Is it OK to lie?

[TheHellDevil]

Gopher dude

No. Lieing is wrong. Always...ALWAYS tell the truth.

No exceptions..no loop holes. The truth is the best.

lol... I'm afraid I'm going to have to undermine that line of argument. Many of you have also said something similar to Gopher dude.

I present the following scenario:
You are walking on the street and a certain man passes you by in a hurry. Later, someone comes up to you and asks you if you've seen the man and where he is. The stranger tells you that he wants to kill this man. Under the "no exceptions" rule, you would be required to tell the stranger where this man is, with full knowledge that he's pursuing him for murder. However, what you do NOT know and will NEVER know in this particular scenario is why this stranger wants to kill him.  

[SomethinSpecial]

Well~lying is considered morally wrong..

BUT under some circumstances, it is better to lie just to make someone happier BUT ONLY EXTREME ONES...like telling a mom that her son felt no pain when he died...
Not ones like telling someone "Of course, you're my BFFL" but secretly you hate them inside and when they find out..it really hurts..  

[0Kira]

lying requires ethics and morals. which means that you have to be able to draw a line between right and wrong to answer your question. and we can't do that.  

[jesanndei]

well lying is natural thing that people do but there r only 2 types of lying the white lie and the real lie..........

White lie- its is when ur covering up someones mistake or just something to tell to make them feel better like in a hospital sometimes doctors say that u have a big chance to live but in truth ur rly getting worse.


Real lie- there is nothing else done it is only covering up ur own mistake , there is no good reason to lie about.


so in my point it is just fare , lying could be for good and sometimes for bad.

but still i recommend never (ever) lie............

well that is my opinion..................  

[ladyyk]

There can't be anyone who has never tried lying before.

We lie, but we don't want people to lie to us. Ironic. I can't say it's okay to lie. I can't say it's not okay to lie either.  

[Yourreflections_Rebellion]

Gopher dude

No. Lieing is wrong. Always...ALWAYS tell the truth.

No exceptions..no loop holes. The truth is the best.

It's true, as justamat said, it is human nature to lie, it's human nature to make mistakes period! However, even if you think it's only a very small lie, it may have been bigger than you thought at the time. No matter what the lie, big or small, it severly complicates things and you will defenatly reap the consequences later. (good or bad.)

I'd say it's true that whether it is right or wrong to lie depends on the situation, but no matter what the situation there is a reason the Bible advises against it.  

[Isho Von Ra]

lying just like greed, is good.

lying is just a method of deceiving other to get what you want. The better you are at lying people will like you because you can know how to get what your want.

Think about it, if you did not lye today you most likely be dead or in a very bad stated.

And if you want to know, what do we do with people who are the best lyer in the world. We give them an Oscars.  

[AngelBlackChaos]

That depends if the liar has a sense of ethics or not.  

[Miniar]

Lying is an inevitable part of living.
There is not a single human being upon the face of this planet that is fully capable of being completely honest to even itself. Is there anyone who looks in the mirror and is able to see his or her reflection objectively? Is there anyone able to honestly and objectively judge his or her abilities and flaws?
We all lie. There are the little lies where we tell ourselves that today is going to be a good day just to be able to get out of bed in the morning. There are also matters of faith and such that aren't parts of reality as it is but we still believe in those lies.
It's all like Discworld's own Death put it (in Hogfather):

Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Susan: They're not the same at all.
Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?
Death: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?

-

The "sun" does not "rise", and yet we call the turning of this planet to the point where the closest star (Massive burning globe of chemical fusion.) becomes once again visible a "sunrise".
There are a million little lies in every day of our lives. Even time is nothing more than an illusion.

Is it okay? not always..
but it is inevitable. Our human minds can never fully grok the magnitude and complexity of the world around us, so some lies are basic psychological defences. Keeping us from feeling so small, so microscopic in the grand scheme of things, so dwarfed by the mere scale of existence, that we would be completely unable to live our own insignificant lives at all.  

[AngelBlackChaos]

Miniar

Lying is an inevitable part of living.
There is not a single human being upon the face of this planet that is fully capable of being completely honest to even itself. Is there anyone who looks in the mirror and is able to see his or her reflection objectively? Is there anyone able to honestly and objectively judge his or her abilities and flaws?
We all lie. There are the little lies where we tell ourselves that today is going to be a good day just to be able to get out of bed in the morning. There are also matters of faith and such that aren't parts of reality as it is but we still believe in those lies.
It's all like Discworld's own Death put it (in Hogfather):

Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Susan: They're not the same at all.
Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?
Death: You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?

-

The "sun" does not "rise", and yet we call the turning of this planet to the point where the closest star (Massive burning globe of chemical fusion.) becomes once again visible a "sunrise".
There are a million little lies in every day of our lives. Even time is nothing more than an illusion.

Is it okay? not always..
but it is inevitable. Our human minds can never fully grok the magnitude and complexity of the world around us, so some lies are basic psychological defences. Keeping us from feeling so small, so microscopic in the grand scheme of things, so dwarfed by the mere scale of existence, that we would be completely unable to live our own insignificant lives at all.

I dont know if I would go as far to say that the term "sunrise" is a lie but rather an expression. If someone says that there are butterflies in thier stomach does not mean I should rethink having friends that eat bugs, it means that they are nervous.  

[Miniar]

AngelBlackChaos

I dont know if I would go as far to say that the term "sunrise" is a lie but rather an expression. If someone says that there are butterflies in thier stomach does not mean I should rethink having friends that eat bugs, it means that they are nervous.

None the less, the statement "I have butterflies in my stomack" is not exactly a truthful one now is it?  

[AngelBlackChaos]

Miniar

AngelBlackChaos

I dont know if I would go as far to say that the term "sunrise" is a lie but rather an expression. If someone says that there are butterflies in thier stomach does not mean I should rethink having friends that eat bugs, it means that they are nervous.

None the less, the statement "I have butterflies in my stomack" is not exactly a truthful one now is it?

But lying requires an intention by definition. It is a commonly known expression, and since it is commonly used to convey a certain feeling that is understandable to the common person, it is not a lie.  

[Miniar]

AngelBlackChaos

But lying requires an intention by definition. It is a commonly known expression, and since it is commonly used to convey a certain feeling that is understandable to the common person, it is not a lie.

By some defenitions, not all defenitions of the word "lie" include intent.
Some definitions merely require you to be aware of the falsehood of your words/reference. I would think that most people are aware that there are no litteral butterflies are involved.
If we go back to my original word howvever, as it wasn't me who brought butterflies into this debate, but the sunrise.
The "lie" that is the sunrise is innately different than the butterflies in the stomach as we actually mean to imply the rising of the sun instead of a different and relatively unrelated actuality as is the case with the butterflies.  

[AngelBlackChaos]

Miniar

AngelBlackChaos

But lying requires an intention by definition. It is a commonly known expression, and since it is commonly used to convey a certain feeling that is understandable to the common person, it is not a lie.

By some defenitions, not all defenitions of the word "lie" include intent.
Some definitions merely require you to be aware of the falsehood of your words/reference. I would think that most people are aware that there are no litteral butterflies are involved.
If we go back to my original word howvever, as it wasn't me who brought butterflies into this debate, but the sunrise.
The "lie" that is the sunrise is innately different than the butterflies in the stomach as we actually mean to imply the rising of the sun instead of a different and relatively unrelated actuality as is the case with the butterflies.

Well here's the definition of sunrise:

sunrise
Pronunciation: ˈsən-ˌrīz
Function: noun
Date: 15th century
1: the apparent rising of the sun above the horizon; also : the accompanying atmospheric effects
2: the time when the upper limb of the sun appears above the horizon as a result of the diurnal rotation of the earth

if a word is considered a word instead of slang, it has to have a common definition accepted by most cultures. The word sunrise was widely accepted with its definition well within the fifteenth century, and since its definition includes both the appearance and the actuality of the specific act for which the word is used, your point is moot.  

[Sergeant Paul Jackson]

You should be able to lie when it comes to it.
If ur woking at a hospitle and a man who you know is going to die and he askes you "Am I going to live?" ur not going to say no, but i some one who need has just got in a car accident and can't walk, the only way he's going to walk is if he goes to tochering test, but if he came to you and ask
"is it going to be hard?" you going to say of couse it's going to be hard. So there is a time and a place for the truth, and the time for liying.