Posted by:
Done & Done
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Date: September 16, 2020 11:14AM
Heads I Win –Tails You Lose
Fascinating results of an 11 year study on lying in the science section last night forced me to write this. I had no choice. Really.
Used to be bad to be a Scoundrel. Now it’s an endearing term we allow others when they cling to their supposed morality despite their lies. “Well, no matter what he did, he’s a good person down deep.” (And it's getting me what I want.)
Amazing how much we are able to overlook—a form of lying---when the overlooking will get us the “ONE THING” we really desire. End justifies the means, anyone? Besides, everyone's doing it.
Easy to see where this applies to politics and social causes or the advancement of careers, the appropriation of funds. But Mormons? They would NEVER lie.
How about when you tell yourself it is what God wants when you cancel a child for apostasy or kick your gay kid to the curb or excommunicate and ostracize, because, the one thing you want is to be seen as the perfect Mormon who WILL NOT TOLERATE SINFUL BEHAVIOR! And, need your Mormon peers to see that. Righteous rock of God you are! For all to see. And be impressed by.
How about lying by accepting the lies of others because . . . very conveniently those lies support your own agenda? Joseph? A sleezy adulterer? I don’t believe that for a second. He was a prophet of God and those are lies spread by the Adversary you tell yourself as you cling to your decorating plan for your mansion in the CK. Marble floors and vaulted ceilings while those in the TK sit in their stick frame and mud huts.
But it’s 2020 and we don’t admit to lies anymore when we are caught red tongued. We now have “untruth” and, “mis-spoke.” So much more civilized, no? AND, don't forget the Mormon favorite, "I don't know that we ever said that."
How about a few new ones? "Morally confused?" Love that. "Moral disengagement?" Very forgiving term, that.
And then there is accepting the lies of others in order to make our own more palatable. Giving those the benefit of the doubt when some have stretched the truth because it suits our own agenda.
How about “morally challenged” for the truly accomplished liars? “Linguistically Lame” for those who wish to claim it was all a mistake, they were misunderstood, never meant it "like that". Why even use the term mistake, actually? Faux Pas. French makes it sound so much more innocent. N'est-ce pas?
As one TBM I know faces the facts that become ever so hard to claim to be lies of Satan to halt the "God's One True Church," they use this convenience: "We don't know why Heavenly Father chose Joseph to restore His church, we just KNOW that He did." Then they drop the mic.
I have always been so aware of lying. Consider myself expert if I chose to engage. I don't. But perhaps that is a lie.
So all the lying in the world has left me in a state of "the jury always being out." Impossible to come to a conclusion except for the concrete that can be seen, tasted, smelled, held, while 'heard' remains suspect. Science is a life raft, though, because it traffics in the senses as well. Otherwise we'd all be lying at the bottom of the sea.