I explain in this thread —
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=878125
and yes I am doing it. I use the pronouns E, em, es, and emself in posts here and in other places.
I’m not the only one in the world who is doing something similar
Steve is an idiot. Humorous tales are not lies if everyone knows they are not true.
No, he’s an asshole. Completely different thing. A simple idiot would refrain from telling whimsical anecdotes himself but not fret about what others do. An asshole would try to force his opinion on others.
Steve and I have had this silly discussion before. The first time, I pointed out that Jesus used parables throughout the Synoptics, and so anyone who believes Jesus was sinless cannot therefore also hold that lies are sinful and that non-truthful statements in parable or fabulous form are lies. He remained intransigent, insisting that every word Jesus is recorded as uttering must be by definition literally true, even things like the parable of the sheep and the goats on Judgment Day. That discussion was one of the reasons I resolved to avoid further one-on-one conversations with him (though the straw that broke the camels back was his insistence that Jesus & Company all wrote & spoke English, since that is what the king James version of the Bible is recorded in and only that is the inspired word of God.)
The Steve story as presented in the OP is so bizarre that it can’t be the whole story. IT’s like he’s a Thermian from “Galaxy Quest.” I think he just hates Skald.
The thing is that no human being I am aware of would ever apply that definition of lying consistently. EVERYONE likes at least some movies, plays, TV or stories, and no one watches “Star Wars” and thinks it’s a live feed.
No, there are actual people who are like that. People exist in the world–perhaps not many, but they exist–who won’t read or watch any work of fiction because it’s a lie according to their religion. The only thing that is true is the Bible.
Agreed: I’ve encountered people—only rarely and usually only by reputation—who believed that any sort of fiction was lying.
I guess they assumed that Jesus’s parables were accounts of things that actually happened.
For the record, I agree with Skald and everyone else that, if the person you’re talking to knows that what you’re saying is not true, and you know they know, you’re not lying to them. At least not in any sense of the word “lying” that makes it immoral, unethical, or sinful.
To look at it from the other end: if any not-literally-true statement is a lie, then the word lie loses a lot of its current meaning, and becomes less useful. So, we could make it mean that, but it would be a pointless exercise. Therefore we’re all better off if it doesn’t mean that.
At least one novelist disagrees with you: Ursula Kroeber LeGuin.
Of course, LeGuin’s not saying people shouldn’t write novels. And I’m sure she wouldn’t have said nobody should tell tall tales to their sick relatives to make them laugh.
It seems to me that part of what’s going on here is a common misunderstanding of how people use language. To the question of which of these is the correct definition (quote from the OP):
i’d say that those are all correct definitions; which is meant, like the meaning of ‘organic’ or of ‘dog’, depends on the context. The problem it seems to me that “Steve” is having is twofold: one, he’s insisting on using definition 1 in all contexts; two, he’s insisting that all lies, in the sense of definition 1, are wrong – he’d probably say ‘sinful’.
I sometimes teach a magic club to kids, and early on I tell them that a good magician is lying to the audience. They’re shocked, and then I explain that magic is weird that way. You’re saying false things that you know are false in an attempt to get people to believe something false.
But it’s okay, and arguably not lying, because they know what you’re doing in general. A lot of the fun of magic comes from the implicit competition between the magician and the audience. While they don’t know exactly what your lie is, they know that you’re lying (either with words or with actions). And an honest magician is going to lie, but will tell the truth about lying. They don’t actually try to convince the audience that they have supernatural powers, any more than the Shakespearean actor genuinely wants the audience to believe she’s fallen dead on stage.
That’s the most gray-area kind of lying I can think of; and as long as there’s some level where the audience knows the truth (even if only in the most general, meta terms), it’s not really lying.
Yes, I’m on this side adding with the intent to deceive. But what about if the “falsehood,” by some happy accident or weird turn of events, ends up or turns out to be true? I suppose it’s not a lie by the court of law, but it would still strike me ethically as a lie as you were deliberately relaying what you thought to be (or was at the time) a falsehood with the intent to deceive.
I would say that a lie is a statement which the speaker believes to be untrue, spoken for the purpose of deception (where “speaking” of course includes other forms of language as well). Your stories were not lies, as they were not spoken for the purpose of deception. A true statement spoken for the purpose of deception is also not a lie, though for different reasons. And any sort of statement can be made for ethical or unethical reasons, though of course it’s easier to find examples of unethical deception.
I have an actual example of that. Back in my 20s, when I was working as a retail commission electronics sales person, I had a coworker I despised. He eventually got fired. I changed Store’s (but not companies) and one day saw him in my new store. At that time, There was a thief making the rounds of stores in our city opening up registers via no sales and grabbing cash. Mostly to be a jerk, I intimated to my new store’s security department that my hated ex coworker might be that person. To my surprise, he turned out to be guilty. So my spiteful report, uttered only from an immature desire to cause him trouble,was the truth. but I had enough integrity to recognize that it was a lie, and I declined the financial reward offered by store management for catching the thief. Taking that money felt like stealing.
Make it two: mystery writer Lawrence Block’s book about writing is called Telling Lies for Fun and Profit. (That’s an Amazon link, but I’m not necessarily encouraging you to buy it; just pointing out that it exists).
I tend to agree that intent to deceive is the major factor in what we usually consider a lie, and a tall tale narrated for amusement, which both teller and listener know is not true, doesn’t qualify.
The broader position, that any statement known to be false is a lie, no matter the intent, may be technically correct, but I don’t find that to be a useful definition. Contrary to what Futurama may tell you, “technically correct” is NOT, in fact, the best kind of correct. But Skald and Acsenry are right that there are a few people who seem to hold to that, and will not read or watch fiction for that reason. There are also people who hold that it would be morally unacceptable to lie to the Gestapo about the Jews you’re hiding in your basement.
I also agree that it is possible to tell the absolute truth, but do so in a way that is still intended to deceive the listener. This is usually done by omitting important details. My mother always called these “lies of omission,” and she made it perfectly clear that they still counted as lies!
I’m confused. An analogy is by definition not a true/false thing, it’s not even a statement of truth, it’s an analogy. If I said, *“For Amazon to acquire this new company in a merger is akin to a football team already leading by several touchdowns trying to rub in the score with five more touchdowns yet,” *that’s not even a true/false statement - that’s an analogy.
How are parables by Jesus, such as sheep and goats, even about truth/falsehood? He obviously is not literally saying that there are literal shaggy-wooled sheep and goats standing in front of God.
It wasn’t just your mom. A “lie of omission,” or, more usually IME, “lying by omission” is a standard type of lie.
I probably miss identified the parable. I am referring to the account in Matthew where Jesus explains what will happen to people on judgment day being based on how they treated the needy and unfortunate during their lives.
No, that’s the correct parable - the sheep and the goats is a reference to people being judged based off of how they took care of other people in need.
What I don’t understand is why you would consider that parable to be a false/untrue statement by Jesus.
Yeah, but my mom totally invented the idea!
(This may be a statement made for the sake of amusement, which is not 100% in accord with the truth).
I recall coming across a Roman Catholic list of kinds of untrue statements that would not be considered lies and thus not require repentance. One of these was the jocose lie, which is not expected to be accepted as true by anyone present place.
Here’s the parable (NIV version):
The bolded parts are clearly metaphors, particular the first bolded section, but a metaphor is, by some definitions used in this thread, a lie. Jesus isn’t literally going to put sheep on His right and goats on His left, so that’s a “false” statement.
Similarly, His statements about folks helping Him or not helping Him aren’t literally true - He’s not saying that everyone you see in need is secretly Him in disguise testing you. (Although, I think there are at least some Christians that take that part as literally true, but that goes down a theological rabbit hole).