Why do people need to lie in a good cause? Why isn't the truth enough?

Question

'Bullfighting in Spain is just kept up for the tourists.'
'Pope Leo X said that Christianity was a useful superstition for popes.'
'The Nazis made lampshades out of human skin.'

All of these are often repeated, and all are untrue. Even that famous picture of a slave ship 'improved on' the truth - in reality there were gangways there.
Why isn't having a good cause enough for people?

Answer 1

Because the truth is far more complicated than any pea-brain average Joe can imagine.

Do you know who Lyndon LaRouche is? I probably don't agree with whatever he's selling, but you know what? I don't have TIME to think through all the connections he's made over 70 years of political thinking. Someone stopped me on the street and gave me his pamphlet which has a section on the need for people to understand Kepler's scientific breakthroughs to UNDERSTAND MODERN POLITICS.

I don't have time. You don't have time. We need the most concise, unsparing lies in order to keep on track, unless we split at the seams in a never-ending discourse.

Answer 2

All of history is false. All of it. In this sense it is no different from the future.

Think about it. If you want to know the wavelength of blue light, you can perform an experiment and find out. If you doubt your results, you can do it again. But what can you do to prove that anything ever happened? Nothing.

Therefore, as long as your version of the past fits events in the present, ALL versions of the past are EQUALLY valid. There isn't ONE past any more than there's ONE future. The only thing there's one of is NOW.

And if you have a billion versions of history, how can you really say that one of them is true and another one is false? Sorting out such questions can only be an exercise for those with nothing better to do. It is an endeavor which can never come to any conclusion, because it is beyond measurement... arguably beyond existance.

Given so many possibilities and the impossibility of proof, it is far more reasonable to assume that none of them are true than to try and figure out WHICH is true.

Answer 3

A good many people lie in the name of a good cause simply to line their own pockets with money. People in politics do it frequently. The medical profession is also guilty--claiming they need money to find the cause and cure for cancer when the cause is already known to many people and the cure, too. People in religion lie to line their own pockets--look at some of the big-name television ministers--who don't know God and He doesn't know them--but they manage to fool the public big-time. And a small town minister upon retirement, I did my time--I put in 30 years. I don't need to attend church anymore--The love of money is at the bottom of a lot of lying. The truth IS enough. The truth is BEST. It's just that too many don't want to tell it or live by it. But there are people who do, and their business can prosper and for sure their individual character prospers.

Answer 4

i agree that people should always tell the truth but even i hav to admit that the white lie does help. sometimes the truth hurts n if it is a loved one we r tlkin bout then we'll often tell a lie so they don't find out the truth n get hurt. most of the time we tell lies to protect others of the truth or we do it cause we r ashamed of the truth. either way it is a two way system. hope this helps lol gd question as i hav often wondered bout it as well

Answer 5

Let me give you an extreme example. Let's suppose that my best advocate for abortion rights happens to be a white supremacist. Do I hide that fact? Darn straight. Because it would do my cause severe harm when people are unable to separate the 2 different ideas.

There are similar conundrums that face us all everyday on a continuum of severity.

Answer 6

A physicist called Steven Weinberg put it like this:

'Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.'

Sums it up for me.

Answer 7

People that are insecure in their beliefs, or facts supporting those beliefs feel the need to improve their position. It is their inferiority complex. In reality when their lies are exposed it hurts their cause.

Answer 8

Because it takes guts to admit when one is wrong. Not everyone has the courage to do that so they lie.

Answer 9

truth is good enough but it is often too difficult to accept

Answer 10

"Hiding behind a lie is better than facing the truth."