:-) can be annoying, but it gets the point across. Of course, so does *grin* – and it’s less annoying. *grin* (However, three such references in one comment definitely is annoying, so I will stop there and not add another.)

-platojones….

Vogel must be apostate…hmm…thanks for letting me know. Poor silly scholars think they know stuff.

I know Dan Vogel (whom I respect a great deal personally but whose intellectual premises I find problematic and I believe impoverish his scholarship) is an especially avid fan of the “pious fraud” theory of Mormonism’s origins.

As to the question of truth-telling as a categorical ethical imperative, I think it’s a bit simplistic if not down right naive. For lack of a less worn-out example, telling the truth to the Nazis who ask you if you’re hiding Jews in your attic is hardly virtuous. I don’t think the question of the utility of pious lies is particularly germane here in that it refuses to part with positivist notions of what constitutes historical Truth. As someone with an MS in History, I can scarcely overstate my skepticism of treating history as a science.

Dictionary.com Unabridged

–noun 1. a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, esp. one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.
2. stories or matter of this kind: realm of myth.
3. any invented story, idea, or concept: His account of the event is pure myth.
4. an imaginary or fictitious thing or person.
5. an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution.

Compare that defination with the defination of the word “Truth”

1. the true or actual state of a matter: He tried to find out the truth.
2. conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement.
3. a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.
4. the state or character of being true.
5. actuality or actual existence.
6. an obvious or accepted fact; truism; platitude.
7. honesty; integrity; truthfulness.
8. (often initial capital letter) ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience: the basic truths of life.
9. agreement with a standard or original.
10. accuracy, as of position or adjustment.
11. Archaic. fidelity or constancy.
—Idiom12. in truth, in reality; in fact; actually: In truth, moral decay hastened the decline of the Roman Empire.

Another interesting thought is Plato’s “pious lie” to make others moral, (we need to create myths) according to his book the Republic. I have often wondered the morality of this idea. Anyone have an opinion on it, as it relates to words like “myth” and “truth”? Plato seems to argue in favor of having “good” myths but getting rid of the “bad” myths that harm people? Any thoughts? Is being dishonest good at anytime or always bad? (In the realm of religion and belief). It appears to me that Plato doesn’t trust the common man to be good without myths…?