Saturday, May 30, 2015

Telling the Truth to Hurt People

There is a discussion on my blog about Satan being the father of lies and murder. Murder is a lot worse than lying, obviously, but I make the argument it is only necessary to tell the truth when the person has to know it. And some people tell the truth to hurt people. I've seen it.

Let's take a fictional example in Breaking Bad. Jesse is hiding under a car and Walt tells the truth and turns him in.

After Jesse is captured, Walt again tells the truth and tells Jesse he watched Jesse's girlfriend, Jane, die.

Both of the things Walt did was to hurt Jesse. He told the truth to hurt Jesse.

When you tell the truth to sadistically hurt people, that is devilish.

15 comments:

Mindstorm said...

There is always silence as a choice.

little dynamo said...

When you tell the truth to sadistically hurt people, that is devilish.


It is. Satan is described in Scripture as constantly accusing the 'brethren' i.e., the people and sons of God.

In the Book of Zechariah, Satan reports accurately (but not truthfully) that the clothes of Joshua are stained (by human waste). The indirect accusation is that Joshua is thus disqualified from serving God, in God's temple. Because, just look at all that mess.

Not mentioned is that Joshua is incapable either of defending himself, or of response, and that Joshua has limited control over his conditions. So, what we end up getting is a half-truth propagated for selfish and sadistic reasons.

Glen Filthie said...

I could never get into the show.

It's odd that you bring this up right now; I am in the position to hurt some assholes in my family with some truth bombs of my own. I was going to drop them a couple of times - but what's the point? They'd still be assholes, it wouldn't teach them anything and they wouldn't learn from it.

Is there merit in that? Does God see these hidden acts of kindness and restraint? Is there a karmic wheel that goes round and rewards us for sparing others the pain they've inflicted on us?

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

I'll have to borrow my friend's DVD to watch that scene again. I don't remember Walt turning Jesse in! On the other hand, I do recall him telling the truth about Jane, and I think his intention was not to hurt Jesse, but to make what amends he felt were possible under the circumstances: knowing that Jesse blamed himself for Jane's death and understanding that his own strategy of keeping things to himself had brought Jesse to that point, he thought that confessing would be for the best. It was still selfish of him, given the timing and other circumstances, but I don't think this was one instance of him applying the thumbscrews for their own sake. (Also: during the other times we've seen him tell the truth to be cruel, he uses a nasty tough guy voice.)

Unknown said...

Walt turned into a sadist and mass murderer. Jesse was hiding under a car and Walt turned him in to Uncle Jack and he was dragged out. That was in the scene. Then he sadistically told Jesse he let his girlfriend die when he could have saved her. Jack was going to kill Jesse and Walt said no, make him make meth for you. So Jesse ended up a chained-up slave.

As for silence, that is not an option for the sadist. I've know serveral sadists. They are never silent and go out of their way to hurt people.

Now that I think about it, the nachash was a sadist.

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

I just watched the clip you embedded. (I don't know how I missed it the first time.) You're right. Walt looks as if he's just confessing and seeking forgiveness at the beginning, but his voice gets that nasty tone and his eyes grow hard by the end.

Why do you think he changed his mind and saved Jesse at the end?

Unknown said...

Because he had lost everything and knew he was going to die so he repented of what he had done.

Wyowanderer said...

Glenn,
I'm painting with a broad brush here, but I'll offer this:

Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

I doubt God is honored when we hurt others with truth, but ministering grace does.

A.B. Prosper said...

Also Heisenberg saved Jesse because he genuinely loved him. Even evil people can care about others, its just the more wicked you are, the harder it is. original sin is simply treating people like stuff.

Also remember than Walt "Broke Bad", he chose cruelty and malice but he wasn't a sociopath to start, just a man who felt ill used by life with perhaps a bit of the narcissist about him

Modern society being so brittle praises order and obedience and docility above all things especially among the clever so when Walt decided "Screw it I'll do what I want he became the threat of threats."

Frankly though his methods are appalling I appreciated the fact he manned up, took the risk and turned Pirate more or less.

In fact I'm not entirely certain society wouldn't be more just if more men did that and defended their honor and kin above all else.

Also re: the nachash, another way to look at it is that it was the apple of the tree of knowledge he was peddling and that in inducing Eve to eat it, he gave mankind awareness, some Jehovah didn't seem to want them to have. Jehovah was always the jealous type, said so several times himself and may have wanted to keep understand and knowledge to himself

That knowledge gave humanity many bad things but its also gave us value since prior to the fall there was no ability to choose for good or evil.

Also what is to say about a God that wants obedient docile ignorant followers?

I'm not sure that benevolent at all and I can see the Luciferian's point though I certainly don't ascribe to their faith.

Unknown said...

'I'm not sure that benevolent at all and I can see the Luciferian's point though I certainly don't ascribe to their faith.'

The sad days are when the people who are entrenched in evil have more zeal about it than those who are striving to be good. The biggest downfall to good people is lukewarmness.

And yet I've seen those who take the evil path finally admit that they become bored with it...it's not a zeal that lasts over time. Not like good can when a person embraces it.

A.B. Prosper said...

Earl, first Good has to be lukewarm otherwise it becomes Evil. Its about living an example and can't be much more than that. Good can defend, hector and preach by example but it has to avoid the temptation to coerce otherwise it falls quickly to Evil. The minute the soul matters more than a living person, you are a death cult.


Let me use the sexual examples, if I am willing to kill consenting adults who engage in homosexual acts or premarital sex for that matter on the grounds I am saving their souls, which is the only reason to do this, how is that any different than sacrificing people to Tlaloc to make sure there is rain?

It actually less practical since if Tlaloc was real and could be appeased you'd get something for it. Jews just go to Sheol no matter what.

To my way of thinking of the zealous Good people are the bad guys, just a different flavor of the week. True zealous goodness mostly is sacrifice and monastic, following. The local thrift store? They are humble, help the unfortunate and do good

The bulk of the zealous? Not even.

Anyway in the end it really comes down to who gets to define good?

Are we show entrenched in Jewish and Christian values to be unable to ask what is truly good or virtuous even though huge numbers of other follow different paths and live perfectly virtuous lives.

Besides Christendom in its distorted form, what NrX calls the Cathedral still rules the roost, maybe it simply is wrong for us hence the White races existential suffering

Heck (assuming you are White here, apologies if this is not the case) our ancestors spent far more time with their own Gods than they did with Christianity and were well for it. They survived and under this perfect Christendom of the Cathedral. Its murdering us.


And if we we can't question virtue openly and what is demanding is an unthinking slavish obedience to some foreign ideology, in this case the Jewish splinter group called Christianity, well that is Evil.

because of that, and the requests of Jehovah, stupid, useless requests and his desire for slavish unthinking obedience to diktat, the snake/being of Light story in Genesis its a story of growth and understanding and of being cast out for that.

Its not wrong to think, to know, to suffer and to disobey wrongful orders. Being in the Garden was being in the womb, being nothing and that is wrong.

Of course that is a Heathen world view or maybe a Gnostic one and I know how the churches which are political bodies more than anything felt about that. All those good folk preferred murder.


Unknown said...

'Earl, first Good has to be lukewarm otherwise it becomes Evil.'

Get back to me when you know what 'zeal' means.

A.B. Prosper said...

I know exactly what zeal is and paired with any activity that involves other people it nearly always turns evil.


My personal opinion is that the most efficient and least harmful personal philosophy is Stoicism of which I'll note Justinian forbade the schools teaching it as anti-Christian. I have my own theories why but they aren't really germane here.

all in all our world views are so very different that moral suasion is probably impossible. I always enjoy the learning and the discussion though.

Unknown said...

'Anyway in the end it really comes down to who gets to define good?'

God.

A.B. Prosper said...

Glib answer and partially correct in that God or Gods do get to decide Good and Evil however I have to ask which one/s?

Jehovah? Allah? Vishnu? Odin? JHVH? Zeus? Amun Ra? some higher kind of consciousness

Monotheism is neither proven nor certain nor historically default.

Some of these faiths outnumber or match Christianity which is arguably in decline and remnant argument works for Odin and Zeus too

And yes I know you are almost certainly Christian which is cool, am familiar with apologetics and lightly versed in theology as well. This is kind of a religious argument and therefore cannot be won on either side and in this case is not meant to be anyway.

Just debating for the pleasure of it and if its becoming annoying, apologies. Take care.