Honesty Poll

[Lamb]

Just how honest are you?

 

[Brighten04]

I think people do not really want people to be honest. For instance, a wife asks a husband if a dress looks good on her, or if a dress makes her look fat. He had better not say no I don't like the dress on you, or Yes the dress makes you look fat.

 

[psalms 91]

I believe in honesty, that is not to say that I have never lied but I would call myself brusque

 

[Stravinsk]

Other: Depends entirely on the context and situation.

In life and in dealing with others, I do not like to lie. Sugarcoating is a form of lying, but is not exactly the opposite of brusque. Lies have a way of (oftentimes) getting exposed... if not immediately, then in the longer term. So I do not see it to my benefit to use dishonesty in life for manipulative or selfish ends.

That being said - I have and will lie if I feel the situation is grossly unfair, unreasonable or dangerous to me, in order to protect myself against the greater sin.

Good example is the other MB. I lied about my age, my general location and a few other things under alternates, in order to participate in a place where some were hostile towards me. I could have just left. However, that would be like admitting defeat and the acceptance of various injustices. Now I have left, but not after a few things changed and some things I needed to say were said.

Edit: should be "before" instead of after. Re:strikeout

 

[Full O Beans]

Honesty is my policy, for to lie is to sin. Some people think I am brusque, and sometimes I am when people stonewall against truth and are wicked, but mostly I am truthful and kind with it, as Jesus would have us be.

Ephesians 4:14-15
Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.

 

[Josiah]

This is the example I recall from my Catholic childhood: You are in Nazi Germany. You are hiding a Jewish family in your attic. The Nazi's knock on your door and ask if you've seen this family. Should you LIE - and protect innocent people from death, or tell the truth and become the instrument for what happens to them? The way my CATHOLIC teachers told us is...... in this FALLEN world, a world where things are BROKEN, we are at times stuck between two sins - pretty much whatever we do or don't do, sin will result. Sometimes, we need to pick the lesser of the evils - then REPENT because in God's book, all evil is evil. I'm not SURE I agree with all that, but this much I know: we are all SINFUL and UNCLEAN..... we are all like the publican who can only look down, beat ourselves on the chest, and cry "God be MERCIFUL to ME - the sinner." Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. ON ME. For even when I try to do right, I'm the sinner who deserves nothing but death and hell.

 

[Ruth]

I am mostly honest.

 

[Ruth]

Just how honest are you?

How honest are you Lam?

 

[tango]

I think it depends on the situation.

In general it's good to be honest but sometimes it's good to be tactful about things.

It's easy to be brutal, even obnoxious, while defending poor behavior with an insistence that you're only being honest. As Brighten said if a wife asks her husband if her dress makes her look fat she doesn't want to hear that it does. If it does there are more tactful ways of going about raising the issue than "hey dear, you look like a stuffed sausage in that dress".

I figure it's often good to consider how I'd like to be told what I'm thinking of telling someone else before I say it. Or, to quote from a fortune cookie program I had years ago - "be tactful - think twice before saying nothing".

 

[Ruth]

I think it depends on the situation.

In general it's good to be honest but sometimes it's good to be tactful about things.

It's easy to be brutal, even obnoxious, while defending poor behavior with an insistence that you're only being honest. As Brighten said if a wife asks her husband if her dress makes her look fat she doesn't want to hear that it does. If it does there are more tactful ways of going about raising the issue than "hey dear, you look like a stuffed sausage in that dress".

I figure it's often good to consider how I'd like to be told what I'm thinking of telling someone else before I say it. Or, to quote from a fortune cookie program I had years ago - "be tactful - think twice before saying nothing".

I agree Tango!

 

[Lamb]

How honest are you Lam?

I lie through my teeth. Even about lying :rofl3:

Seriously though, I'm known for telling people how it is without thinking about softening it up. If I'm told to NOT say something to someone though about a secret, I do lie to keep the secret.

 

[Rens]

Normally I don't lie but in some cases I have done it on purpose lol and even prayed for help with the lying. It is terrible. My ex was do stupid to call the kids' cops and then they had no time so either he had to stay with me all the time when I had the kids or I had to lie that I didn't have them alone and they didn't sleep with me or they could start a procedure to take them from us. Now my kids had to shut up too and I didn't want them to have to lie so I prayed for it. That was so funny, she asked my 8 year old questions to see if they really only stayed with dad - I was so smart to lie that he did everything perfect - and he started to talk about his stuffed animals. Now and this is Dirk. It's a girl but she has a boy's name and he went on and on and on and she got so sick of it, she said go to your room please. I have to speak to your parents. So glad this whole stupid nonsense is over and finally someone saw that there was nothing the matter. My goodness, it was just like with Corrie ten Boom having to lie to the Nazi's. My ex just wanted me to get some help so he exaggerated. Well he learned from it.

 

[Lamb]

Sometimes we have to choose the lesser of the evils it seems?

 

[Alithis]

Sometimes we have to choose the lesser of the evils it seems?

can we explore that ? is it really the case ?

i suppose we would have to define "what is a lie "

and thats going to differ a whole lot im guessing ,being perceptional through differing levels of present understanding .
-forme , a lie is (in ONE ASPECT) presenting information ,true or otherwise with "INTENT" to mislead the hearers, either to harm or the speaker's self motivated profit .

jesus said satan is a liar and the father of lies .. it strongly says that the entire practice of misleading information..or correct information used for evil intent - originates with satan .

-----
so with that line of thought in mind .. is using misleading information correct or otherwise ,in order to protect the innocent from harm .. a lie ? -its a tricky topic

 

[tango]

can we explore that ? is it really the case ?

i suppose we would have to define "what is a lie "

and thats going to differ a whole lot im guessing ,being perceptional through differing levels of present understanding .
-forme , a lie is (in ONE ASPECT) presenting information ,true or otherwise with "INTENT" to mislead the hearers, either to harm or the speaker's self motivated profit .

jesus said satan is a liar and the father of lies .. it strongly says that the entire practice of misleading information..or correct information used for evil intent - originates with satan .

-----
so with that line of thought in mind .. is using misleading information correct or otherwise ,in order to protect the innocent from harm .. a lie ? -its a tricky topic

I think "it's a tricky topic" nails it pretty well.

In a simplistic world we might say "it's a sin to lie" and leave it at that. Nice and easy - truth good, untruth bad. But then we hit the real world that isn't always nice and clear cut. What to do, for example, if we see a young woman running past us with her clothes ripped and torn, bloodied and obviously in a panic, and a couple of minutes later a man with a bloody knife asks where she went? Horribly cliched admittedly, but what is the most appropriate course of action? If it's as simple as "lies are sinful" then the only thing we could do is tell the man where the young woman had gone.

If we look at the Jewish law that said "by the mouths of two or three shall the matter be established" it's pretty clear why "You shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor" is important. This isn't about telling your wife the dress doesn't really make her look like a stuffed sausage, it's about saying you witnessed someone doing something they didn't do because they could face execution over it. Other versions talk of testifying falsely against a neighbor, giving false testimony, false witness etc.

The devil is the father of lies, although it's perhaps worth looking at the purpose behind his lies. It's not to protect people, it's not to encourage, it's to tear down and destroy. There's a world of difference between the lies the devil tells and the kind of untruth that's technically a lie that sees us telling a friend we don't have any plans this weekend when the truth is we're going to a surprise party held in their honor.

 

[Josiah]

I think "it's a tricky topic" nails it pretty well.

In a simplistic world we might say "it's a sin to lie" and leave it at that. Nice and easy - truth good, untruth bad. But then we hit the real world that isn't always nice and clear cut. What to do, for example, if we see a young woman running past us with her clothes ripped and torn, bloodied and obviously in a panic, and a couple of minutes later a man with a bloody knife asks where she went? Horribly cliched admittedly, but what is the most appropriate course of action? If it's as simple as "lies are sinful" then the only thing we could do is tell the man where the young woman had gone.

I agree with your point. BUT the reality that lying may at times be lesser evil before us doesn't make it any less sin or any less evil. IMO, such is simply the result of living in a fallen, broken, sinful world. In a PERFECT world, such conflict, such a situation would not happen. But this is not a perfect world....

And it confirms that we are ALL sinful and unclean, we ALL fall short of the mark, there is NO ONE who is righteous no not even one, NO ONE can boast of their rightousness. All as the Bible states, repeatedly. So much for those who claim to do the will of God, who claim to be righteous, who call for justice from God rather than mercy, who come into the temple shouting to God "I'm GLAD I'm not like all other human beings who are sinners, I've done everything, I've failed at nothing!"


Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

On us ALL.




- Josiah

 

[TurtleHare]

Sugar and spice ain't my middle name. Just sayin. I'll tell you how it is.

 

[tango]

I agree with your point. BUT the reality that lying may at times be lesser evil before us doesn't make it any less sin or any less evil. IMO, such is simply the result of living in a fallen, broken, sinful world. In a PERFECT world, such conflict, such a situation would not happen. But this is not a perfect world....

And it confirms that we are ALL sinful and unclean, we ALL fall short of the mark, there is NO ONE who is righteous no not even one, NO ONE can boast of their rightousness. All as the Bible states, repeatedly. So much for those who claim to do the will of God, who claim to be righteous, who call for justice from God rather than mercy, who come into the temple shouting to God "I'm GLAD I'm not like all other human beings who are sinners, I've done everything, I've failed at nothing!" - Josiah

The trouble with the "no less evil" argument is that it's very easy to create a situation where it seems whatever we do is sinful. I don't buy the idea that such a situation can even exist because if we can end up in a situation, through no fault of our own, where whatever we do is sinful, then we have to ask the question of what Jesus would have done in just such a situation. So, using the example of the young woman with torn clothes apparently fleeing something or someone, what would Jesus do when asked where she went? The Bible doesn't tell us explicitly but I think it's safe to say he would have found a way through it that wouldn't involve sinning, so either misdirecting the man with the knife or pointing him in the right direction is not sinful.

My own thoughts are that I struggle to accept that it's sinful to misdirect the man with the knife. I may be wrong on that, and I'm open to Scriptural arguments that say I am wrong. I struggle even more to accept that any action is sinful and there's any relevant concept of determining which course of action is a lesser sin.

 

[Alithis]

I think "it's a tricky topic" nails it pretty well.

In a simplistic world we might say "it's a sin to lie" and leave it at that. Nice and easy - truth good, untruth bad. But then we hit the real world that isn't always nice and clear cut. What to do, for example, if we see a young woman running past us with her clothes ripped and torn, bloodied and obviously in a panic, and a couple of minutes later a man with a bloody knife asks where she went? Horribly cliched admittedly, but what is the most appropriate course of action? If it's as simple as "lies are sinful" then the only thing we could do is tell the man where the young woman had gone.

If we look at the Jewish law that said "by the mouths of two or three shall the matter be established" it's pretty clear why "You shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor" is important. This isn't about telling your wife the dress doesn't really make her look like a stuffed sausage, it's about saying you witnessed someone doing something they didn't do because they could face execution over it. Other versions talk of testifying falsely against a neighbor, giving false testimony, false witness etc.

The devil is the father of lies, although it's perhaps worth looking at the purpose behind his lies. It's not to protect people, it's not to encourage, it's to tear down and destroy. There's a world of difference between the lies the devil tells and the kind of untruth that's technically a lie that sees us telling a friend we don't have any plans this weekend when the truth is we're going to a surprise party held in their honor.

in that simplistic scenario you gave ..we must not leave out the other option -our options are never only lie or not .
we can be fully truthful without further endangering a victim .

we need not answer the question .".which way did she" simply becaseu ts asked .we can say . "im not telling you until i know what your intent is and why ".. YES that entails putting self in danger .but thats what love did for us ,to the death of the one who loved . we have this assurance ...God will raise us up again .

the thing about a lie..misleading information for what ever purpose ..is by our own conscience we know immediately when we have done it -and THAT is the bottom line

 

[tango]

in that simplistic scenario you gave ..we must not leave out the other option -our options are never only lie or not .
we can be fully truthful without further endangering a victim .

we need not answer the question .".which way did she" simply becaseu ts asked .we can say . "im not telling you until i know what your intent is and why ".. YES that entails putting self in danger .but thats what love did for us ,to the death of the one who loved . we have this assurance ...God will raise us up again .

the thing about a lie..misleading information for what ever purpose ..is by our own conscience we know immediately when we have done it -and THAT is the bottom line

But to say "I need to know your intent" then means we could end up endangering the poor girl if the guy with the knife lied about trying to help her. Yes, it's possible that he's the one who fought off her assailant (all sorts of scenarios are theoretically possible), but unless you want to try and verify what he says there and then you still end up with the decision to make whether to pass on correct information.

I agree with your comments about our own conscience, and I think in such a situation there's a good chance that whatever we did we'd spend some time second-guessing ourselves wondering whether we did the right thing.

In a more simplistic situation if someone asks if we have any plans for the weekend and our plan for the weekend is to attend a surprise party in their honor then to say that we don't really have any plans is technically a lie, to make out that we're just meeting a couple of friends is arguably closer to the truth but still isn't really true, but to spill the beans wrecks the surprise and destroys much of the work of the organiser of it. In that situation personally I'd have a perfectly clear conscience in saying something that, while technically not true, didn't give the game away.

I honestly don't think we can reduce all the complexities of life to a universal "truth good, untruth bad" concept.