# You cannot lie about believing in God, so don't worry about discrimination. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 1, 2002, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801 "2002-11-01T05:19:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/21 "2002-11-01T16:08:14Z")
Ooh! Ooh! I can do this one! If God cares about us, the world wouldn’t suck. The world sucks. Therefore, God doesn’t care about us. ---
**Author:** ![Dragline](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/edb3f5/32.png) [@Dragline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragline)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/22 "2002-11-01T16:09:39Z")
Mangetout: I’m sure you don’t need a list of Bible or Koran misfires, there’s plenty of places to see those. I was mainly referring to those I meet in every day life, but an example of an apparently ‘smart’ person would be Billy Graham. His column runs every day in the local paper in which he replies to questions about religion, or life in general. Usually, to whatever question is posed, he replies along the lines “God wants you to do such and such”, as if all the answers are right there in the bible if you would just look. But occasionally, when asked about 9/11 or “Why was my baby born with terminal cancer?”, he just says “Gee, I dunno.” It would seem that you can’t have it both ways. I’m paraphrasing of course, but the general message is “All perfect, all powerful God sent himself down here so that us flawed humans, created in his image along with various spirits and demons, would kill him, and that would save us from all kinds of tortures that he also created - but he wouldn’t stay dead - so if you believe that, without question, you get eternal happiness.” And an apparently smart person can’t see the inconsistency in that? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/23 "2002-11-01T16:19:49Z")
Sorry; I think I may have misunderstood the scope of ‘some’ in the post I responded to; I guess that makes **me** look an idiot now… Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/24 "2002-11-01T16:49:00Z")
To return to the OP for a moment . . . The header says “You cannot lie about believing in God, so don’t worry about discrimination” The implication is that **Justthink** ’s . . . ah . . . equivocation is permissible in order to avoid suffering discrimination (presumably, improper or unjustified discrimination). **Justthink** , do you suffer from discrimination as a non-believer in God, or was this intended in a light-hearted way? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/25 "2002-11-01T17:07:18Z")
Sheesh. Do you believe in God, in a manner consistent with your best, good-faith understanding of the meaning and context in which I’m asking the question, and consistent in your answer with your best, good-faith understanding of how our society will hear and interpret your answer? - Rick ---
**Author:** ![Kalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Kalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalt)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/26 "2002-11-01T19:15:31Z")
Well, half-assed religious people (i.e. the deists who go to church once a year for fire insurance reasons and call themselves christians) are not all idiots, they’re just confused by pascal’s wager. But, the people who are truly religious and believe every word of their religious text are _per se_ idiots. Why do I say this? It’s not based solely on the fact that they’re willing to take a book and believe it was written by the creator of the universe (despite all its inherant contradicitions), although that in and of itself requires a great deal of stupidity. I’ve found that all such people are capable of believing \*anything[/] so long as long as it comports with their worldview. Just the other day a devout muslim told me “did you know that no jews were killed on 9/11?” Of course that implies the jews were all “in on it” and had advance knowledge. I’d have pointed her to [snopes.com](http://snopes.com) (which also debunks the rumor that no muslims aside from the hijackers were killed on 9/11 but somehow I knew she already didn’t believe that rumor) but it would have been futile; as a religious person who will believe anything that sounds good to her, objective Facts (with the capital F) mean nothing to her. All devout religious people (yes, all of them, every single one, 100%, swooping generalization because it’s True with the capital T) are the same way. Thus, they’re all idiots. That doesn’t mean they can’t be my friend, though. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/27 "2002-11-01T19:15:35Z")
Huh. We’re back on that kick about “‘believe’ is somewhere between guessing and knowing for sure” again, huh? Yeah. And “evolution is just a theory, not a fact.” (Don’t bother linking me to the “it’s both a theory and a fact” thing; I know it and agree with it.) To continue that hijack analogy, a fact is merely a datum. A theory is the explanation that accounts for all pertinent data and is contradicted by none of them. It’s not less significant than a fact; it’s **more** so, only in a different way. Likewise, **belief** is not less veracious than evidentiary knowledge, but more so. It’s not intellectual acceptance (or semantic wordgames, as **justhink** demonstrates above) of propositions concerning the likely existence of a supernatural entity evincing the following characteristics…; it’s the certitude of His loving relationship with yourself. It’s a relationship, not a concept. I do not have a clue whether **RT Firefly** or **cjhoworth** happen to have a mole on their left buttocks or what they did on the second Wednesday in April when they were in third grade. This is information about them. But I **know** them, and I know that **I can trust them**. They are my beloved friends, my brother and my sister in Christ. _ **I believe in them** _. And in exactly the same way, but with even more certitude of His lovingkindness and faithfulness to me, I believe in God. ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/28 "2002-11-01T19:50:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by **UDS** \* > [@](#): > > To return to the OP for a moment . . . _shrug_ I didn’t notice the diversion. > [@](#): > > The header says “You cannot lie about believing in God, so don’t worry about discrimination” The implication is that **Justhink** ’s . . . ah . . . equivocation is permissible in order to avoid suffering discrimination (presumably, improper or unjustified discrimination). It’s more about raising a perspective in general and highlighting it. It’s kinda saying that the whole thing is a word game, and that two can play at that game. I’m doing this in raising the issue: How, as as religious person, are you going to narrow down my ‘disbelief’ in God with a bunch of questions and ritual evidence? To the degree that this cannot be resolved, what’s the purpose of the whole system _outside_ of a theft of ‘grandiosity’ that preys upon those with less experiential and physical potence? Isn’t this whole endevour simply a use of non-transparency to rationalize coersion and validate ones liberal use of coersion for their own dominance and non-consentual action? > [@](#): > > **Justhink** , do you suffer from discrimination as a non-believer in God, or was this intended in a light-hearted way? I can certainly take (steal) this luxury in light of the point **Apos** first proposed here. > [@](#): > > _ **Apos** wrote:_ > [@](#): > > Change “religious people” to “people who think religious people are idiots,” and I’d agree with you. I tend to apply this to a very broad spectrum, which _I_ consider to be consistent. There is certainly the opportunity for me to steal that perspective and bask in it’s ‘glory’. It seems that the general point is to find a quality of standardization, so that people don’t ‘get’ to or feel like they ‘have’ to either steal a value in order not to be compromised in society, equally, to feel like they aren’t giving up a value as well. -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/29 "2002-11-01T20:05:37Z")
I found myself realizing quickly that I came into this OP with arms flailing to some degree, and that I don’t know much about english either. (try not to laugh TOO hard, if you’ve been following my posting history to some degree) In light of that, I did a search, and had a very fruitful ‘hit’. I actually found a network which seems to delve into the ‘live’ evolution of philosophical thought and philosophical and linguisic challenges in regards to the whole question of cognition and existence. I need to memorize this stuff at a minimum to provide the degree of argument I was ‘thinking’ I had at my disposal. There may be others who feel more certified to comment on the complexities of language than I !! Regardless, I stand by the principle of the OP, though my argument won’t be much more potent as the issues already raised until I absorb this entire ‘ring’. [http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/](http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/) [http://dmoz.org/Reference/Dictionaries/Etymology/](http://dmoz.org/Reference/Dictionaries/Etymology/) [http://www.geocities.com/etymonline/index.html](http://www.geocities.com/etymonline/index.html) [http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/french/as-sa/EngSem1.html](http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/french/as-sa/EngSem1.html) -Justhink _who dreams about having OED access to dissect_ ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2002, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/30 "2002-11-01T21:12:58Z")
One thing i found interesting when running through the philosophy encyclopedia found in those links above (utm.edu), was that the liar paradox has been ‘academically’ discussed for 2300 years. I wonder how this corresponds to the injection of the liar paradox within the Bible itself, where God declares that he lies and devieves everyone. This would be a rather astute and contemporary addition to Biblical text in regards to ‘infallability’, were the dates to co-incide. -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2002, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/31 "2002-11-02T01:08:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Justhink \* > **I wonder how this corresponds to the injection of the liar paradox within the Bible itself, where God declares that he lies and devieves everyone.** You’re suggesting that there’s a verse quoting God himself saying “everything I ever say is a lie, including this statement”? Ummm… chapter and verse please? ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2002, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/32 "2002-11-02T02:57:53Z")
Ezekial 14:9 is the liar paradox. God doesn’t lie, but he does, but he admits it after the lie has served him, so he doesn’t lie. But he did, and will continue to do so, but he doesn’t because after the lie has served its purpose he tells people about it. It collapses the entire Bible and the very essence of his persona into the liar paradox. “O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived…” (Jer. 20:7). “if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel” (Ezek. 14:9). “Ah, Lord God! Surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reaches unto the soul” (Jer. 4:10). “…God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:9-12). See also: 2 Chron. 18:18-22, 1 Kings 22:20-23 and Jer. 15:18. -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2002, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/33 "2002-11-02T03:01:37Z")
If viewed together the following verses also show God engaged in prevarication. “…of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eat thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17), “God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die” (Gen. 3:3), “the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die” (Gen. 3:4), and “all the days that Adam lived were 930 years and he died” (Gen. 5:5). God said Adam and Eve would die on the day they ate of the tree and the devil said they would not. They ate of it and Adam lived to be 930 years old. In other words, God lied and the devil told the truth. Yet, according to Titus 1:2 “God never lies.” -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2002, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/34 "2002-11-02T03:04:13Z")
“Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take a heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the Lord” (1 Sam. 16:2). The Lord told Samuel to lie also, since he is actually going out to meet a son of Jesse to anoint him king. Yet, we are told in Prov. 12:22 that, “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.” God commands people to be hated by him and abuses them if they do not conform… -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2002, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/35 "2002-11-02T03:09:30Z")
I never did find that statement, which I attributed to God, so the lies are by proxy. However, the extension of forced deception to send someone to hell, or on the off chance that they disobey you, (assuming people have free-will) they are still sent to hell. -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2002, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/36 "2002-11-03T00:05:14Z")
The liar paradox consists of “this statement is a lie”, not a description of someone lying when you didn’t expect that they should, nor someone saying that they never lie when they do ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2002, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/37 "2002-11-03T00:38:45Z")
The liar paradox directly accesses the choice of whether to accept or deny reality. If that statement is a lie, you have denied all common sense (because it’s not actually there); if it is true, then the statement is false, yet the statement _refers to itself_ as being false; anticipating your catagorization of it and redeeming itself from any form of responsibility associated with it. I suggest that you consider the mechanism instead of a rote definition about how it’s ‘supposed’ to look. So the paradox was extended through proxy and encrypted between 1600 pages; it’s still there, clear as can be. Redundant abstraction doesn’t _hide_ the redundancy just because it was abstracted another layer back. -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2002, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/38 "2002-11-03T00:44:04Z")
The liar paradox directly accesses the choice of whether to accept or deny reality. If that statement is a lie, you have denied all common sense (because it’s not actually there); if it is true, then the statement is false, yet the statement _refers to itself_ as being false; anticipating your catagorization of it and redeeming itself from any form of responsibility associated with it. I suggest that you consider the mechanism instead of a rote definition about how it’s ‘supposed’ to look. So the paradox was extended through proxy and encrypted between 1600 pages; it’s still there, clear as can be. Redundant abstraction doesn’t _hide_ the redundancy just because it was abstracted another layer back. -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2002, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/39 "2002-11-03T00:49:40Z")
No - the liar paradox simply isn’t there in the Bible (or at least not in any of the passages you’ve mentioned so far; what you refer to is merely a contradiction and no paradox at all. ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2002, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801/40 "2002-11-03T21:15:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mangetout \* > \*\*No - the liar paradox simply isn’t there in the Bible (or at least not in any of the passages you’ve mentioned so far; what you refer to is merely a contradiction and no paradox at all. \*\* “I lie about the truths necessary to gain my blessings and enter the kingdom of heaven. If you disobey my orders of either lying or honoring my neceassary truths, you cannot enter heaven.” We understand what rules are, we also understand what breaking rules consists of. In this light, it is understood that the selection process is arbitrary; however, we cannot reach that conclusion without violating the the necessity of following His law of absolute standardization. Since God does not follow his own law all of the time, God may directly ask us to violate his law (breaking the “do not worship idol” commandment). However, if we don’t obey his law or his order we are necessarily worshiping an idol and falling out of grace with God. No matter which decision one makes, they are by necessity worshiping the ‘Devil’, which denies the existence of God and forcess one to worship the ‘devil’ by default should they realize this. I’ll try to put it into a form more recognizable as the liar paradox; however, I will note that the abstraction of the liar paradox upon an ‘actual’ being does require modification from the form you’re used to. The paradox is encrypted throughout the whole of the Bible, and is also placed one layer of abstraction back. Another means of approaching this is to address the quote which attributes the Bible’s words as being corrupted by the hands of its scribes; again collapsing the point of the Bible itself as being accountable for anything, while declaring a stance of reality and ethic. Kudos to your knowledge, in that God did not directly quote the liar paradox. -Justhink [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-cannot-lie-about-believing-in-god-so-dont-worry-about-discrimination/134801.md?page=3)