(March 24, 2013 at 2:26 am)jstrodel Wrote: Do you hope you are not like them because you base your morality on being what religion and corporations are not, or because it is wrong to lie?
When I was younger, I used to hate religion and corporations and be a left wing anarchist. I used to hate corporations and then base my hatred of lying and greed off of my hatred of corporations.
I think a few things are being confounded here. First, can it be inherently wrong to lie? There are obvious scenarios in which a lie would not only be morally permissible, but telling the truth would be morally impermissible. Would you rat out Jews if the gestapo asked you where they were hiding, or would you lie?
Secondly, there is the magnitude of a lie. Telling a white lie and scamming someone out of thousands of dollars are seriously different things.
I think that, in most situations, you shouldn't lie, but there are enough exceptions that it would be unwise to outright declare lying a crime.
Lastly, and the thing I think Cthulhu Dreaming was trying to say, is that it isn't a lie to be mistaken. If you can't prove that objective morality exists, then it isn't a lie to say that it doesn't, it is merely a mistake (if it does exist). Seeing as that your own religion was just accused of lying, one would think this point would be clearer.
And, even if objective morality does exist, you could very well be mistaken as to what it is, which could be very harmful. How do you know that another religion's idea of morality isn't the right one? Would you be a liar if it was? (Or if said morality was independent of religion)
