Why do Theists lie?

chairman bill · #1 by **chairman bill** » Jan 05, 2012 11:20 am

Lying for Jesus, lying for Mo. What is it with theists, of various stripes, and lying for their god?

We get a lot of it here on RatSkep. Misrepresentations that require either a depth of idiocy incompatible with literacy, or a deliberate & mendacious intent to deceive. Bare-faced lies. Erections of patently false lines of reasoning, again, suggesting either idiocy or mendacity, but given the number of times such 'arguments' get refuted & the fallacious lines of reasoning pointed out to them, must be the latter.

It's not all of our resident believers. There are those who seem pretty much honest, trustworthy, and always willing to be open about their doubts, difficulties and so on. It seems those who won't allow the slightest possibility that they might be wrong, or that things aren't quite how they believe them to be, who seem most prone to lies.

So this thread is an opportunity to explore theistic lying. Whether it is examples of lying, misrepresentations of others, denial of facts, fallacious lines of reasoning, or insights into why theists lie about things in support of religion - post them here.

z8000783 · #2 by **z8000783** » Jan 05, 2012 11:34 am

'Lying' seems to be used like 'trolling' these days, as a synonym for disagreement.

John

rainbow · #3 by **rainbow** » Jan 05, 2012 11:43 am

It is a question which bothers me greatly - as does:

Why do Deists smell so bad?
Why do Agnostics never make any decisions?
Why do Atheists lack sphincter control?

chairman bill · #4 by **chairman bill** » Jan 05, 2012 11:44 am

z8000783 wrote:'Lying' seems to be used like 'trolling' these days, as a synonym for disagreement.

John

You use it as you choose, but lying refers to deliberate telling of untruths.

chairman bill · #5 by **chairman bill** » Jan 05, 2012 11:45 am

rainbow wrote:It is a question which bothers me greatly - as does:

Why do Deists smell so bad?
Why do Agnostics never make any decisions?
Why do Atheists lack sphincter control?

Now that's trolling

z8000783 · #6 by **z8000783** » Jan 05, 2012 11:45 am

chairman bill wrote:
z8000783 wrote:'Lying' seems to be used like 'trolling' these days, as a synonym for disagreement.

John

You use it as you choose, ...

I think that's what people have been doing.

John

rainbow · #7 by **rainbow** » Jan 05, 2012 11:47 am

chairman bill wrote:
rainbow wrote:It is a question which bothers me greatly - as does:

Why do Deists smell so bad?
Why do Agnostics never make any decisions?
Why do Atheists lack sphincter control?

Now that's trolling

Do you not think that your OP is trolling?

UnderConstruction · #8 by **UnderConstruction** » Jan 05, 2012 11:47 am

z8000783 wrote:'Lying' seems to be used like 'trolling' these days, as a synonym for disagreement.

John

Oh, I don't know. I think the point that the chairman is making goes a little beyond that. Take quote mines, for example. Once it has been pointed out to a person that what they are doing is taking a quote out of context and changing its meaning in the process, one could reasonably expect an honest person to admit their mistake and move on. But for some reason this often does not happen with some of the theists we encounter. To you and I, it is pretty obvious why quote mines can be so much of a problem, especially when putting them back into context so clearly shows them to ave the opposite meaning. Assuming dishonesty then seems reasonable. But my theory is that some theists just don't get it. They do not understand why it is a problem. I am unclear why this is but it does sometimes seem to be the case.

Case in point is a person posting under the name of Pahu. I do not recall if he has shown his face here yet but almost his entire posting history that I ave witnessed consists of regurgitated quote mines. When called out on this, he openly admits to using the words of those quoted to suggest a meaning at odds with the original conclusions they drew. Yet he defends this. I am not quite clear of the rationale behind this but he genuinely seems to believe that such behaviour is valid. I do not believe that he is alone in this. Perhaps part of the issue is that he is simply following the example of those who he presumably sees as authority figures. And if they do it, it must be ok, right?

Another possible example where dishonesty might reasonably be assumed is with out very own Jireh. I suspect there are numbers others that could be cited but one that I recall is when he was called out on the use of appeals to consequence. He behaved as if this was the first time that the concept had been explained to him. Yet this is almost certainly not the case and I am confident in predicting that it will not be the last time he cites those same arguments either.

Now this is clearly not just the realm of the theist. I suspect it is more universally applicable to many who buy into woo of any form. 9/11 and moon landing conspiracy theorists, for example, sometimes show the exact same behaviour.

Scot Dutchy · #9 by **Scot Dutchy** » Jan 05, 2012 11:48 am

chairman bill wrote:
z8000783 wrote:'Lying' seems to be used like 'trolling' these days, as a synonym for disagreement.

John

You use it as you choose, but lying refers to deliberate telling of untruths.

Well they have admitted they cannot provide any evidence of their deity's existance so all the stories they tell about it must be lies.

UnderConstruction · **#10** by **UnderConstruction** » Jan 05, 2012 11:49 am

rainbow wrote:
chairman bill wrote:
rainbow wrote:It is a question which bothers me greatly - as does:

Why do Deists smell so bad?
Why do Agnostics never make any decisions?
Why do Atheists lack sphincter control?

Now that's trolling

Do you not think that your OP is trolling?

I think it is a valid question. If it can indeed be shown that they are lying, why is it that those believing that what they are presenting is the truth choose to lie to do so? Again, it does apply to rather more than just theists but it is still a good point.

chairman bill · **#11** by **chairman bill** » Jan 05, 2012 12:00 pm

rainbow wrote:
chairman bill wrote:
rainbow wrote:It is a question which bothers me greatly - as does:

Why do Deists smell so bad?
Why do Agnostics never make any decisions?
Why do Atheists lack sphincter control?

Now that's trolling

Do you not think that your OP is trolling?

No.

z8000783 · **#12** by **z8000783** » Jan 05, 2012 12:02 pm

Scot Dutchy wrote:
chairman bill wrote:
z8000783 wrote:'Lying' seems to be used like 'trolling' these days, as a synonym for disagreement.

John

You use it as you choose, but lying refers to deliberate telling of untruths.

Well they have admitted they cannot provide any evidence of their deity's existance so all the stories they tell about it must be lies.

Precisely.

John

rainbow · **#13** by **rainbow** » Jan 05, 2012 12:05 pm

Scot Dutchy wrote:
chairman bill wrote:
z8000783 wrote:'Lying' seems to be used like 'trolling' these days, as a synonym for disagreement.

John

You use it as you choose, but lying refers to deliberate telling of untruths.

Well they have admitted they cannot provide any evidence of their deity's existance so all the stories they tell about it must be lies.

Can you show evidence of a general admission made by Theists on this?

rainbow · **#14** by **rainbow** » Jan 05, 2012 12:06 pm

chairman bill wrote:
rainbow wrote:
chairman bill wrote:
rainbow wrote:It is a question which bothers me greatly - as does:

Why do Deists smell so bad?
Why do Agnostics never make any decisions?
Why do Atheists lack sphincter control?

Now that's trolling

Do you not think that your OP is trolling?

No.

I think that is untrue.

UnderConstruction · **#15** by **UnderConstruction** » Jan 05, 2012 12:08 pm

rainbow wrote:
chairman bill wrote:
rainbow wrote:
chairman bill wrote:

Now that's trolling

Do you not think that your OP is trolling?

No.

I think that is untrue.

I lack belief that you think that.

virphen · **#16** by **virphen** » Jan 05, 2012 12:10 pm

I honestly think there is far more to it than simple lying, as most of us would understand it, even if the final effect is lies.

I think there must be some very complex psychological phenomena going on - the likes of televangelists aside, I think most of the people you are referring to are very genuine in what they are presenting. What we see are the mental contortions one must perform on oneself to retain belief while balancing such conflicting piles of horseshit and reality denial.

chairman bill · **#17** by **chairman bill** » Jan 05, 2012 12:12 pm

rainbow wrote:
chairman bill wrote:
rainbow wrote:Do you not think that your OP is trolling?

No.

I think that is untrue.

Think what you want. Trolling is reasonably well-defined, and the OP doesn't seem to fit the various descriptors. If you think it's trolling, please explain why.

trubble76 · **#18** by **trubble76** » Jan 05, 2012 12:13 pm

virphen wrote:I honestly think there is far more to it than simple lying, as most of us would understand it, even if the final effect is lies.

I think there must be some very complex psychological phenomena going on - the likes of televangelists aside, I think most of the people you are referring to are very genuine in what they are presenting. What we see are the mental contortions one must perform on oneself to retain belief while balancing such conflicting piles of horseshit and reality denial.

Some sort of cognitive dissonance, you mean?
Yeah, I think you might be on the money there. I think the brainwashing tactics of religion seriously effect the brain's 'wiring', I think in most cases theists have mental health issues rather than compulsive lying issues, even if they happen to look similar sometimes.
It's a sort of mental slavery.

Scot Dutchy · **#19** by **Scot Dutchy** » Jan 05, 2012 12:16 pm

rainbow wrote:
Scot Dutchy wrote:
chairman bill wrote:
z8000783 wrote:'Lying' seems to be used like 'trolling' these days, as a synonym for disagreement.

John

You use it as you choose, but lying refers to deliberate telling of untruths.

Well they have admitted they cannot provide any evidence of their deity's existance so all the stories they tell about it must be lies.

Can you show evidence of a general admission made by Theists on this?

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/general-faith/jireh-s-evidence-for-god-t28136-260.html#p1136359

Jireh wrote:You might need to learn the abc of a atheist / theist debate. IT MAKES NO SENSE TO ASK FOR PROOFS OF GODS EXISTENCE. There are none. The right philosophical quest is : what is the best explanation for our existence.

Animavore · **#20** by **Animavore** » Jan 05, 2012 12:18 pm

When talking about things you can't possibly know like what a particular god wants from us, which groups he loves or hates, his reason for his latest outrage (read natural disaster), where such and such is now that he's dead and which unexplained healing are miracles and which are just that, unexplained healing: everything that proceeds from your mouth must be a lie. You have no choice but to lie because you can't be telling the truth about things you can't possibly know. It's impossible. So theists will always have to lie as long as their "knowledge" of their god is a lie.

Simple.