>>Don't we privilege this practice by referring
to it as a "truth culture"? It's lying. Non-Muslim
people lie for exactly the same reasons. Lawyers,
for example, are tasked with defending their
clients, and consider it good and appropriate to
position and shape statements that benefit their
clients.
Let me try to make this clearer. You have group A,
which is inclusive, welcoming, and operates under
what it considers to be universal standards of
truth and falsehood. You have group B, which is
exclusive, clannish, and operates solely for its
own benefit.
To call it a Culture of Lying is to posit a
difference in lying itself! But it isn't lying
that changes. It's the Group. It's all determined
by group attitudes toward strangers, not by the
nature of truth and falsehood.
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