I was asked how I got that bruise on my knee, I said "I don't know," when clearly I knew. Was I lying?
I said, "I'm right," when clearly I wasn't, and I knew that and so did they, but I just kept saying that "I'm right." Was I lying?
I asked them if I looked nice in the dress. They replied hesitantly, "Sure." Were they lying?
What's a lie?
It was such a simple question with a simple answer when I was younger. Telling a lie was simply not telling the truth. If I knew what happened, and I simply wanted to "cover-up" the truth or make up a story, it was considered a lie. However, now the further distinction whether something is a lie or not is hazy.
Dictionary.com defines ‘lying,’ or ‘lie’ as “an inaccurate or false statement; a falsehood,” or “to speak falsely or utter untruth knowingly, as with intent to deceive.”
We lie to avoid hurting other people's feelings or we lie to keep our honor.
There's several types of lies: "Lies of Commission," "Lies of Omission," and "Lies of Influence." (http://www.scienceofpeople.com/2014/08/different-t...)
The ‘white lie,’ which (according to English Oxford Living Dictionaries) is the “harmless or trivial lie, especially one told to avoid hurting someone’s feelings.” This is the lie where you avoid hurting your friend's feelings by not saying that she shouldn't buy that outfit for herself when she asks how she looks.
To some degree, it can be considered easy to identify if someone is lying: the change of voice (pitch), the uncomfortable fidgeting, changing the story when asked “what happened," or the other type of cues we find once we get to know that person.
What about the liar that we can't prove that is lying to us?
Take the topic of global warming/climate change, do you think it exists?
To some, it’s obvious that it exists. Why else would we be experiencing 70-degree weather in February? To others, the answer is indefinite. We can all agree that we are experiencing weather warmer than we should typically be experiencing in winter, but the cause of why is not so easy to agree on.
To those who claim that there is climate change, the follow-up question will be “what’s the proof?” Their answer: science. How much do you believe in the 'science' that we see? Do we always take into consideration the margin of error in science?
In other words, what about the facts that weren’t stressed enough to make that claim? In terms of global warming/climate change, it’s known that humans used too much carbon dioxide that is destroying the ozone layer, which in turn is impacting the weather on this planet. Some claim it’s a combination of humans and the natural course of the world aging for this to happen.
How can we distinguish what’s a lie and what isn’t then? What is the truth? Our perception of what is the 'truth' is influenced by media and the people with whom we surround ourselves. At the end of the day, it’s essentially up to our own interpretation, unless we take the step to prove our theories and claims to be true.
Then again, our news sources, as much as we want to believe our news sources are unbiased, are written by people who have their own outlook on what is true and what isn. They present the information in the way that they want to present it, and some news sources do a better job of remaining unbiased.
Most of us want to be seen as credible sources, credible enough that if someone asks us a question regardless of subject, they will believe in our answer (even if we admit that we don't know). Credibility, trustworthiness and honesty go together. Therefore, we can't simply fall for every fact stated by an authoritative figure, news figure, or any person and spread that information without further finding out for ourselves if it is true information.
Sometimes it’s harder to figure out if something is a lie or not.