{"id":2513,"date":"2011-09-21T10:24:07","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T15:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2513"},"modified":"2011-09-21T10:24:07","modified_gmt":"2011-09-21T15:24:07","slug":"the-ninth-commandment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2513","title":{"rendered":"The Ninth Commandment"},"content":{"rendered":"

After reading Sam Harris\u2019s new book, Lying<\/a>, I started to wonder what Christians would think about this book. After all, Harris is making a case for the Ninth Commandment. He is basically saying that in almost every situation, telling the truth is better than telling a lie.<\/p>\n

While this seems to be an intersection in which atheists and theists might be in agreement, I don\u2019t think Harris is advocating that liars ought to be tortured for all eternity in Hell<\/a> (as many Christians believe). On the contrary, Harris is making the case that lying is not moral on purely secular and logical grounds.<\/p>\n

How might Christians view this book? Would they praise it and say, \u201cSee, the Bible told you that lying was wrong and here is a leading atheist who agrees with us!\u201d Or will they say, \u201cHarris has it all wrong, lying is wrong only because God says so.\u201d Perhaps, they won\u2019t even bother to read it considering that Sam Harris is an atheist.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, it has been my experience that Christians lie quite a bit more than atheists anyway. Many seem to have no problem deceiving people if they believe that they can save their souls in doing so. A good example of this was when I was in college, one of the Christian groups put on a program about getting over alcoholism. They made sure that there was no mention of religion on the posters for the event and the whole event was just a deception to get people to come learn about Jesus.<\/p>\n

Even in the Bible, God lies:<\/p>\n

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie. – 2 Thessalonians 2:11<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Please check out my review of Lying by Sam Harris<\/a> and let me know what you thought of the book.<\/p>\n

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