Pope says:
"We are all fundamentally good"
Jeremiah 17:9-10
“The heart is more deceitful than all else. And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?
“I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds."
All people are ‘fundamentally good,’ Pope Francis tells CBS interviewer in a recent episode. He said, “People want to live. People forge ahead. And people are fundamentally good.” And he's not wrong in one way. Not in that people are fundamentally good, but in their motivation for being fundamentally liars. That motive being, "people want to live" without consequences, and "people forge ahead" in their deception, even if they get caught.
The Lie:
“We are all fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good,” the Pope said.
The Truth:
Everyone lies, not just rogues and sinners, everyone hides deception in their hearts. Even Jesus said it.
Matthew 15:19
"...from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander."
In a 60 minutes interview, a former employee at Facebook, Frances Haugen said:
“The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook. And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money.”
In the 1998 trial of President Bill Clinton. The case against Clinton rested both on his relationship with the White House intern Monica Lewinsky, as well as on his repeated cover-ups given under oath. It was all based upon his tendency to lie, and lie upon lie.
People act in ways that maximize their own profits or benefits them when they are out of the public eye.
What this is really all about is the way in which the father of lies gets into people's hearts. And the nature of lying. And when the lie is threatened with exposure, the liar heaps more lies on top of the original lie. And as each level of deception is added, the risks of exposure increases. The result, the truth is destorted.
We distort truth for what we believe to be good reasons. Take for instance, if you know something that someone else doesn’t, and that knowledge will benefit you financially or otherwise, there is a strong force that compels you to keep that information to yourself. In business it's thought of as "having an edge". But what edge is it really? It's the edge of truth. It's taking advantage of another's weakness.
Don't think you do this in your personal life?
Let's say you're looking to sell a furniture item you no longer have room for in your home. A neighbor is thinking about buying it. You have the advantage, only you know its true value. You know the original purchase price, and only you know what's gone on in the life of that furniture. So you price it higher than it's valued at thinking you'll sell at a little lower price after a some bargaining, maybe getting a bit more than its actual worth. And of course the neighbor starts asking questions and the seller is forced to fabricate a little to gloss over the truth. It may not seem like a lie, but it is deception. You're going have to come up with more fictitious answers in order to support the original lie. What was the original lie? The inflated price.
It's easy to fall down that slippery slope of lies and cover-ups. It's easy for people. Even the neighbor is eventually participating in the lie. At some point the neighbor stops asking questions not wanting to embarrass or insult the seller. So the buyer pays the inflated price, literally "buying" the lie. It’s this willingness to suspend disbelief that allows a liar to escape exposure, and creates the cost of lying.
Everybody lies, at least partially. In some studies designed to measure the tendency to lie, even people who were not clearly being deceitful in their actions, turns out, they were covering up their true nature by putting on the air of being honest. The lie in their case was that they are completely honest. Even given the opportunity in the study to get away with the lie completely they see themselves as their own audience and don't want to appear to be too greedy. In the study these people recorded a little less advantage in order to get more but not too much. Don't want to appear to be too successful. It might seem like they cheated. So they limit the success a little. They still cheated, but a little less than they could have gotten away with.
High-stakes lies and covers-ups seem to follow their own internal logic, mainly governed by actual audiences or internal audiences. Motives remain the same, taking advantage of a situation. It's the degree of concern about being caught in the deception that truly affects the story. Professional liars know these human nature truths and use them to control the narrative. These are the spin men, the soulless salesmen, the guy that will sell you a cord of firewood short a few logs rather than treasuring integrity and heaping more on top of a full cord in order to send the message of honesty in their business. These are the politicians. The globalist CEO's. The corrupted lawyers and judges. The professional liars.
And your tiny little lies are no different. All we can do in this life when faced with everyone lying is appeal to their higher nature. Possibly stimulating the kind of social signaling of honesty that could outweigh their desire to maximize their profits. When the liars are people in your own life, you can try this new way to discourage the deception before the cover-up becomes necessary.
What does God expect from us?
Exodus 20:16
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
Leviticus 19:11-12
"You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the Lord."
Ephesians 4:25
"Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another."
In the end of days the fiery eyes of Jesus will burn away all deception. No one will be able to get away with any hidden untruths or ungodly behavior. You'll be found out. And you'll be saved if you know you're a liar and put your faith in Him, and following you accept Christ's righteousness as his righteous covering over you.