No one can deceive or lie to anyone that doesn't believe them
Many of us were taught that lying is a sin, but is it the lie or the intention of the lie that is the sin and why do we believe lies?
We all tell lies, sometimes intentionally or otherwise unknowingly. Some people lie to protect themselves, some lie to protect others or to avoid hurting others, some people lie to get something they need or want believing they can’t have it any other way. Then there are people who lie to control and abuse others in an effort to avoid their own shortcomings and responsibilities.
Deception is evil according to the Bible. Satan is the master of deceit, disguise and lies. Deception and lies do cause the most conflict in relationships, create havoc in our society and the cost of deception to our economy is enormous, but lying is a collaborative process. There are people who tell lies and there are people who believe lies but no one can lie to, or deceive anyone that chooses not to believe them.
There are times when we may have been completely taken in and deceived by someone and afterwards left totally devastated or financially ruined. We trusted someone and they betrayed us and now we don’t know who to trust, but it’s not the person who deceived us that caused the destruction in our lives, no one really has that power. It was not trusting ourselves, our own judgement and our feelings that caused us harm and we all have the power to change that.
A woman once claimed when she was younger, she suffered from an illness one could easily call gullibility. She believed everything she was told without question. Looking back later, she could see that some of what she believed was outrageous and there were so many signs and feelings that were telling her, but she ignored them all with devastating consequences.
People who lie to and deceive others often feel powerful or they feel guilty but the power or guilt they feel is an illusion because the person they believe they have deceived has chosen to be deceived and can just as easily choose not to. A lie has to be believed to be effective.
The reasons we choose to believe things that aren’t true are many and varied. We are lied to as children and then we choose to believe the same lies when we hear them as adults because it’s familiar or it gives us a sense of false security.
We want to have a relationship with a particular person and believing them is the condition the relationship is based on. If the person we are with tells us we are unworthy, we may choose to believe we are unworthy to appease them.
Some people are afraid to deal with people directly and often fall into the trap of ‘living off second-hand information’. This is when someone tells you that something or someone has done something to you or said something about you. You can assume many things but when you act on assumptions or second-hand information, you leave yourself wide open to deception and injury.
Lies and deception can come to us from anywhere – advertising, movies, books, authorities, parents, friends, family, associates, intimate partners and professionals, but from the same sources, we can also find the truth. We deceive ourselves when we believe something that isn’t true and we can just as easily deceive ourselves when we believe something is a lie that is true.
All we ever need to trust is ourselves, our own judgment and perceptions, and our feelings will always let us know when we are believing something that is or isn’t true.
Is it right or wrong to lie, to deceive others or to allow ourselves to be deceived or to disbelieve the truth? Who do we blame? In our natural world, there is no right or wrong, there is no blame or shame; there are only choices and consequences.