I hope], I know I have shared my little story about the man who didn't want to go to work one day... so he asked his wife to bring him a frozen dinner while he was still lying in bed; she brought it, he tossed it up then caught it, and got on the phone and said, "I'm not coming in today; I'm down flat on my back and I just threw up my dinner." What he said is true, unless that particular frozen dinner does not belong to him. And then there are little episodes,like where you may tell a hostess you 'don't care for onion dip,' as she has offered you some you presume is her recipe and you have tried it before and you detested it. And, of course, there is the double entendre, when, as in The Brady Bunch, you don't want to do something at a particular time with a particular someone, so you say "Something suddenly came up." Well, at just about any given time something somewhere is coming up-- the stock market, the water in any sea, the level of the baptistry being filled,... or in one those later BB movies when it had a different meaning still.
The reason this is on my mind is because of the social media, and when you reveal to your "Friends" [a limited list of them] something that just might work against you when all your Friends, then Friend of Friends, and so on, know it. So I thought about replying to this Friend's reply with doubletalk. But I decided to take the chance, slim as I think it is, that his revealing something that I preferred not to be revealed, was 'published' for his own Friends to see. It's ultimately my fault anyway, for letting anyone know something I didn't way just anybody to know.
But what is "telling the truth in a misleading way?" A lie just the same? Hypocrisy? Contrived dishonesty? A device to lessen the bluntness? ... And justified or not? Sin or not?
While there should be no question at all that lying is a sin, suppose then people-- certainly myself; likely some of you reading this-- have a conviction against lying. What will they/you/I do? Always tell the truth to admit all the embarrassing details? Say almost nothing about anything? Even in the latter, there are going to be times when refusing to say anything will cost you-- maybe not just a job or relationship, but fines and jail or prison time.
So, there is that thing about telling the truth in a misleading way. Probably all of us have seen movies or read stories where a person said he or she "calmed him/her down to where (s)he no longer cares," when they actually mean they murdered that person. More reasonably within our domains [I hope], I know I have shared my little story about the man who didn't want to go to work one day... so he asked his wife to bring him a frozen dinner while he was still lying in bed; she brought it, he tossed it up then caught it, and got on the phone and said, "I'm not coming in today; I'm down flat on my back and I just threw up my dinner." What he said is true, unless that particular frozen dinner does not belong to him. And then there are little episodes,like where you may tell a hostess you 'don't care for onion dip,' as she has offered you some you presume is her recipe and you have tried it before and you detested it. And, of course, there is the double entendre, when, as in The Brady Bunch, you don't want to do something at a particular time with a particular someone, so you say "Something suddenly came up." Well, at just about any given time something somewhere is coming up-- the stock market, the water in any sea, the level of the baptistry being filled,... or in one those later BB movies when it had a different meaning still.
The reason this is on my mind is because of the social media, and when you reveal to your "Friends" [a limited list of them] something that just might work against you when all your Friends, then Friend of Friends, and so on, know it. So I thought about replying to this Friend's reply with doubletalk. But I decided to take the chance, slim as I think it is, that his revealing something that I preferred not to be revealed, was 'published' for his own Friends to see. It's ultimately my fault anyway, for letting anyone know something I didn't way just anybody to know.
But what is "telling the truth in a misleading way?" A lie just the same? Hypocrisy? Contrived dishonesty? A device to lessen the bluntness? ... And justified or not? Sin or not?
