Why Do People Lie?

**Bill Gregory** · 01-23-2008

Your point about lawyers is very apt. I confess to not being able to reconcile real justice and fairness with the actions particularly of defence lawyers in trying to get their clients off their felonies and crimes. I suspect that the passing the bar exams gives you a certificate and a 'green card' to Hell.

However we still disagree on my 'pleasentries'. In the heading I say 'my friend' which in your definition it is a lie and will mean everlating purgatory for me. In my definition it is merely a friendly greeting and another version of 'Hello'.

Back to lawyers:

The trial lawyer does what Socrates was executed for: making the worse argument appear the stronger.

Judge Irving Kaufman

To some lawyers all facts are created equal.

Felix Frankfurter

It is lawyers who run our civilization for us - our governments, our businesses, our private lives... We cannot buy a home or rent an apartment, we cannot get married or try to get divorced, we cannot leave our property to our children without calling on the lawyers to guide us. To guide us, incidentally, through a maze of confusing gestures and formalities that lawyers have created... The legal trade, in short, is nothing but a high-class racket.

Fred Rodell, Professor of Law, Yale University

I get paid for seeing that my clients have every break the law allows. I have knowingly defended a number of guilty men. But the guilty never escape unscathed. My fees are sufficient punishment for anyone.

F. Lee Bailey

The public regards lawyers with great distrust. They think lawyers are smarter than the average guy but use their intelligence deviously. Well, they're wrong. usually they're not smarter.

F. Lee Bailey

... ours is a sick profession marked by incompetence, lack of training, misconduct and bad manners. Ineptness, bungling, malpractice and bad ethics can be observed in court houses all over this country every day ... these incompetents have a seeming unawareness of the fundamental ethics of the profession.

Chief Justice Warren Burger

**Hamadash** · 01-23-2008

Mr. Bill Gregory : According to Mr. Dictionary, Pleasantries is a good humored; a humorous or jesting remarks. And Jesting in the BIBLE is SIN according to the book of Ephesians chapter 5 with King James Version. So i disagree with you that pleasantries or WHITE LIES is not a sin.. Its definitely a SIN.. no matter what kind of lies. And one thing, there's no purgatory mentioned in the bible.. its only HEAVEN and HELL...... as our common sayings says " LIERS GO TO HELL" not in purgatory.. hehhehehhe

**Bill Gregory** · 01-23-2008

Originally Posted by Hamadash

Mr. Bill Gregory : According to Mr. Dictionary, Pleasantries is a good humored; a humorous or jesting remarks. And Jesting in the BIBLE is SIN according to the book of Ephesians chapter 5 with King James Version. So i disagree with you that pleasantries or WHITE LIES is not a sin.. Its definitely a SIN.. no matter what kind of lies. And one thing, there's no purgatory mentioned in the bible.. its only HEAVEN and HELL...... as our common sayings says " LIERS GO TO HELL" not in purgatory.. hehhehehhe

If you read my posts I suggest 'a word like pleasentry' would be better used rather than white lie in many cases.

As for purgatory this is part of the teachings of the Catholic Church. The word 'Bible' is not mentioned in the Bible but would you deny its existence? Would you throw away Dante's 'Inferno' and Milton's 'Paradise Lost' because they mention purgatory? Would you throw away the official Catholic Dictionary because it deals with and explains purgatory? I expect you would!

In a vain attempt to help you I have copied a piece by Jon Jakoblich:

The Bible does not mention the exact word "purgatory," but instead it makes reference to a place. To claim that it does not exist because of this is a cop out.
You might as well even deny that there is a book called the Bible because no such name is found in the inspired writings.
You also might as well deny the Trinity, Incarnation, etc... because these words are not found in the Bible.
The name does not make the place; the place must exist first, then we give it a name. We call this place "purgatory" because it means "a cleansing place." Therein souls are purged from the small stains of sin, which prevent their immediate entrance into Heaven.
In the Old Testament

The first mention of Purgatory in the Bible is in 2 Maccabees 12:46: "Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from sin."
Granted 2 Maccabees may not be in Protestant Bibles, but even if it cannot be used doctrinally then it at least has to have some historical worth. In it we can see what the pre-Christian community believed.
In Chapter 12 we can see Scriptural proof for Purgatory and evidence that the Jews had sacrifices offered for those of their brothers who had lost their lives in battle. That the Jews prayed for the dead shows that they believed in a place where they could be helped (now called Purgatory) and that the prayers of their living brothers and sisters could help them in that place.
These words in the book of Maccabees had so clearly favored the Catholic custom, that the whole book was removed from the Protestant Bible. Unfortunately for them, even if the book was not inspired, it still tells us of the practice of God's chosen people.
In the New Testament

In Matthew 5:26 Christ is condemning sin and speaks of liberation only after expiation. "Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny." Now we know that no last penny needs to be paid in Heaven and from Hell there is no liberation at all; hence the reference must apply to a third place.
Matthew 12:32 says, "And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."
The same person as in the previously mentioned verse, Matthew, speaks of sin against the Holy Spirit. The implication is that some sins can be forgiven in the world to come. But not in Hell from which there is no liberation; nor in Heaven because nothing imperfect can enter it as we see in the next part. Any remission of sin cannot occur in either of these places because they are a final destination unlike purgatory.
Revelation 21:27: "...but nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who does abominable things or tells lies." The place that is to be entered (the place to which this passage refers) is heaven (read the stuff around it for context).
The Bible clearly implies a place for temporary punishment after we die in the many passages which tell that God will reward or punish according to man's works.
What if purgatory really doesn't exist?

Say that there is no such thing as purgatory. What becomes of us? The Bible declares that nothing impurified can enter Heaven, but yet a careless word can defile the soul (Matthew 12:36); if there is no place of temporary punishment, the one guilty would be damned to Hell!
Who would be saved? Those who teach against purgatory teach an unreasonable doctrine.
So, why do non-Catholics reject a teaching so full of consolation? My guess is that they want to believe that the merits of Christ applied to the sinner who trusts in Him, will remove all sin; hence the believer will go at once to Heaven (also known as the belief called Sola Fide or faith alone).
Nowhere in the Bible does it say faith alone. This is un-Scriptural, since Christ tells us that to enter into life we must keep the commandments, hear the Church, do the will of His Father and much more with faith. Yes, actions plus faith

**Hamadash** · 01-23-2008

Can you please defined me your meaning about pleasantries and white lies? It makes me confused...

As my understanding to your old post, you better used the pleasantries than white lies. So whats the difference between the two?
All forms of lies has SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE SATAN. Being untruthful is not a work of Godliness. Eventhough you mentioned that the pleasantry you utter to someone can make her/his day brighter. What if they will know that your being untruthful, they might feel bad or even worst. So its better to tell the truth than to tell those lies, you may called it pleasantry or white lies.. but still your being untruthful.

"A white lie which I have described earlier as a pleasentry is not a sin and has nothing to do with Satan."

**Bill Gregory** · 01-23-2008

I think you have to read religious texts with some intelligence, not looking at the words so much as the spirit and intention of the words. All of these words were written hundreds and hundreds of years ago - that in itself can be a barrier to understanding. I hope shortly to get a copy of the Gnostic Gospels to add to my copy of the Apocrypha - all texts that are missing from the conventional copies of the Bible. A bit on the Gnostic Gospels from the advertising blurb:

"In 1945, thirteen papyrus books that had lain buried since the 4th century were discovered in an earthenware jar near Nag Hammadi, in Upper Egypt. Over 1,500 years of neglect, however, was nothing compared to what happened to them upon discovery: the books were burned in an oven, confiscated and sold on the black market, before they were eventually deciphered. It is a miracle in itself that they survived. What they revealed stunned the world.
These were the Gnostic Gospels, alternative Christian texts – poems, myths, philosophy and gospels – which challenge those of the New Testament at every turn. The Gospel of Thomas records sayings of Jesus unlike any we have ever heard; that of Philip describes Mary Magdalene as Christ’s companion ‘whom he loved more than all the disciples’. One text tells the story of the Garden of Eden from the serpent’s point of view, while another casts God as partly feminine. Lyrical and powerful, there is no doubting the passion and devotion that created this poetry.
Recent scholarship indicates that many of these documents were contemporary with the New Testament. So why were they suppressed? Did they represent ‘inconvenient truths’ which the early church fathers wanted obliterated at all costs? In this superb collection, which includes three other uncovered treasures – the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Mary and the Book of the Stranger – the world’s leading Gnostic scholars open the window in order to shed light onto one of archaeology’s most exciting and controversial discoveries."

**Hamadash** · 01-23-2008

We are debating here if this white lies or pleasantries are works of Satan or not.. Murag ni toiris na atong storya balik ta sa atong agi beh...ehhehehe

**justme** · 01-23-2008

sige balik na sa original topic... ill make a new thread nalang... and move some medyo lumilikong topics..hehehe..sorry... got carried away by some topics im reading in the internet...

**Bill Gregory** · 01-24-2008

What I am trying to make a case for is that there is a difference between a white lie and many of the things that we say particularly to those close to us and which are not strictly true. I do not readily know a word to use so arbitrarily I suggested 'something like pleasentries'.

Please note that in an earlier post someone said 'white lies to protect yourself or someone else' - these are definitely in the category of lies because using the word 'protect' gives us the biggest clue on this.

But let's look at the kind of things I cover with the word 'pleasentries' or a better word if we can find it.

1. You meet someone you know and you politely say "It's nice to see you." But you don't really want to see them because you're busy or whatever. You don't say "you're the last person I want to see right now" because that would be rude even if truthful.

2. Your wife or girlfriend is a little bit down so you try to make her feel a bit better by saying "you do look nice today" or "I like your hair like that". You are trying to cheer her up - imagine if you said "you look a bit washed out" which would make her feel even more miserable.

3. One of your children gets bad marks at school. You decide that scolding them won't help as you did that last time so you try "I know you studied quite hard, so next time your marks should be better". But you know they didn't study hard and what you are doing is trying to get your son/daughter to associate hard study with good results in a kind way.

All these are examples of politeness, care and consideration but all can be defined as lies. White lie is a slightly better description because they are lies told for good with no intent to harm. What I am suggesting is that there should be a better word than 'white lie' so that we can always reserve the term 'lie' for something not good at all.

I don't think my three examples would warrant St Peter making any bad entries about you in his books of account, so you can approach the Pearly Gates without trepidation.

Does that explain it?