The American Fib Factor - Easy Steps to Being a Damn Good Liar - Honestly!

In the beginning there was Adam the first man, Eve the first woman and the Serpent the first consultant. If there’s one thing you can’t be in life it’s honest when you’re trying to get ahead. If 95% of statistics are made up on the spot, then your goal should be to work even harder at fabricating the other 5% to where they’re more truthfully false than the 95% sounded. And when you’re really good, when you’ve done it long enough, you can graduate to the level where you actually believe your own lies and can convince those around you that not only are you the bringer of truth, but that the truth is worth the cost you charge. You are ripe for a successful career in many respected industries…politics, legal counsel, sales, media, being an older sibling on Christmas Eve. Aaah, this is where life begins. You may wonder, what is it about lies that makes them so believable? Are there levels of lying? What would you consider to be a liar at the grade school level? High school? Undergraduate? Grad School level? How do you reach PhD status? What are some of the obstacles to reaching the loftiest levels? What compromises a good lie?

First, what are good times to withhold information from those you love or those you hate for that matter? Try this one on for size. You have just been told that the girl your best friend is dating is really using him to get to his Porsche Carrera, the swank condo, and the realtor that sold him both. At this point one must ask, is "appropriate lying" a question of circumstance?

For those of you in the Bible-thumper crowd, here's a moral conundrum. How do you explain Rahab, the whore who saved the nation of Israel (Joshua 2:1-14) when she ball faced lied her way into protecting the Israeli spies she'd been smuggling in order to get them out of the city of Jericho alive? Or Jacob, engaging the classic family feud to garner his brother's first-born inheritance (Genesis 25:27-34). Flip to Malachi and you see God Almighty applauding the totality of Jacob's life over his older brother (Malachi 1:1-5). Which is more important from these stories? The tenacity and level of value that we place on what we value, or how we acquire what we value? What is God saying about His nature in honoring those who honor what He honors? Does the end justify the means?

In recent days, you look across the political landscape, scratch your head and say, how do you arrive at a Daniel Crane sexscapade, a Jack Abramoff/Ralph Reed liaison, a Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid for Realtor, or any political campaign or lobby scandal where the players doggedly stand by their actions as acceptable. Are they lying to themselves? Why might that be a dangerous habit? What happens when we believe our own lies? What happens to the Coservative Right, often self-described as synonomous with Christian values, when they use God as a rubber stamp for policies such as the Faith Based Initiative Non-profit Gold Rush. What about a Left that rushes in to blindly and indiscrimanately elevate a woman's choice above that of her unborn infant, er, fetus, then cries that lawmakers need to legalize immigrant workers to make up for a smaller working class that does not have numbers enough to financially support failing social institutions? It all smacks of a passage in Genesis 1:24 of the NIV (Nihilist International Version).

“Man spoke: Let us make God in our own image, make Him reflecting our nature…So man created God in his own image, in the image of Man he created Him. Male and female, they created Him.”

We chuckle at youthful ignorance.

A little boy asks his father, "Daddy, how much does it cost to get married?". His Father replies, "I don't know, son, I'm still paying."

But when the rubber meets the proverbial space between the white lines, we must marvel at his honesty. Why do enlightened and mature adults cower from directly and honestly addressing many of the issues they face in today’s world? Are the stakes that much higher? Or is it simply an issue of respect. Is it easier to lie when someone doesn’t have respect for the other person, group, or themselves? In an ironic twist of fate, our sophisticated culture still wrestles with a Gospel play on words that is more than 2,000 years old. For four consecutive books it sets up the premise that the Truth is a Person, not a concept.

“You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free?”—John 8:32

Ever wonder why? How would believing this, that Truth is a Person and not a concept, affect one’s concept of truth? Of lying? How might it simplify the political process? Truth would then become less negotiable. Where it's easy to negotiate philosophical pros and cons, ethics wars and the like, it's difficult to do the same with a person’s identity and reputation. Lying held against the truth of the Person would then become an argument based on clearly established precedent (if the person were consistent), not revisionism to fit the current wind pattern of popular belief. But why would we want that! It's too simple. We're sophisticated. We're postmodern. So we send the kids back out in the yard. Someday they'll understand. We have a media monster with a healthy appetite that needs a steady diet of scandels to stay energized. It keeps the monster focused externally. We're never left alone with our own thoughts.