Religious Teachings on When It's OK to Lie?

I have a few experiences with religious people lying for the purposes of promoting their religions. I mean outright lying, with intention.

What are some sources from religions on when it’s okay to lie? I don’t mean complex triage or life-or-death situations (e.g. you can lie to the guy who would otherwise kill you). I mean regular everyday sorts of situations – lying to protect the honor of a sage, lying for the purposes of getting an evangelical text into somebody’s hands, lying to get a person into a place of worship, lying to avoid looking bad, that sort of thing.

I’m sure you asked this question expecting to get answers from Christians and Jews and possibly Muslims, but you’re about to get one from a neopagan, 'cause I’m up early. :wink:

Ethics in neopagan religions tends to be left up to each person to develop for themselves; personal responsibility is very high on our list of values. Many of our paths share some sort of notion of “karma”* or the Wiccan “Rule of Three”, which is the idea that whatever energy or intent you put out into the world you will receive directed back at you, generally more intense or more frequently than you yourself do it. If you habitually lie, you will find yourself being lied to in turn, even more than you lie. The mechanism of this “rule” is not explained or important to most people, but I do personally think about it a lot. It may be because honest people will no longer hang out with you and the only friends you have left are liars, or because when people learn you lie, they figure lying isn’t so bad, so they lie too, or other reasons. (For example, I’m buying a used car later today. I will lie about my budget when I’m first asked. I will, no doubt about it. But I will not expect the salesman to be truthful to me, either, and so I will verify every possible word that comes out of his lying mouth before I buy a car. A used car lot is an excellent example of how a history of lying creates more lies coming back to the liars.)

We also tend to share the idea that to infringe on another person’s Free Will is generally a bad thing. Lying to a person takes away their ability to make a real choice, and thus can be considered infringing on their Free Will.

Now, are there times when it’s worth it? Absolutely. I would, personally, lie to a rapist to trick him into a closet with a lock on it so that he can’t leave while we wait for the police to arrive. I’ve very clearly infringed on his Free Will, both by lying and by restricting his choice of movement. I may choose to do that, but I do so with clear acceptance that when the police arrive, the rapist is likely to lie and claim I was the aggressor, and the police may take ME into custody for false imprisonment and thus restrict my Free Will for a time. Lies and restriction of movement may come back to me amplified in the immediate future, or they may wait a while, but sooner or later, I will probably experience them if I practice them.

So if a young person came to me in my role as priestess and asked me what our religion had to say about lying, I’d remind her of these concepts, and ask her what she thought about it. She’d probably come to conclude that lying in general, overmuch or habitually is less useful than generally being truthful. If she thought about it enough, she’d realize that there may indeed be times when lying is preferable to telling the truth, but that it helps to go into such situations knowing that you’re creating an atmosphere which will encourage falsehoods, and to be exceeding careful about believing other people in return. She’d also realize that, as a moral agent responsible for creating her world, only she can choose when it’s worth it to lie. I can’t tell her that. I can tell her what I would choose and what sort of world I try to create around me, but she’s the one who has to decide for her.

*The Western, New Age version of Karma where you get what’s coming to you eventually. Not precisely the Eastern Karma from Hinduism.

Not exactly what you are looking for, as it is not a call to lie to someone.

But

Hindu scripture says, “don’t speak unpalatable truths”.

Satyam bruyat priyam bruyat
Na bruyat satyam apriyam
Priyam ca naanrutam bruyat
Esha dharmah santanahaa

Translated as

Satyam brooyaat priyam brooyaat - speak the truth, speak the pleasant
Na brooyaat satyam apriyam - never speak the unpleasant truths
Na ca brooyaat priyam anrutam - and, also never speak the pleasant untruths.