Lying vs. simply being wrong

[SpaceMonkeyZero]

I actually think very few truthers are liars.

Same here. A majority are deluded and cultish... They don't know that they're being used by those who made up the CT lies in the first place. Therefore they don't know they're spewing "lies"... until they wake up like the ex-truthers that are brave enough to come forward.

 

[dudalb]

I think some of the Truth leaders know they are lying,know a lot of the evidence they present is crap,but feel that their political ends justify any means.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Only if you have the capacity to understand what you are being told. A truther is lied to by the likes of Ross in regards to physics, so he parrots the claim, even if though he is incapable of understanding what Ross is saying. So when someone proves Ross wrong, it has no meaning to the truther because he did not understand the information to begin with. Therefore, the individual falls back on the position of believing Ross because that is what he wants to believe. The truther is not lying, he just does not understand.

What is bizarre is that there are plenty of truthers who are quite capable of doing this despite the fact that they do in fact have the capacity to understand the fallacies in what they have been told. I cannot imagine that bofors, a former graduate student in chemistry, has so great a misunderstanding of thermodynamics as to believe the statement - originating, I think, from Steven Jones - that the WTC7 collapse violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Yet he seems able to repeat the statement quite sincerely; he comes across as a true believer, not a trolling liar, and we've all seen enough of both to tell the difference. The capacity of human beings for self-deception is extraordinary at times.

Dave

 

[bonkey]

Having once been told, a lie is still a lie. It's still a deliberate untruth, whether the person repeating it believes it or not.

So you're saying something is a lie once anyone along the chain of it being told has been a liar.

Consider that its already been recognised that you can be lieing whilst telling the truth. The implication of this is that you can be telling teh truth, can believe what you are saying is true, and still be accused of telling a lie!!!!

I think we'll just have to agree to differ on this one.

For me, whether or not a statement is a lie is based on the intent of the person making the statement.

"You're telling lies, but are not a liar" is a simple contradiction from my perspective. Its not quite the same as "you were lied to, and are now repeating those claims".

 

[Disbelief]

What is bizarre is that there are plenty of truthers who are quite capable of doing this despite the fact that they do in fact have the capacity to understand the fallacies in what they have been told. I cannot imagine that bofors, a former graduate student in chemistry, has so great a misunderstanding of thermodynamics as to believe the statement - originating, I think, from Steven Jones - that the WTC7 collapse violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Yet he seems able to repeat the statement quite sincerely; he comes across as a true believer, not a trolling liar, and we've all seen enough of both to tell the difference. The capacity of human beings for self-deception is extraordinary at times.

Dave

I agree. This falls into the delusional category where the person wants to believe in the conspiracy and can not concede even the smallest point.

 

[scratchy]

I think some of the Truth leaders know they are lying,know a lot of the evidence they present is crap,but feel that their political ends justify any means.

I would say that probably a lot of the followers also knows this. To many people today truth is a matter of opinion and taking a stance. If it feels right i am right even if i do know that the facts i'm presenting are false. And this i regard as lying. There might be a problem sorting them out from the really deluded and insane people, though.

 

[funk de fino]

I know two truthers. One is a liar who makes accusations and statements and then denies making them even when they are in writing and you can easily go back and see them. He then resorts to personal abuse of a sexual nature. Later he will repeat claims that have been proven to be wrong and in fact are lies.

The other guy is a follower, he just posts the same old bunk that gets proved wrong but then just ignores it and posts something else. He will admit if he made a mistake but ignores things that are inconvenient to his story. He does not lie he just unwittingly repeats them.

They are both on the lower end of the intelligence scale which seems to be a common factor.

To me they are the drones of the movement who are being misled by the liars at the top. One good thing about it is that in every thread they start their 911 stuff in (its a music board) the other members of the board always come out in support of the evidence presented by me instead of the bunk they post. This really winds them up.

 

[Belz...]

The other guy is a follower, he just posts the same old bunk that gets proved wrong but then just ignores it and posts something else. He will admit if he made a mistake but ignores things that are inconvenient to his story.

And he probably comes right back with it later on...

 

[1337m4n]

Well, yeah. That's sorta what I meant with criterion point #2. I guess I should have said "the person must know their statement to be false or misleading". As in they know the truth of that particular statement (but not necessarily the matter as a whole).

Having once been told, a lie is still a lie. It's still a deliberate untruth, whether the person repeating it believes it or not.

If--hypothetically, for the sake of argument--the Truth Movement was right about everything, would that make all of us debunkers liars?

 

[Minadin]

Well, yeah. That's sorta what I meant with criterion point #2. I guess I should have said "the person must know their statement to be false or misleading". As in they know the truth of that particular statement (but not necessarily the matter as a whole).



If--hypothetically, for the sake of argument--the Truth Movement was right about everything, would that make all of us debunkers liars?

No. It would make us wrong, not liars, for a couple of reasons.

1. We've done honest inquiry without confirmation bias (in most cases) and reached what we feel is the most plausible conclusion given the evidence. We're not deliberately ignoring contradictory information in an attemt to maintain our position.

2. If it turned out that the Truth Movement^TM was right about everything, it would mean that new evidence had been produced, somehow, to prove it. In that case, the vast majority of us would immediately switch "sides", since we follow the evidence, and aren't actually trying to protect the government's position here - not that anyone would want to at that point anyway. We'd be their biggest supporters.

However, the above scenario is a virtual impossibility. Since there's so much disagreement and competition within the movement itself, there's no way they could be completely right in any conceivable way. If verifiable evidence ever turned up to overwhelmingly support even one of their theories, however, I still think you would see a very similar reaction to reason #2 above.