Lying

[Fireball]

And by lying, I assume we don't mean spreading opinions that they really believe are true, but are just factually incorrect .Being wrong isn't the same thing as lying. It's the actual lies, deceptions like concealing the particulars of a 'Good News Club' at a public school so parents won't have an issue signing their child's permission slip, pretending to befriend someone when all you want from them is conversion, and keeping you mouth shut when you hear your minister say something you know is misleading (maybe because you were reading along in your Bible and read the verse after the one where he stopped). Then there's the big one: pious fraud. You know there's a leak that's causing the statue of Mary to seem to cry, but you worry it might hurt people's faith if you point out that it isn't miraculous weeping.

If your religion is true, and you know it's true, your instinct ought to be to never lie, particularly when it comes to religious matters.

Or worse, when someone points out that the tears (or water from the feet, IIRC) are actually sewage from a nearby restroom and people try to kill him instead of looking for the facts.

[Angrboda]

Lying to ones self seems to be an oxymoron. If it's truly lying in the sense of knowing that what one chooses to believe is not true, I'm not sure I agree with your point. More often, that's hope, rather than lying. I think the more substantial question you're aiming for is why do we embrace things that we seem to have the ability to see through as being false. That's a deeper question.

[downbeatplumb]

Is cover-up of rape cases/sexual abuse lying for Jesus?

Or indeed Trump.

It works on so many terrible terrible things.

[robvalue]

Lying requires real time awareness of the falsity of the provided statement.

Many Christians are not lying.  They are simply repeating the religious dogma and indoctrination of which they were infected.

I wonder about this.

For instance, how can they possibly believe the "America is a Christian Nation" crap when you show them that the Constitution is a completely secular document which only even mentions religion in an exclusionary way?

How can they possibly believe American law is based on the Ten Commandments when you can show them that the first 4 commandments are in direct conflict with the First Amendment and that the only two which are mirrored in American Law (don't kill and don't steal) are also mirrored in the law of every other society ever established (including those embracing different gods) because they are so obvious?

When does willful ignorance become a lie? When does non-willful ignorance become a lie?

Maybe this is better as a philosophical question.

Indeed, you'd hope people would consider it responsible to do basic research, and to consider how this effects the "information" they give out. Staying willfully ignorant edges towards lying. It is astonishing how well the human brain is able to compartmentalise, and to even hold contradictory beliefs/information at once, in order to defend long-held positions. I suspect some people are unaware it's happening, and it's very tempting for them to displace anyone who tells them otherwise.