Lying and certain situations

[agnosticatheist]

Christians, you are instructed in the Old and New Testaments not to lie, not to be deceitful, etc (By the Old Testament, I am referring primarily to the command not to lie in the Ten Commandments; if you are a Christian who thinks the Ten Commandments don't apply to you, then you are just instructed not to lie, not to be deceitful, etc in the New Testament). Also, when I used to be a Christian, there was this idea I encountered, and I think it was either mainly or exclusively at the church I used to attend, that the Christian walk is supposed to extend to every part of your life. Maybe this is not a common idea in Christianity; maybe most strains of Christianity believe that the instructions of the Bible only apply to certain areas of their lives, or only apply when it is convenient for them.

Now, that being said, what if you are in one of the following situations:

A: You could either lie to save one or more people, or not lie and they die; what would you do? Let me add a slight change up to that question: What if at least one of the people you could save by lying is a child? Would you lie and save them, or not lie and thus let them die?

B: You are a law enforcement worker and you have the legal authority to lie; you are involved in an effort to catch a serial killer and bring them to justice. Do you lie while attempting to trick interviewees, who may be hiding important information, into revealing the aforementioned important information, or do you not lie and thus make your investigation more difficult than it needs to be, and thus increase the odds that the killer will remain free and kill innocent people?

C: You are a CIA field officer; you work in a foreign country, and have a network of citizens in the country who are working with you. You get questioned about your relationship to them by someone from the foreign country's government; you could either lie and keep those people from being exposed, and possibly tortured and killed (their familes could also be tortured and killed), or you could not lie and those people get exposed, and possibly tortured and killed (their families could also get tortured and killed). What do you do?

[tam]

Peace to you AA,

Christians, you are instructed in the Old and New Testaments not to lie, not to be deceitful, etc (By the Old Testament, I am referring primarily to the command not to lie in the Ten Commandments; if you are a Christian who thinks the Ten Commandments don't apply to you, then you are just instructed not to lie, not to be deceitful, etc in the New Testament). Also, when I used to be a Christian, there was this idea I encountered, and I think it was either mainly or exclusively at the church I used to attend, that the Christian walk is supposed to extend to every part of your life. Maybe this is not a common idea in Christianity; maybe most strains of Christianity believe that the instructions of the Bible only apply to certain areas of their lives, or only apply when it is convenient for them.

(Just an fyi, I think the commandment you are referring to from the ten commandments is "do not bear false witness against your neighbor'. This is a lie, but a specific kind of lie.)


To the rest, I agree that if one is a Christian, and a disciple of Christ, then one follows and obeys Christ in all areas of their life.

Now, that being said, what if you are in one of the following situations:

A: You could either lie to save one or more people, or not lie and they die; what would you do? Let me add a slight change up to that question: What if at least one of the people you could save by lying is a child? Would you lie and save them, or not lie and thus let them die?

That might depend upon the situation and upon what I would have to lie about. I will elaborate in your "C" scenario.

B: You are a law enforcement worker and you have the legal authority to lie; you are involved in an effort to catch a serial killer and bring them to justice. Do you lie while attempting to trick interviewees, who may be hiding important information, into revealing the aforementioned important information, or do you not lie and thus make your investigation more difficult than it needs to be, and thus increase the odds that the killer will remain free and kill innocent people?

If I was uncomfortable with lying, I would not put myself in a line of work that would require me to lie. I am uncomfortable with lying.

C: You are a CIA field officer; you work in a foreign country, and have a network of citizens in the country who are working with you. You get questioned about your relationship to them by someone from the foreign country's government; you could either lie and keep those people from being exposed, and possibly tortured and killed (their familes could also be tortured and killed), or you could not lie and those people get exposed, and possibly tortured and killed (their families could also get tortured and killed). What do you do?

I would lie.


Before you (or someone else) suggest that I am only being a Christian when it is easy... here is the thing: there is no law against love (Galatians 5:22, 23). And even if lying was still a sin, love covers over a multitude of sins (1Peter 4:8; Proverbs 10:12). In this case, I am lying to protect people and their families, and I am doing so out of love.

It would be the same for those people who hid Jews during the Holocaust, and lied that they had not seen Jews or that they were not helping Jews. They were doing their best to keep people safe from a terrible persecution, out of love for their fellow man, also following the golden rule. It would also be MERCY, which God desires, and mercy comes from love.

Because of course the law of God is LOVE:


Love God with your whole heart, mind, soul and love your neighbor as yourself (the two commandments that Christ said were the greatest and the two that all the rest hang off). Love also your enemies. Love one another as Christ loved us.



Love is the law that is written upon the heart. And against love, there is no law.


That makes sense, does it not? If God is love (just as He is called and described as being), how can there be a law against love?




Peace to you and to your household,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[agnosticatheist]

Peace to you AA,

Christians, you are instructed in the Old and New Testaments not to lie, not to be deceitful, etc (By the Old Testament, I am referring primarily to the command not to lie in the Ten Commandments; if you are a Christian who thinks the Ten Commandments don't apply to you, then you are just instructed not to lie, not to be deceitful, etc in the New Testament). Also, when I used to be a Christian, there was this idea I encountered, and I think it was either mainly or exclusively at the church I used to attend, that the Christian walk is supposed to extend to every part of your life. Maybe this is not a common idea in Christianity; maybe most strains of Christianity believe that the instructions of the Bible only apply to certain areas of their lives, or only apply when it is convenient for them.

(Just an fyi, I think the commandment you are referring to from the ten commandments is "do not bear false witness against your neighbor'. This is a lie, but a specific kind of lie.)


To the rest, I agree that if one is a Christian, and a disciple of Christ, then one follows and obeys Christ in all areas of their life.

Now, that being said, what if you are in one of the following situations:

A: You could either lie to save one or more people, or not lie and they die; what would you do? Let me add a slight change up to that question: What if at least one of the people you could save by lying is a child? Would you lie and save them, or not lie and thus let them die?

That might depend upon the situation and upon what I would have to lie about. I will elaborate in your "C" scenario.

B: You are a law enforcement worker and you have the legal authority to lie; you are involved in an effort to catch a serial killer and bring them to justice. Do you lie while attempting to trick interviewees, who may be hiding important information, into revealing the aforementioned important information, or do you not lie and thus make your investigation more difficult than it needs to be, and thus increase the odds that the killer will remain free and kill innocent people?

If I was uncomfortable with lying, I would not put myself in a line of work that would require me to lie. I am uncomfortable with lying.

C: You are a CIA field officer; you work in a foreign country, and have a network of citizens in the country who are working with you. You get questioned about your relationship to them by someone from the foreign country's government; you could either lie and keep those people from being exposed, and possibly tortured and killed (their familes could also be tortured and killed), or you could not lie and those people get exposed, and possibly tortured and killed (their families could also get tortured and killed). What do you do?

I would lie.


Before you (or someone else) suggest that I am only being a Christian when it is easy... here is the thing: there is no law against love (Galatians 5:22, 23). And even if lying was still a sin, love covers over a multitude of sins (1Peter 4:8; Proverbs 10:12). In this case, I am lying to protect people and their families, and I am doing so out of love.

It would be the same for those people who hid Jews during the Holocaust, and lied that they had not seen Jews or that they were not helping Jews. They were doing their best to keep people safe from a terrible persecution, out of love for their fellow man, also following the golden rule. It would also be MERCY, which God desires, and mercy comes from love.

Because of course the law of God is LOVE:


Love God with your whole heart, mind, soul and love your neighbor as yourself (the two commandments that Christ said were the greatest and the two that all the rest hang off). Love also your enemies. Love one another as Christ loved us.



Love is the law that is written upon the heart. And against love, there is no law.


That makes sense, does it not? If God is love (just as He is called and described as being), how can there be a law against love?




Peace to you and to your household,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

So if you do something that is normally a sin, out of love, then it is not a sin because you are doing it out of love? Interesting. So say a man and woman are in a loving, committed relationship and they have premarital sex? Is their premarital sex not a sin?

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by agnosticatheist]

Instructed inscripture to lie? No, I know of no such instruction.

On the contrary Christians are instructed to conduct themselves honestly in all things.


A: You could either lie to save one or more people, or not lie and they die; what would you do?

• As a Christian I believe that lies are from the Devil so I don't believe it is ever justified to lie. That said I don't believe I am under under obligation to answer every question asked of me or provide information to those that have no right to it, so there may well be situations where I would refuse to answer questions if the answers would endanger those I love.
  
  I would never choose to work for the CIA or any other agency that would put me into a position that would compromise my Christian values.

JEHOVAH'S WITNESS

[1213]

...
C: You are a CIA field officer; you work in a foreign country, and have a network of citizens in the country who are working with you. You get questioned about your relationship to them by someone from the foreign country's government; you could either lie and keep those people from being exposed, and possibly tortured and killed (their familes could also be tortured and killed), or you could not lie and those people get exposed, and possibly tortured and killed (their families could also get tortured and killed). What do you do?

Don’t you know that only siths deal in absolutes?

I try to avoid lying in all situations and seek the way that I can remain in truth, without causing evil or bad things. And maybe this is one way to solve the problem:


Sometimes it may be better to not speak at all.

[tam]

Peace to you AA,

Peace to you AA,

Christians, you are instructed in the Old and New Testaments not to lie, not to be deceitful, etc (By the Old Testament, I am referring primarily to the command not to lie in the Ten Commandments; if you are a Christian who thinks the Ten Commandments don't apply to you, then you are just instructed not to lie, not to be deceitful, etc in the New Testament). Also, when I used to be a Christian, there was this idea I encountered, and I think it was either mainly or exclusively at the church I used to attend, that the Christian walk is supposed to extend to every part of your life. Maybe this is not a common idea in Christianity; maybe most strains of Christianity believe that the instructions of the Bible only apply to certain areas of their lives, or only apply when it is convenient for them.

(Just an fyi, I think the commandment you are referring to from the ten commandments is "do not bear false witness against your neighbor'. This is a lie, but a specific kind of lie.)


To the rest, I agree that if one is a Christian, and a disciple of Christ, then one follows and obeys Christ in all areas of their life.

Now, that being said, what if you are in one of the following situations:

A: You could either lie to save one or more people, or not lie and they die; what would you do? Let me add a slight change up to that question: What if at least one of the people you could save by lying is a child? Would you lie and save them, or not lie and thus let them die?

That might depend upon the situation and upon what I would have to lie about. I will elaborate in your "C" scenario.

B: You are a law enforcement worker and you have the legal authority to lie; you are involved in an effort to catch a serial killer and bring them to justice. Do you lie while attempting to trick interviewees, who may be hiding important information, into revealing the aforementioned important information, or do you not lie and thus make your investigation more difficult than it needs to be, and thus increase the odds that the killer will remain free and kill innocent people?

If I was uncomfortable with lying, I would not put myself in a line of work that would require me to lie. I am uncomfortable with lying.

C: You are a CIA field officer; you work in a foreign country, and have a network of citizens in the country who are working with you. You get questioned about your relationship to them by someone from the foreign country's government; you could either lie and keep those people from being exposed, and possibly tortured and killed (their familes could also be tortured and killed), or you could not lie and those people get exposed, and possibly tortured and killed (their families could also get tortured and killed). What do you do?

I would lie.


Before you (or someone else) suggest that I am only being a Christian when it is easy... here is the thing: there is no law against love (Galatians 5:22, 23). And even if lying was still a sin, love covers over a multitude of sins (1Peter 4:8; Proverbs 10:12). In this case, I am lying to protect people and their families, and I am doing so out of love.

It would be the same for those people who hid Jews during the Holocaust, and lied that they had not seen Jews or that they were not helping Jews. They were doing their best to keep people safe from a terrible persecution, out of love for their fellow man, also following the golden rule. It would also be MERCY, which God desires, and mercy comes from love.

Because of course the law of God is LOVE:


Love God with your whole heart, mind, soul and love your neighbor as yourself (the two commandments that Christ said were the greatest and the two that all the rest hang off). Love also your enemies. Love one another as Christ loved us.



Love is the law that is written upon the heart. And against love, there is no law.


That makes sense, does it not? If God is love (just as He is called and described as being), how can there be a law against love?




Peace to you and to your household,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

So if you do something that is normally a sin, out of love, then it is not a sin because you are doing it out of love? Interesting.

It does not have to mean that the sin is not a sin anymore... but love can cover OVER that sin (so that the sin is forgiven).


I am glad you find it interesting.

So say a man and woman are in a loving, committed relationship and they have premarital sex? Is their premarital sex not a sin?

I'm not sure that is the same thing. I am not sure how any lives were saved by this couple having sex. That seems more self-beneficial. I'm not judging at all; that would make me a hypocrite. It is between them and God. But that is not what I was referring to.





Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[FarWanderer]

[Replying to post 1 by agnosticatheist]

Not a Christian but I will weigh in.

To lie is a sin, always. However, in some situations, like those above, not lying is also a sin.

An omnipotent God can never be cornered by a situation like any of the above, and thus never has any need to lie. In other words, we inevitably sin because we are not omnipotent. We are weak, limited, vulnerable. We sin to cover for that.

But the inevitability of sin is no excuse for it. Sin always carries weight.

This is why there is the emphasis in Christianity of all humans being sinners. AND why there is the emphasis on confession of and forgiveness of your sins.

It is a very sophisticated moral framework which is, in my humble opinion, applicable to all of us Christian or not. Of course, this is just my own interpretation.

[agnosticatheist]

[Replying to FarWanderer]

It's one thing to accidentally sin; it's another thing entirely to willfully, deliberately sin.

If the rules say don't do X, and you knowingly, willfully, deliberately do X, then you have broken the rule.

Christians, and now apparently, non-Christians alike, want to paint the picture as if you can break the rules whenever you want to, and then ask for and receive forgiveness later. That is not the right attitude to have about it. Repentence means you turn from your ways; you may occasionally "slip", but overall, you don't live the way you used to. Deciding that you will lie whenever common sense and normal morality dictate you should lie is not "changing your ways." LOL

I think that the right thing to do in all three situations is to lie...But, according to the Bible, lying is wrong, and there's no exceptions, annexes, etc that allow one to lie in any of those situations. Really, if we would follow the Bible, the right thing to do would be to not lie and possibly allow people to die, not lie to interviewees and possibly make bringing a serial killer to justice more difficult than it could be, and expose an intelligence network and possibly get them and their families tortured and killed, and let God take care of the rest. According to the Bible, and typical Christian thought (until they encounter a problem like this, of course), Christians are supposed to do the right thing and trust God to take care of the rest.

Lying an in attempt to bring about a desired outcome is not doing the right thing and trusting God. Lol

I have put Christians in a fork here; it is a lose-lose situation. If they say they would lie, then they are disobeying God's instructions. If they don't lie, they let bad stuff potentially happen.

To me, we ought to act as if we are on our own here, and that no higher power is going to come to the rescue and save people. Maybe there is a higher power, but we cannot count on that, because for all we know, there could be no higher power at all.

We ought to act in such a way that will protect people. If that means lying to save someone's life, then so be it. Use common sense and practical thinking; if you value human life, then you ought to lie to protect it...This ain't rocket science.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 1 by agnosticatheist]

Christians, you are instructed in the Old and New Testaments not to lie, not to be deceitful, etc (By the Old Testament, I am referring primarily to the command not to lie in the Ten Commandments; if you are a Christian who thinks the Ten Commandments don't apply to you, then you are just instructed not to lie, not to be deceitful, etc in the New Testament).

I think you are mistaken regarding Christianity and even Judaism. The commandment is to "not bear false witness". Given that this was part of a national constitution, and not a private ethic (like Aristotle's lecture in Nich. Ethics) we can safely conclude that this commandment was about legal procedures: about lying in a courtroom setting. Hence in the same body of literature Rahab, who lied, is applauded for saving two Hebrews; she did not lie in a courtroom setting; but her lie was unselfish and led to something good.

[FarWanderer]

[Replying to FarWanderer]

It's one thing to accidentally sin; it's another thing entirely to willfully, deliberately sin.

"Accidental sin" is not a thing.

Christians, and now apparently, non-Christians alike, want to paint the picture as if you can break the rules whenever you want to, and then ask for and receive forgiveness later. That is not the right attitude to have about it.

Of course it's not. Who would accept such disingenuous repentance?

We ought to act in such a way that will protect people. If that means lying to save someone's life, then so be it. Use common sense and practical thinking; if you value human life, then you ought to lie to protect it...This ain't rocket science.

I agree not to rely on God to make everything OK. Even most Christians do.

You can value both the truth and human life (which ain't rocket science either). If you do, you may be faced with a situation where you will have to violate one of those values to protect the other. There is a moral cost in that, even if the answer is obvious.