Are White Lies Acceptable?

[charlie2dogs]

expose the lies you are living yourself and maybe you wont need to lie to others.

[Markus]

@charlie2dogs

On 6/22/2016 at 2:21 PM, charlie2dogs said:

did you base your belief on the book radical honesty?  sometimes it pays just to keep your mouth shut, and let things be when it concerns others, you can do a world of harm to others with the so called truth of the human identity.  its not your place or right to give others your version of the truth, when you dont have it yourself.  the author of this book radical honesty is he a self realized being, or a human identity writing a book?

The notion of having a right to do or not do something is a moralistic one. I imagine myself to be open to a critical discussion of Blanton's ideas though I may have some bias. I believe my bias and dogmatism with regard to Radical Honesty to be unjustified as I haven't tested the technique out nearly enough.

Could you give an example of the harm? Or of a white lie that's preferable to telling the truth?  If you're afraid your version of the truth is false and will harm others, why not say so? Radical Honesty is not about a crusade to assert your worldview, but a reporting of what you notice.

It is impossible not to keep our mouth shut to one degree or another, and that's fine. My comment was addressing the telling of white lies in place of the truth, as far as I remember.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Markus

[charlie2dogs]

1 minute ago, Markus said:

@charlie2dogs

The notion of having a right to do or not do something is a moralistic one. I imagine myself to be open to a critical discussion of Blanton's ideas though I may have some bias. I believe my bias and dogmatism with regard to Radical Honesty to be unjustified as I haven't tested the technique out nearly enough.

Could you give an example of the harm? If you're afraid your version of the truth is false and will harm others, why not say so? Radical Honesty is not about a crusade to assert your worldview, but a reporting of what you notice.

you can do a lot of harm in this world to others when you attempt to give your so called truth. 99.9 percent of the people have never touched reality or truth so what is it that you are trying to lay on others with your belief system or did you ever consider the affect of you injecting your belief system into other peoples lives when, you are no where close to being self realized and have access to truth and reality.  can you tell me where truth and reality is found, and how you can have it?

[Markus]

1 minute ago, charlie2dogs said:

you can do a lot of harm in this world to others when you attempt to give your so called truth. 99.9 percent of the people have never touched reality or truth so what is it that you are trying to lay on others with your belief system or did you ever consider the affect of you injecting your belief system into other peoples lives when, you are no where close to being self realized and have access to truth and reality.  can you tell me where truth and reality is found, and how you can have it?

You're talking about the absolute truth, I'm talking about relative truths. Absolute truth is obviously incommunicable. In the context of radical honesty, a relative truth is reporting what you perceive to the best of your ability. When I say "I believe the earth to be round", I am giving a report of the working of my mind.

[charlie2dogs]

4 minutes ago, Markus said:

You're talking about the absolute truth, I'm talking about relative truths. Absolute truth is obviously incommunicable. In the context of radical honesty, a relative truth is reporting what you perceive to the best of your ability. When I say "I believe the earth to be round", I am giving a report of the working of my mind.

truth is communicable if you have it,  most believe it isnt because they dont have it, so they have to beleive it isnt communicable to feel good. This has nothing to do with absolute nothing, relative truth is what you believe, how many people are messed up on this earth today because of what they believe, the best of ones ability can be just another excuse for failure of the human identity.

any time you say i believe, you are saying you dont know but you have accepted a belief that is not real

Edited June 23, 2016 by charlie2dogs

[charlie2dogs]

22 minutes ago, Markus said:

You're talking about the absolute truth, I'm talking about relative truths. Absolute truth is obviously incommunicable. In the context of radical honesty, a relative truth is reporting what you perceive to the best of your ability. When I say "I believe the earth to be round", I am giving a report of the working of my mind.

if you understand fully the last sentence i wrote in the last post it can lead you to liberation from a false belief system.

[Markus]

@charlie2dogs So you're claiming to have the truth? If so, how can you communicate it?

[charlie2dogs]

6 minutes ago, Markus said:

@charlie2dogs So you're claiming to have the truth? If so, how can you communicate it?

i communicate truth and reality, that is why i am here, and i do communicate it, not as the human identity but as something else,  i am here for no other reason, a few are able to relate to the reality i bring, on somewhat a deeper level than the human identity, which is a good indication of their growth, some their egos get in the way because they get offended when they hear something that goes against what they believe, reality offends the human identity's belief system and always will. the human identity will never see reality or truth.  i have never known a human identity to even be able to define truth and reality or where it can be found, or how it can be had.

[Emerald]

On June 1, 2016 at 9:05 AM, Roise said:

Hi,

As easy as it is to condemn the act of lying around us, it is very easy to fall into the trap of lying. Is intended concealment of information lying? What is lying? What if the lies are being passed on without the intermediaries knowing? What kind of intention behind lying makes lies justifiable and acceptable? What about white lies, lies that are intended for the better? What are your personal takes? Feel free to share with me (:

Well, it's really a personal decision as to whether or not lies are acceptable or unacceptable. I would accept them if they cause no direct harm to self or other. The main problem with lying is that we often can't identify our own lies. For example, I could have an experience where I've done something nice for someone then tell myself "I'm such a nice person." This is a lie because it is a false label. Then if I go on believing the lie "I'm a nice person." Other small lies can become attached to it such as "Nice people are better than people who aren't nice." or "I'm nicer than John." or "I'm nicer than John so I'm better than John... oh wait... that thought wasn't very nice... I would never think anything like that." "But I'm definitely more admirable than people like John." "Nice people don't hurt other people... but eating animals is still okay because it's different. They would be killed anyway." "Nice people usually listen to Raggae... that type of music is more chill, so people who listen to Raggae  are super nice. It's just a better type of music to listen to." "People who are nice are always chill and relaxed. So, type A, preppy people aren't very nice." "Nice people like me are better than those preps." Then finally, "I wish that everyone in the world would be as nice as me... then we wouldn't have all the problems that we have. I wish people who aren't nice just wouldn't exist oe change." Pretty soon you'll have a snowball effect that grows to distort your view of reality. 

[Roise]

19 hours ago, Emerald Wilkins said:

Well, it's really a personal decision as to whether or not lies are acceptable or unacceptable. I would accept them if they cause no direct harm to self or other. The main problem with lying is that we often can't identify our own lies. For example, I could have an experience where I've done something nice for someone then tell myself "I'm such a nice person." This is a lie because it is a false label. Then if I go on believing the lie "I'm a nice person." Other small lies can become attached to it such as "Nice people are better than people who aren't nice." or "I'm nicer than John." or "I'm nicer than John so I'm better than John... oh wait... that thought wasn't very nice... I would never think anything like that." "But I'm definitely more admirable than people like John." "Nice people don't hurt other people... but eating animals is still okay because it's different. They would be killed anyway." "Nice people usually listen to Raggae... that type of music is more chill, so people who listen to Raggae  are super nice. It's just a better type of music to listen to." "People who are nice are always chill and relaxed. So, type A, preppy people aren't very nice." "Nice people like me are better than those preps." Then finally, "I wish that everyone in the world would be as nice as me... then we wouldn't have all the problems that we have. I wish people who aren't nice just wouldn't exist oe change." Pretty soon you'll have a snowball effect that grows to distort your view of reality. 

Correct me if I am wrong but I think that what you have illustrated here is more of a personal slippery slope fallacy than about white lies. White lies are harmless or trivial lies, usually told to avoid hurting someone's feelings. What you have described did not address the element of hurting another's feelings. Also, I would classify your response as one that is related to self perception instead of lying.

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, Roise said:

Correct me if I am wrong but I think that what you have illustrated here is more of a personal slippery slope fallacy than about white lies. White lies are harmless or trivial lies, usually told to avoid hurting someone's feelings. What you have described did not address the element of hurting another's feelings. Also, I would classify your response as one that is related to self perception instead of lying.

These are more about lies that we tell ourselves, that inevitably make us lie to others. Deep down, we know that they aren't true but we trick ourselves into believing them anyway. This is why they are lies because deep down, we know full well that these things aren't true. So, relative to this, we always tell untruths to others because our capacity for being truthful with ourselves is low. So, I see no issue with telling white lies because we're constantly telling lies anyway whether we want to or not, until we can be conscious enough of how we lie to ourselves.