The Truth About Lying

Lying is Ugly But Growing

By Richard Greene

• A ... study by the U.S. Army War College reported that Army officers routinely lie. Dishonesty and deception” are widespread, the study showed.

• As opening day for the 2015 Major League baseball season draws near, one of the biggest clouds ever hovers over New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez. After defiantly denying in public that he had used banned performance-enhancing substances, baseball’s highest paid player reportedly told federal drug agents and prosecutors behind closed doors that he had indeed used steroids. Rodriguez received immunity from prosecution in exchange for confessing. His admission rang familiar to when Mark McGwire came clean five years ago. McGwire had previously misled Congress about his steroid use, but in the end, he acknowledged he had used the drugs, even as he eclipsed baseball’s single season home run record in 1998 while playing with the St. Louis Cardinals.

• Without question, one of the biggest perpetrators of falsehood has been former professional cycling icon Lance Armstrong. Viewed as larger than life, he inspired the nation by overcoming cancer that developed after the second of his eventual seven Tour de France championships. But his career was constantly engulfed in controversy, as doping accusations swirled around him. Like Rodriguez and McGwire, Armstrong fiercely defended his innocence, only to crash and burn when he finally divulged that he had been telling “one big lie that I repeated a lot of times.” Steroids stripped him of all seven Tour titles, and Armstrong was banned from cycling.

• The financial world was rocked in December 2008 when Bernard Madoff ’s Ponzi scheme—the biggest in history—collapsed, victimizing thousands worldwide. One author later portrayed the imprisoned stockbroker as the “wizard of lies.”...

While it’s easy to identify the lies of public figures—and collectively point fingers—could the lying tendencies of our cultural icons and political leaders really just be a reflection of us? The book The Day America Told the Truth would certainly indicate that. According to the book: 91 percent of Americans admitted they lie regularly; 86 percent admitted lying to their parents; 75 percent admitted lying to their friends; and 69 percent of Americans admitted they lie to their spouse.

A 2002 University of Massachusetts study found that 60 percent of people lied at least once during a 10-minute conversation and told an average of two to three lies. And, according to a 2004 Reader’s Digest poll, 93 percent of Americans reported being dishonest at work or school, and 96 percent reported lying to close family or friends.

What can one conclude? Christian ethicists, commentators and counselors told Decision that America is suffering from an epidemic of lying. Janet Parshall, who has been broadcasting from the nation’s capital for more than 20 years, believes America has morally acquiesced and allowed the tsunami of postmodernism to overpower its society and worldview.

“One of the marks of the postmodern era is that we no longer believe in a transcendent, moral code of absolutes of what’s right and what’s wrong,” said Parshall, whose latest book is Buyer Beware; Finding Truth in the Marketplace of Ideas. “When we fall out of love with the truth, we don’t care about it any more.”

The result, Parshall said, is a plunge toward moral relativism that’s characterized by the practice of situation ethics. “Any means whatsoever is justifiable as long as I get to my desired end,” she explained. “So, if my goal is X, and I have to kind of walk around the truth and twist it and bend it a little, that’s OK as long as it gets me to the goal that I want. We’re doing what’s right in our own eyes, unfortunately.” ...

And lying leaves victims in its destructive wake. “Many Americans are living under the illusion that lying causes no victims,” said Russell D. Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. “When, in fact, lying has victims, starting with the conscience and the integrity of the liar himself or herself. We must realize what lying does to one’s own soul.”

Deep inside the darkened soul, myriad rationalizations for lying are found. The need to look better than we are, and thereby to impress and feel accepted by others. The need to get a promotion or better job, therefore manipulating the truth in order to succeed. The need for self-protection to escape punishment and guilt. The list is endless. ...

  “Lying originated with Satan, who Jesus called ‘the father of lies’ in John 8:44,” Hunt said.

Parshall added: “Ever since we walked out of the Garden of Eden, culture at large has been permeated by an acceptance of lying. What makes the 21st century different is that with the advent of a 24/7 news cycle and being so globally interconnected, lies are more often repeated and more easily exposed than they’ve ever been before.”

So, what’s the hope then? The cross and the Gospel, the four leaders agreed.

“We must be honest about our sin,” Johnson said. “We must not cover our sin but own up to it, confess it and repent from it. We must believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That’s the truth, and there’s forgiveness and freedom in that.” ...

So when Parshall sits before the microphone, before she hits the “on” button, she always prays Psalms 19:14, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer." Read full Decision post HERE

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For more see my book Lying the Case Against Deception HERE on Amazon 

Read the book that proves lying is moral wrong

In Pakistan Muslims Murder Dozens of Christians for Allah

Lahore Park Bombing Leaves Pakistan Reeling WSJ

Some strict Muslims love to murder Christians for Allah

By SAEED SHAH and  QASIM NAUMAN

LAHORE, Pakistan—Sakhawat Ali was standing next to a carousel at a park’s fairground, where his son was spinning around in one of the cars. Then a bomb went off next to it, killing at least 72 people, including 17 children, and wounding more than 300. A suicide bomber had slipped in among the throng at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in Lahore, where many from the city’s sizable Christian community had ventured out with their families to mark Easter Sunday.

A faction of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility, saying it had targeted Christians enjoying the holiday....

The blast on Sunday was one of Pakistan’s deadliest since it began to face an Islamist insurgency in 2007 and the latest in a series of attacks that have targeted Christians. The same Pakistani Taliban faction that claimed Sunday’s attack last year bombed two churches in a largely Christian area of the city, killing at least 13. And at least 70 people were killed in the northwestern city of Peshawar in 2013 when a suicide bomber struck a church.

Mobs and vigilantes in Muslim-majority Pakistan have also targeted the Christian community, which makes up around 2% of the population, often after accusing a Christian of blasphemy. Local blasphemy laws carry a maximum penalty of death. Human-rights campaigners say the laws are often misused to settle personal scores, against both Muslims and non-Muslims. In 2014, a poor Christian couple who made bricks for a living were accused of blasphemy and lynched by a mob that then burned their bodies in a brick kiln.

Many mainstream Muslims have championed Mumtaz Qadri, a former police officer who shot a prominent politician in 2011 for challenging blasphemy laws and was executed in February. On Sunday and Monday, thousands of supporters of Mr. Qadri converged on Islamabad to demand stricter implementation of blasphemy laws....

A Pakistani Christian human-rights group, the National Commission for Justice and Peace, confirmed that 24 of those killed were Christians. But the director, Cecil Shane Chaudhry, said he expected that number to rise as the group verified more victims’ religions.

Jinnah Hospital, close to the park, was overwhelmed by the number of casualties, with even doctors breaking down in tears at the injuries they saw, medical staff said. Among the injured were a 4-year-old boy who was burned and his 5-year-old sister, whose parents died in the blast.

The fairground had turned into a scene of horror.

“I saw bodies lying all around, many were burned, some were missing limbs, others eyes,” said Syed Qaiser Ali, 74 years old, who lives near the park and had rushed to the site. “Wounded women were crying out for someone to find their missing children.”

On Monday at the church of the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination that originated in the U.S., a family was burying Haroon Nazir, a 30-year-old nurse who had gone with his extended family to the park....

“We had gone there to celebrate Easter, to have a good time,” Shahzad Nazir said. “My mother usually doesn’t allow us to go out much, I don’t know how she agreed yesterday. She came along too. [Haroon] died in her arms. We were trying to stop the bleeding, but it wouldn’t stop.”

Munawar John, a friend of Mr. Nazir’s who attended the funeral, said there was no doubt things are getting worse for Christians in Pakistan.

“No Christian is safe here,” he said. “Every time I go outside, death is close by. It follows me around when I go to church, or anywhere else. But I have God on my side, he protects us.” read full WSJ post HERE
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The ultimate solution to Islamic violence is the conversion of Muslims to Christ the Prince of Peace -
see the new book that refutes Islam Refuting Allah, Proving Jesus HERE

Refuting Mormonism at it Core

The Problem with Mormonism: Their god/gods

Mike Robinson

  

Mormons are lost in a maze of false doctrine and darkness

Introduction

 

Mormonism avows that the material cosmos, humanity, and gods are all eternal. I will argue that the LDS view of polytheism has many theological, philosophical, and ontological difficulties. They do not have an unchanging foundation for unity since all the LDS deities change and progress, so that they cannot arbitrate any conflict or disagreement between themselves. If this were true this would result in wide chaos and disorder, yet our universe runs in precision. I contend that the false doctrines of Mormonism have no scriptural support and they are philosophically incongruous as well.

 

 

God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens... I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and have supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea... (Mormon prophet Joseph Smith).

 

Remember that God, our heavenly Father, was perhaps once a child, and mortal like we ourselves, and rose step by step in the scale of progress (Mormon Apostle).¹

 

Mormonism Denies That God alone is Eternal

 

The Gods, organized and formed [not created] the heavens and the earth (Abraham 4:1).

 

Mormonism asserts that the universe, men, and gods are all eternal. If man has always been, and some men have always been progressing into godhood: What came first, a god or a man? If a man was first, who made the man? A god? If a god came first, then from what did he progress in this eternal progression of gods? It’s easy to see that not only do the false doctrines of Mormonism have no scriptural support; they are philosophically mistaken as well.

 

The LORD is righteous in all His ways, gracious in all His works. The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth (Psalms 145:17-18).

 

 

 Questions for Mormons

 

As man is, God once was, as God is, man may become (Mormon Apostle Lorenzo Snow).

 

•    If the result of faith and a godly life is godhood as Mormonism claims, why did Moroni change from a man to an angel and not a god?

 

•   In LDS theology: How did the Holy Spirit become a God without a resurrected physical body of flesh and bones?

 

•   According to Mormon doctrine, at what point in time did Jesus Christ become a God?

 

•    When do Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost receive planets to be Lord over within the religious system of Mormonism?

 

 

Polytheism: Many gods

 

I wish to declare: I have always and in all congregations when I have preached on the subject of the Deity, it has been the plurality of Gods (Joseph Smith).

 

Gods exist, and we better strive to prepare to be one with them (Brigham Young).²

 

The Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth (Abraham 4:1).

 

Joseph Fielding Smith expelled the following out of his begrimed soul: “I will preach a plurality of Gods... I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and that the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage of Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and Gods... God the Father had a Father, you may suppose that he had a Father also.” In contrast, Cornelius Van Til councils that polytheism leads to vanity and emptiness because “men have felt a lack in the gods that are made with man’s hands and according to men’s imaginations” (IST). Only the Most high God can bless men with joy, peace, fulfillment, and hope (Romans 15:13). A multitude of insignificant spurious gods cannot offer any true hope. Idols can only bring despair.

 

The LDS take on polytheism (most Mormons will not admit that they are polytheists—they usually profess to only worship the god of this world and no other gods) has many problems. They do not have an unchanging foundation for unity (all the LDS deities change and progress) so that they cannot arbitrate any conflict or disagreement between themselves. If this were true this would result in wide chaos and disorder, yet our universe runs in precision.

 

Our Father in heaven at one time passed through a life and death and is an exalted man... our Father had a father and so on (LDS Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith).

 

An Insurmountable Problem

 

 

I will cry out to God Most High, to God who performs all things for me (Psalms 57:2).

 

If God the Father has a god, as Smith and other LDS prophets taught, and this god has a god, and his god has a god, how can one claim to worship the Most High God? The true and living God is the Most High. The Latter-day Saint god is not the Most High God, consequently, he is not God.

 

The Problem with Mormonism: Their god/gods

 

Gods exist, and we better strive to prepare to be one with them (Brigham Young).³

 

Mormonism cannot provide the required a priori essentials for immutable universals (the laws of logic, mathematical truths, moral law, etc.) because their god is limited to time and space, and wasn’t always a god. The LDS god/gods change and lack universal power so they lack the capacity to account for immutable universals. The Lord God revealed in the Bible is the basis for the laws of logic. The laws of logic are unchanging, transcendent, universal, and immaterial and only the Most High God who is unchanging, transcendent, universal in reach, and immaterial can provide the mandatory truth conditions for laws of logic. Thus, it’s impossible for Mormonism to be true.

 

Van Til remarked that “God is absolute. He is autonomous” (IST). People cannot be autonomous (not subject to the rule or authority of another) and the LDS notion of their god cannot be autonomous. For strict autonomy one must have aseity, self-rule, and supreme sovereignty which only the true God has. Much of mankind has rebelled against the authority of God and that rebellion is culminated in LDS eternal progression theology. Men seek the crowning glory that is only due God. Van Til comments: “The natural man virtually attributes to himself that which true Christian theology attributes to the self-contained God” (IST).

 

Those who puff out their chests pinned with little black badges will never become a god, and lacking repentance, their destiny is bleak. Christians must speak the truth in love and tear off the masks of pride and self-sufficiency of LDS members and other nonbelievers. We must do this with patience, respect, hard truth, and compassion. If it were not for God’s grace, the Christian could also be stuck in a system that blasphemes the thrice holy God.

 

Contend for the Truth

 

Additionally, many Mormons have a persecution complex that can rise up when a Christian discusses the errors of their faith. The Christian should seek to speak the truth in love, but speak the truth even if it hurts the feelings of the Mormon. Gentleness and patience yes, but remember, unlike most faiths the LDS religion propagates sheer blasphemy (men can become gods; God the Father was once a sinful man; etc.).

 

They will perish, but You will endure; yes, they will all grow old like a garment; like a cloak You will change them, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will have no end (Psalms 102:26-27).

 

Van Til’s elucidation that with “the self-contained ontological Trinity we have the foundational concept of a Christian theory of being, of knowledge, and action. Christians are interested in showing to those who believe in no God or in a God, a beyond, some ultimate or absolute, that it is this God in whom they must believe lest all meaning should disappear” summarizes the proper goal of the Christian witnessing to a Mormon.

The Problem for All Imperfect Men

 

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1).     

 

Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness (Romans 4:4-5).

 

The problem for flawed men is that heaven is perfect, God is holy, and nothing unholy and unrighteous will enter God’s pristine heaven. biblical justification is the only solution to man’s sin and Adam’s disobedience. Justification forensically renders the believer righteous and gives him peace with heaven. Without justification, the unbeliever has no peace with God. We must never assert that there is peace for the LDS member when there is no peace between the ungodly and God. Without justification by grace alone, there can be no real peace. “Imputation” is the biblical term for the positive element of justification. Through God’s grace by faith, the believer is declared righteous. Christ preached: “Be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). The law demands perfect obedience—a perfection equal to the Father’s perfection. Nobody except Christ has accomplished this, so we need a perfect righteousness that is not our own. We need to be justified by the works and righteousness of another. Justification is a forensic term that speaks of the Christian’s legal position before God. The believer is declared righteous despite his unrighteous deeds. The justified are given an alien righteousness, a righteousness that is not their own but is imputed unto them by faith. It is the flawless righteousness of Jesus Christ. Not having a righteousness of our own ensures that God gets all the glory.

 

 

Saved by Grace Alone: Grace That Does Not Remain Alone

 

 

But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and justification, and sanctification, and redemption: that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31).

 

But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness (Romans 4:5).

 

The Mormon ought to be reminded, with care, of his unrighteous position before a perfect God. As Thomas Boston puts it, “We cry down the law when it comes to our justification... The Law drives us to the Gospel that we are justified, then sends us to the Law again to show us our duty now that we are justified.” A Mormon charge that often comes to the Christian is: So we can get saved and just go on sinning since we are saved by grace alone?  One is saved only by God’s loving grace, but all those who are genuinely saved, are to obey God’s commandments out of gratitude. We follow God’s law not to get saved, or remain saved, we follow it out of love for God because He saved us. Since the Christian is utterly thankful for Christ dying and rising from the grave, we seek to follow God’s word out of gratitude.

 

But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men (Titus 3:4-8).

God is Perfectly Holy Men are Not

Ralph Venning annunciates the righteousness of God with this: “God is holy, without spot or blemish, or any such thing, without wrinkle, or anything like it... He is holy, that He cannot sin himself... He is without iniquity, and of purer eyes than to behold iniquity... God is holy, all holy, only holy, altogether holy.” Our sin is real and God’s holiness is pure and true. The only way one enters His perfect heaven is in perfect holiness: no man has that. We need our sins removed and replaced with a perfect righteousness. This is what God demands and God supplies when one puts his faith in Christ. God does exist and He did send His Son to die for His people. The contrary is impossible. The truth of the Gospel is that you must flee from wickedness and put all your trust in Jesus Christ and His atoning death and resurrection.

Cast your whole soul upon Christ. Flee to His mercy, love, and truth. He will not only forgive you, but He will secure you since He will never leave you nor forsake you. Jesus died on the cross for sinners and rose from the grave: Come to Christ and find pardon, hope, joy, and love.

So when Peter saw it, he responded … “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up … But you denied the Holy One and the Just … and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. … But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:12-19).

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NOTES

1.        Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, 1:123.

2.        Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 7:238.

3.      Ibid.

For more see the Innovative eBook Christian Philosophy and PresuppositionsExamine Mormon Theology HERE Amazon