The perils of lying. To your car.

Today we examine lying. What it means. Whether it’s always bad, or whether you can even conclusively determine what it means one way or the other.

Can you lie to your car? Can you lie to your cat?

You can certainly lie to your mother. People do that seemingly all the time. Let’s look at the way someone might do it…

Let’s consider first the class of a person who really loves his mother. A person who doesn’t want to hurt his mother, quite specifically. A person can certainly be said to experience hurt of some kind when they are lied to. Often they feel cheated — deprived of the truth. They might feel taken advantage of, in for example the instance they’re given assurances that the money they were given to put in the collection plate was used for something else — possibly something selfish or even nefarious.

“No mom, I’ll put it in the collection plate for the less privileged people, for the church.”

And then perhaps he buys a firecracker to throw in the dog house of a dog he may want to torture. Or buy a few pieces of candy for himself.

What part of this is bad? Is it merely the action of taking it for a purpose other than what he said he would do? Does it depend on whether the purpose for which he used it is worse than the purpose for which it was intended?

Trust is given others for various reasons. Sometimes we do it primarily to learn whether someone can be trusted. Sometimes it may really be just a…