Ted Lieu's response to trump's tweet that Dems took the word God out of the Pledge of Allegiance

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

53. One of the greatest Christian writers, Augustine of Hippo (354-430), wrote two books about lying

De Mendacio (About Lying) and Contra Mendacium (Against Lying). In the first, Augustine says that a lie is not so much a distortion of the meaning of the words as it is a lack of fidelity to another person.

When Augustine defined of lying as being untrue to others, he disagreed with most other moralists, who allow equivocation, prevarication, or evasion if at least some meaning of the words can be considered true. But Augustine believed that in the most basic sense, what one says is irrelevant in itself, apart from the intention to deceive. As he points out, one can lie by speaking the truth, or with an expression, or even by silence. Suppose you are asked if you performed some good and heroic act, and you know that silence would be taken as a modest reluctance to claim what is true -- even if it is not. Your silence will deceive the questioner. You intended to deceive, and that intention is Augustine's definition of a lie.

Equivocators would not consider silence a lie, since silence is indeterminate. It is, of itself, equivocal. You can take from it what you want. The person keeping silence, equivocators would claim, is not responsible for another's misinterpretation of the silence, any more than a speaker is responsible for the listener's selection of one from multiple interpretations of the words. For Augustine, such an argument is beside the point. If you think that silence or equivocal words would deceive, you are lying. Even if you fail to deceive, since you intend to lie, you are lying. If you make a true statement, knowing it will not be believed, and wanting it to be disbelieved, the statement may be true but you are false.

Augustine's main point is that we should make an effort to live in the truth.

Augustine's Contra Mendacium considers the specific case about whether it is morally acceptable to lie in furtherance of a good cause. He said that it was not, for three reasons. First, since God is truth itself, lying dishonors both God and the liar. Second, lying is itself a sin, and as the Apostle Paul says, "Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?" (Romans 6:1-3) Third, when the person lied to discovers the lie, he or she will doubt the goodness of the cause.

The basic question is, "do the ends justify the means". According to most ethicists, it does not. Unfortunately, many people, not just many Christians, believe that it does.