Of course “God hates fags” is an opinion. It is an unverifiable statement, because the existence of God or gods* can neither be proven nor disproven; nor can any say with certainty what God or gods hate,** love, or covet. Anyone who says different is a liar. 
*Except Athena.
** Except that Athena hates the city of Cardiff. That’s so logical it’s obvious.
The issue isn’t the lie, its the morality of lying. Without lies, there would be no fiction. The moral issue has to do with the responsibility of a person to communicate the truth, and not decieve.
You are morally obligated to lie to Nazis when they are looking for Jews in your attic. You are morally obligated to tell the truth if you accuse someone of a crime.
No, the issue is the definition of lying. I checked with the original poster to be sure.
Even as a press secretary, I don’t see them getting that many passes. Too many times and they’re flagged as out of the loop and of limited credibility. For a PS, that’s synonymous with incompetent. They should always have some idea what questions are likely to be coming their way. Or at least most of the time.
What’s more, the guy said he HAD brown hair, which is true. He had brown hair. When he was 15. (Technically, he probably still does on some parts of his body) There’s not really a good term for this kind of thing, but might I suggest a “Lawyer’s Truth?”
Technically, a lie is an intentional untruth. Lying is the act of intending to deceive. It’s entirely possible to deliver a lie in good faith, in which case the lie belongs to whoever convinced the speaker originally.
‘Untruth’, in this context, means something the speaker doesn’t believe is true. Note that people can believe some pretty absurd things. And, sad as it makes me to admit, a lack of intellectual honesty doesn’t usually qualify as a lie, it just makes the speaker an unreliable source.
Deliberate lack of intellectual honesty is a different matter, of course. If a scientist isn’t honest about the results of his experiment, he’s lying, because he’s actively presenting it as evidence for his conclusion. Even if he truly believes his hypothesis. Even if his hypothesis is later proven true. (Yes, Einstein, that was directed at you)
Claiming knowledge of something is without any evidence one way or another, in an deliberate attempt to manipulate someone (some writer was trying to present this as the technical definition of ‘bullshiting’ a few years ago) is lying.
Claiming knowledge of something on evidence that no one else can measure is not, in and of itself. It’s often (but not always) intellectually dishonest. It often leads to actual lying, though, if you’re not up-front about where the belief came from.
More casually, a lie is any intentional deception, weather it involves telling technical lies, or not. In casual conversation, the brown hair guy was lying, as he was deliberately misleading about his appearance.
Casual conversation being defined as ‘any conversation where you wouldn’t spell out “he was technically telling the truth, in a misleading fasion.”
I don’t see a significant moral difference between actively lying and presenting the truth in a deliberately deceptive way.
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There are so many ways to be deceptive. No two are quite the same, like snowflakes. Also like snowflakes, they cover up most of the potholes in the path of life, and it’s easy to slip on them and break your neck, in metaphorical or literal fashion. That’s why we need the bitter rock salt of intellectual honesty. But that’s bad for the plant life of hope, and the small, furry animals of romance, and the water-table of getting laid and/or elected. Many areas have now switched to the gritty sand of willful self-delusion.
I’m a bit surprised that so few of us have selected “A statement of an odious opinion (e.g., “God hates fags,” can be (or always is) a lie.” Such an odious opinion, if stated insincerely but with an intent to convince the listener that the odious opinion is held, can certainly be a lie.
Intent to deceive covers most in my view, as it covers lies by omission and the like. Brown hair is a direct lie in that they almost certainly know the term as commonly communicated has certain assumptions built into it.
But the problem is calling any particular statement a lie is fairly difficult unless the person directly admits it. All we can usually do is be bemused by the amount of self deception or stupidity that exists as an alternative possibility to a deliberate lie.
Otara
Probably because it’s mate right above it specifies ‘sincere,’ and people assumed it was there or was implied. Especially as most of the other questions are in two-part form
Otherwise it implies that simply being odious makes a statement true. Nyarlathotep may approve, but I don’t.
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I always forget to actually vote in these things. And by ‘forget’ I mean refuse to help Skald gather data for nefarious purposes. It would not surprise me if said data were commissioned by nefarious porpoises, but I’m not sure of that yet.
That’s a good point, I was hung up on the “odious” part. The statement of ANY opinion, odious or not, could possibly be a lie, if it’s not actually the speaker’s opinion. I guess I should have voted for that one too…
Yes. Lying is the absence of sincerity.
If a person says that God hates fags because he genuinely believes that, he may be stupid and vile, but he’s not a liar. If a person says that God hates fags not because he believes it, but to advance an agenda, then he’s a liar. And of course, exponentially more vile, but probably less stupid.
The earth is demonstrably not 6000 years old, but if a person states that is because he genuinely believes it, he’s an idiot, not a liar.
If a person tells the visiting SS officer that there are no Jews in the attic, and he is aware that there are in fact Jews in the attic, he is a liar. Good on him, but still… liar.
The intent to deceive is what distinguishes a lie from an honest mistake.
All right, Skald, I’ll bite. What is the drawn out backstory?
It was a joke, dude. Or, alternatively, this is a meta hypothetical, since a lot of my hypos are about honor and honesty.