Since, apparently the dawn of Christianity, and the Rise in power of Eusebius of Cesarea, there has been a tradition of lying in order to bring people to believe in Jesus. Now this is the same type of tactics seen in politics, and used car salesmanship. Now, one might say that it is isolated to Catholicism, as the church, at the time, was... well Catholic-ish. But even Martin Luther was a big fat liar, in fact he stated "What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church ... a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them." Interestingly enough, I believe most of the spawns of Luther's would disagree with that statement... in public at least.
Interestingly enough, there are several instances of lying for Jesus, like ministers claiming to have been satanists during the big satanic scare of the 80s and 90s, but whose testimonies were contradicted by the actual events in their lives, interestingly enough, people have taken to claiming to have done terrible things, only to be redeemed by their faith (which they saw as a cash cow). This does bring up an interesting question, how willing are people to believe the an underdog story? My guess is extremely willing, so long as it confirms our biases.
Another point being told, and sold, is the story of the Columbine girl, Cassie Bernall, who was allegedly shot because of her belief in God. What the authors of the book (still sold as non fiction, by the way) didn't mention, was that there were plenty of others who voiced their beliefs in God, both before and after her untimely death, and survived the horrible event. The shameless promotion of this narrative was, doubtlessly backed by good intentions, but also, by human greed. The success of the book "She Said Yes" is still successful among Christians looking for an insight of martyrdom.
Lastly, we see some regular, run of the mill dishonesty from evangelical right wingers in the country regarding the gun violence in America. Do not get me wrong, I still stand by the rights of individuals to have guns, but there needs to be some regulations put in place. I mean seriously, we are the only nation in the developed world which has rampant gun violence, mass shootings, etc... Hell, the NRA lobbied to allow people on the terrorist watch list to buy guns, and won! Those groups are heavily supported by Christian Groups, as well as the Tea Party. We blame these mass shootings on violent video games, when every other developed nation have access to them, the difference is in the regulation on the sales of firearms, including a psychological examination for stability, criminal background check, and to make sure you aren't in the god damned terrorist watch list!!! But those against gun regulation will cite everything else for the violence, except for the only difference with other nations...
In conclusion, liars gonna lie, douchebags gonna douche, and religious leaders gonna be hypocrites, what else is new?
