When Lies Need to be Told

In MHO the people who post on this thread are obviously really extraordinarily above the crowd in term of the goodness of their character.
Am I lying??
Yes, ... its the "In MHO" part
I am not humble at all. I think my opinions are great!
The rest was the truth!
or was it???
...
actually I don't even know myself if I am humble or not, or just being polite, or not, or just looking for attention, or not, or trying to be insightful, or ...

point is, lying is not always conscious, deliberate, or good or evil.

But when the consequences are bad, like the loss of thousands of lives in Iraq for example, then it is an evil thing indeed.

makes me mad

lies and lying, like everything else is usually gray - not black and white. For me tho, the more truthin the better!

Here is the problem wiith lying, whether with good intentions or not, and what I have told my son about lying: "If you lie to me, how will I know when you are telling the truth?"

As a general rule of thumb, you can know whether something is truth or not by how violently (whether metaphorical or literal) people oppose it. The more violently they oppose it, the more likely it is to be the truth.

Edit to add: You know what? OP's statement smacks of elitism. "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!". We're all to be good little children, and believe that when Daddy government lies to you, it's in your best interests.

[edit on 21-4-2008 by sir_chancealot]

Originally posted by Makoto
Then go for it--find out for yourself. If you think you're ready to see and accept the truth, then by all means, learn it. Just don't blame me for what happens.
Think about what happens when teenagers start learning things about life--how people die, and friends leave you, and everything will eventually be dust. Most of them either flee from the truth completely, or go all emo and just lie around whining about it.

i just wanted to say that it's this kind of thinking that creates more lies!! if we are ever to change to become an open and honest people then we have to start somewhere!! shock and upset are part of life and if you don't accept that from the begining then when you do find it all out it may well be too much to handle, but even then you will still get over it!!

and what do you mean don't blame me for what happens, i have lived through many lies and found the truth at the end for my self, the result of these many situations has always been relatively similar, upset or shock at first then appreciation for understanding and knowledge!

personally in any situation i would rather know the truth and be able to deal with things in the right way than have to be told lies and spend endless amounts of time running about trying to solve a situation that isn't even real!!

lying about what's going on on our planet is wrong period. information should be accessable to all who want it, if you don't want to know then thats your call!

i just wanted to say that it's this kind of thinking that creates more lies!! if we are ever to change to become an open and honest people then we have to start somewhere!! shock and upset are part of life and if you don't accept that from the begining then when you do find it all out it may well be too much to handle, but even then you will still get over it!!

reply to post by realism


Exactly; who wants to live the boring existence; that we already know every thing we need to know, and we can blindly trust our big brother
keepers! I suppose the mass of humanity are very content to live ho hum
lives, of every thing pretty much remains the same, as it has for millions of years. That way they can relax and enjoy their natural lives to the full.
So that is what big brother gives them... The Matrix Syndrome?!

i reckon we've been in the matrix for a good many years already!! it's time to pull the plug!!

no one said life would be easy and quite frankly it really p^%&^ me off when someone thinks they have the right to make decisions on my behalf when i never asked them too

it's not like you can "opt out" of society, if you did decide you'd had enough and tried to live in the wilderness to get away from all the corruptness you'd be screwed! if you didn't get arrested for trespassing on government "owned" land (which is BS as who said anyone could own it in the first place) then you'll get put in a mental institution or even the new one... get branded a terrorist!

Truth has to be told!

I'd like to know why people lie in the first place. Lying is something I don't understand. Who says that people can't handle the truth. I think that I could handle the truth. I know that regardless of how many freedoms we have we are still slaves to the system that has us. The US government lies all the time. People lie to get on with their life. They don't like facing the truth so they lie instead.

Why? I blame hollywood, the media and the music industry. The music industry is teaching children poor morals, hollywood is teaching kids to look at bad role models, and, the media is telling people that it's okay to lie while minimizing the important issues that we should be focusing on. The media always tells lies. Well, even if they don't tell a lie, they would tell a half truth, which is still really a lie. They try to shape events and they try to sway you to think one way or another. The movie industry is really bad because it is telling kids that it's cool to be really violent and beat people up. The movie industry also has many liars that are famous actors that are practically trained to lie in movies. When kids watch the movies they think that lying is good because it can mend relationships and alter the course of their future. The hero may win sometimes, but, the hero is often fighting in a situation that was created by a lie. The music industry is implimenting really negative behaviors into children, like lying, and violence. Kids these days listen to rap, and, they listen to 50 cent, and, they like the songs that include all the drug references and some rap songs includ ereferences about suicide.

See, it's our society, our society tells people that they can lie even when they know that they shouldn't. I have seen a few chronic liars. I don't know what makes them think that it's okay to lie and lie over and over. I don't think there ever is a time when lies need to be told.

I can handle the truth. You can't tell me that I can't.

If you think you're ready, then go find out for yourself--just don't bother the rest of the world with your truth. I tried that in my teens, and all it got me was alienation and resentment. When people are ready to learn, they'll ask--if you want to help the world, find those people and help them find the answers.
Like I said before, and Howie reiterated, a society built on lies--like ours is--will implode the minute those lies vanish. It's up to us to make sure that whenever a lie is done away with, there's truth ready to fill the gap.

Lies are all there is. We live in it, we swim in it, we use it, sometimes abuse it, take shelter under it, hide behind it, defend and offend with it... And I am talking to ourselves

Our minds develop a self image of ourselves full of lies that we tell ourselves every single day to cope with life, to survive, to relax, to love, to hate, to attack, to defend.... And if you were to include "omission of truth" and "distortion of truth" in the lie category, almost our whole self-identity might be based on lies.

We operate in the understanding that our lies might be challenged by facts and from early childhood on, we explore its personal limits and fine tune it to a personally and socially acceptable level. Some are quite tolerant to the embarrassment of being proven wrong and some of us are experts in avoiding getting caught.

Most I love yous, most I hate yous are lies... But accepted as truth... Wars started over them, lives destroyed, religions born, nations built and torn down.

The father who demands nothing but the truth from her son (please don't get me wrong, I have a son as well and I tell him the same) or the poster who simply can't understand lying... What we fail to tell ourselves and others close to us every single day is a microcosm of the whole fabric of society. Little lies, white lies, black lies, red lies, partial or whole omissions of truth...

Do we really tell ourselves the truth all the time that we feel entitled to demand it from everyone else? Is it so surprising that a society made out of us little liars from cradle to grave is ultimately governed, informed and misinformed, educated, and ruled by lies and liars.

I say lies are just fine as long as one is aware of their existence... The ones that we fail to see are the ones within.

To deserve truth from your kid, give him the whole truth, with the good, the bad, the ugly. Make her aware. Make him wise. Go ahead, tell her there is no santa clause... No tooth fairy... Tell him your fears, your vices, your weaknesses, your desires... So he can rid himself of his own lies and liberate himself.

To deserve truth from government, however, is relatively simpler... Be aware of lies, recognize lies, and stop voting for liars.

reply to post by may_be_true


loved every word of your post - well, almost every word,
seriously; especially the part of lying to ourselves - real insight there
just like there is very little black and white, truth is sometimes a very dirty shade of grey, and lies or half truths only a shade away
to attempt to reinforce truthful behaviour to the extent that one can,
and to try and find the truthful guy to vote for (good luck in finding him/her) is a worthwhile effort nevertheless
its only the struggle that is achievable, actually accomplishing being perfectly honest at all times, is probably beyond doing

reply to post by wayno


Thanks wayno.

We tell ourselves that we care.... We tell ourselves we want equality and fairness. We tell ourselves that "people" are bad and "we" are good.

The truth is we care more about a cat that gets run over by a car in front of our houses, than people suffering across town.... We care about an ailing family member having a minor operation more than we care about millions of people dying accross the world.

I am not saying this is wrong. What is soooo wrong is the lie that allows us to make ourselves and others believe that it ain't so. Once the premise is based on lies, misconceptions or distortions, who's to say what is right and what is wrong?

It'd be difficult to stomach, but wouldn't things be simpler if all we said was the truth. Wouldn't it be great if people who think racial slurs actually said it out loud so we knew who the bigots are? Wouldn't it be great (and sad) if people would actually say "Yeah, such a shame that Darfur thing, but I prefer watching a mindless show on TV now... What's for dinner?"

Originally posted by may_be_true
Wouldn't it be great if people who think racial slurs actually said it out loud so we knew who the bigots are?

Nono, even better: imagine if we started automatically saying what was in our heads, instead of filtering it! It'd be a great object lesson, yes, but it would also be awesome to watch the first few days--remember, the best way to find out what a man's vices are is to look at what he rails against the hardest...

[edit on 22-4-2008 by Makoto]

Originally posted by Makoto
movie mind control, and the people who believe that it's just a parlor trick. The truth is, you can make people do some pretty outrageous things under hypnosis. Anything you can talk someone into doing, you can hypnotize someone into doing--and there are people who can talk people into doing just about anything--but all it really does is expedite the process.
Hypnosis only works as a mind control mechanism when combined with conditioning or other brainwashing methods--and that's a bit of a pain to do, since you need consent for the initial induction and multiple sessions before it starts to sink in.

1st, you cannot 'make' people do anything. Hypnosis is not a lie-detector, it is not a 'trace' and it is not a loss of control. (And people can't get 'stuck' in hypnosis either.)

2nd, Hypnosis is not a mind control anything. The subconscious mind is more open to suggestions when we let the conscious mind drift / wonder / relax etc. If something is against a belief or value, or even if the person just has some issue that we need to deal with first before proceeding on with the session... not only will the subconscious mind 'kick it out', but most people will immediately come out of hypnosis.

And no multipal sessions are needed,no conditioning etc. We do more than one session when there are so many issues that need to be delt with that we can't get it all done in one. A good hypnotist will not just do a generic type script for weight loss or something as big as an issue like that. Why? Because usualy there is many isssues (many of witch the client might not even be aware of yet) that need to b delt with for a life long 'fix'.
Examples might include:
For wieght loss. Maybe there were wsome triggared responces/emotions etc that began when the client was a child that he don't consciously think is a problem: Mom always said to finish everything on your plate, or that good boys or healthy boys etc finish their dinner. Maybe a woman didn't realize that in her 20 year marriage everything she got thin an fit, her husbande got jealous and they started fighting... her subconscous mind links thin/fit with angry husband or probelms in the marriage.

Sorry - this isn't a thread on hypnosis... but I wanted to clear that up.