I would have thought truthfulness to be a virtue of such fundamental importance that almost every self-respecting and half decent human would practice it. If we are truthful we have integrity and people are more likely to trust us, want to have us as friends, employ us or even marry us. If we lie or are deceitful then we betray that trust. We may hurt the one’s who are the most important to us.
I'm accused of being too honest. I would prefer to tell the truth at all times, but truth can be ... hmmm ... "massaged" sometimes. God is fond of that "what I told you was true, from a certain POV" thing that Obi-Wan liked as well.
I am convicted that this is a dangerous road to travel.
I agree, however, it is also true that saying a moral like "if you don't eat fish on Friday, you're going to hell" is so stupid that to argue it is objective is dangerous as well. The bible is FILLED with arbitrary means of getting to hell, like wearing two kinds of fabrics, while downplaying the problems of rape and genocide (it's bad if it's happening to them, not vice versa).
there is more to be said about what is common to everybody for the benefit of life and survival.
The problem is determining which rule actually DOES benefit everyone.
So as the saying goes, everybody lies. Most people, though they claim to want the truth, don't really want the truth. Mostly they want you to tell them what they want to hear in a most convincing way.
Sheriff of Rottingham: Sire, I have news!
Prince John: And what sort of news do you have? It's not bad news, is it? You know I can't take bad news. The day started out so good. I had a good night's sleep, I had a good B.M. I don't want to hear any bad news. So, what kind of news is it?
Sheriff of Rottingham: Well, to be perfectly frank, it's bad.
Prince John: [shouts] I knew it! I knew it would be bad news. Wait, I have an idea. Maybe if you tell me the *bad* news in a *good* way, it wouldn't sound so bad.
Sheriff of Rottingham: [thinking] The bad news in a good way. Yes, I can do that. The bad news in a good way. Well, here it goes.
Tell my boss the truth, tell my wife the truth, tell the government the truth, it's only going to cause you trouble. Tell them what they want to hear and everybody's happy.
And now we supposedly have ten years, according to scientists, before the world is unfixable.
That's why
I trust the Bible, since it contains
the accurate knowledge of the truth that is according to godly devotion and is based on a hope of the everlasting life that God, who cannot lie, promised long ago... Titus 1:1, 2
God might not, but humans can, and they wrote the thing.
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
Matthew 7:24-27
Well, an earthquake would take out the house on the rock too.
In China lying has a hierarchy, saving face is an import issue in the degree of truthfulness, and very prevalent is lying to foreigners.
Even if it's as simple as your patient who doesn't speak English but you can kinda pick up that maybe they just don't want to talk to YOU. (I mean, it's happened to me, LOL).
Jesus was the truth and the foundation of Christianity.
And the depressing thing is that the apostles didn't understand him, which he notes on multiple occasions, but for some reason we have to trust their views on the subject. If there was a real Jesus, I suspect the Way died with him. As the Way is irrelevant to group identity, though, one can find the Way in other places, like the Tao, which is just another word for Way.
Almost all religions I know of teach truthfulness.
And they are as equally likely to toss that out like a piece of used up Kleenex if the situation calls for it.
Thus it may be saying, we are the light or we are the darkness. Our choice.
And then if you meet the Whills, you realize there is only the Force.
Qualifies you for the Supreme Court.
So we have Satan, who deceives and misleads, and covers his tracks, and we have his ministers - those who act with deception.
Please show where Satan deceives. He appears very rarely as an actual character in the bible and he doesn't lie in any of them. He's a jerk, sure, but he's not a liar. That would make everyone who accused of being one the liar. How can a religion be the Truth if it can't stop lying about something?
I see with God our potential is to be bathed always in the light, this can only happen to the extent we light the virtues within us. This is where we turn to the light source we find in Christ. We turn Christ off within us...we will have darkness.
Both light and dark can help or hurt. The sun warms you and also burns you. It illuminates as well as blinds. The darkness cools you and also freezes you. It hides but also reveals (note how you would never understand what is beyond our atmosphere if the sun were going 24/7).
Was thinking. The Dharma isn't hierarchical after The Buddha decided not to just teach The Dharma to men monks. He did branch out and started teaching men, women, devas, and other deities. It's purely cultural. In The Lotus Sutra The Buddha mentions all will experience and practice The Dharma without discrimination.
That's what I admire most out of the Dharmic religions: that EVERYONE has to deal with it. The Abrahamics are like, "Do as I say, not as I do". To me, the Way would, by necessity, have to be acknowledged by EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE. Any god that says that morality is supremely important and then goes around doing things that are, by the rules, are immoral, is being a hypocritical jerk.
It is not wrong to tell a lie if the truth would harm people such as telling a parent directly that their child has died in a car accident or telling a nazi that the neighbour is hiding a Jew in the attic.
I get the Nazi part, but isn't it kinder to let the parents know their child died? The child isn't coming home, a funeral has to be set up ... why drag it out?
Most of human society is presently dominated by people with Vaishyan (business) mentality and this class of people has become increasingly crude and selfish exploiting people with a different mental make-up.
I wonder if people are increasingly selfish or we're just more "woke" about it.