We have well-developed wings under your care, roaming in the blue sky of homeland. No matter how far and high we fly, there is an echo of your instructions. “If we keep commandments, we shall prosper,” reports Alma 37.13 When we engage in discursive thought and declarative speech, we may attain various forms of success: intelligibility, precision, correctness, and so on. These felicities are best explained by contrast with the corresponding mishaps that threaten our beliefs, assertations, and especially our claims to know something. A person’s thinking may be inadequate he or she is ignorant, and what that individual says may be deficient because it is incoherent, rough, or, perhaps most important of all, downright false. Many philosophers have been troubled in attempting to account for the occurrence of falsity in people’s assertions and opinions, that is, in trying to understand how there could be such a thing as error at all. In examining these difficulties, we shall assume human’s statement are erroneous in case it is false and reflects his or her belief. Thus, if a person lies, he or she may speak falsely, but not erroneously We shall assume that a person holds a false belief when he or she is inclined to express it n a statement that would be false. The statement would be erroneous; consequently we can say the belief it mirrors are erroneous as well. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

Our inquiry will focus on a pair of famous knots. When our beliefs are false, do we believe anything? If a surgeon is convinced his patient will die, a he is correct, he is mistaken, there is no such event as the patient’s death. Did the surgeon then expect nothing? Depicted thus, erroneous thinking seems impossible. Granting that error can occur, is it ever voluntary? Clearly we are to blame for some of our mistakes, yet who knowingly and willingly goes for false beliefs? A lie is a statement made by one who does not believe it with the intention that someone else shall be led to believe it. It is possible for a person to make a statement using American Sign Language, smoke signals, Morse code semaphore flags, and so forth, as well as by making specific bodily gestures whose meanings have been established by convention (e.g. nodding one’s head in response to a question). Hence, it is possible to lie by these means. If it is granted that a person is not making a statement when he wears a wig, gives a fake smile, affects a limp, and so forth, it follows that a person cannot be lying by doing these things. If it is granted that a person is not making a statement when, for example, she wears a wedding ring when she is not married, or wears a police uniform when she is not a police officer, it follows that she cannot be lying by doing these things. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

We form belief in a haphazard way, believing all sorts of things based just on what we hear out in the World, but have not researched for ourselves. People are credulous creatures who find it very easy to believe and very difficult to doubt. In fact, believing is so easy, and perhaps so inevitable, that it may be more like involuntary comprehension than it is like rational assessment. By analogy, why disqualify my utterance simply because I fail to refer to existing things? A correspondence theory still explains why it is false to state, “There are flying saucers”: nothing corresponds to what is stated; that is, noting corresponds to the existence of flying saucers, because none exist. However, the correspondence theory needs elaboration before it will transform into a general account of correct and incorrect assertions. What things that are would I depict if I conceded “Flying saucers do not exist”? Does the nonexistence of flying saucers correspond to what I state? How can there be such a thing? Again, what things that are differentiate a true subjunctive conditional, for example, “If I had watered the lawn, it would not have died, from its false contrary, “Even if I had watered the lawn, it would have died”? Does the same withered grass make one statement true and the other false? #RandolphHarris 3 of 9

We can prove a few things for certain, including God’s existence. The deity cannot have given us a faculty [of thinking] whose right employment could ever lead us astray; however, it seems to follow that therefore we can never go wrong. People have false beliefs, but through their own doing, not God’s. People are endowed by God with such power of will that they can assent to proposition they do not know to be true—that is, to ideas that are not clear and distinct. Is God to blame for this disharmony between our limited capacity for knowledge and our unlimited power for assenting? No, will is just a single thing; it is incompatible with its nature that anything should be subtracted from it. Besides, although we are free to, we do not have to believe propositions for which we lack conclusive proof. In order to avoid unsuspected error, we must restrain our desire for truth and withhold assent until we know for certain. Clearly, people may decide to make statements. Some criminals voluntarily confess their misdeeds, and others are forced, against their will, to admit guilt. How about belief? Can we choose to reject a proposition that seems most likely, according to available evidence, and believe another that seems less plausible? Perhaps not. However, we often make decisions as we form our opinions, as we collect or neglect data and seek or ignore expert testimony. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

People who undergo brainwashing are deprived of this control over the formation of their beliefs. The same holds, incidentally, for knowledge. It is absurd to say the investigator decided to know but not absurd to say he or she resolved to find out for certain who robbed the grocer. Moreover, children are compelled to learn things. In acquiring knowledge and forming opinions, we pursue rather obvious goals: conclusive proof and correct information. Even so, is it intelligible to suppose that people act deliberately and knowingly when they settle for false beliefs? Maybe it is not their goal to be wrong, but it is certainly within the general scope of their intention. Anyone who aims at truth is prepared for falsity, just as a marksman is prepared to miss the bull’s-eye. Can we say they erred knowingly? A person who punches another is hardly ever certain that his or her victim will be injured. However, if one has reason to think injury might result from the blow, from a legal standpoint the individual knowingly inflects harm. There remains another type of error, fortunately quite infrequent, where such awareness is impossible. This is the unusual situation where you are convinced you know something, banish doubt from your mind, and still turn out to be wrong. Perhaps you acted deliberately and followed your inclinations in pushing your investigation until you believe you cloud not be wrong. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

 However, with this degree of conviction, you cannot have the least awareness that you are not mistaken. Your error, then, is not fully voluntary. “Walk upright before God,” reports Helaman 6.34. How people form beliefs, in many cases, for some cultures, was shaped by the evolutionary push toward efficiency rather than accuracy. Abstract belief formation (that is, beliefs outside one’s direct experience, conveyed through language) is likely among the few things that are uniquely human, making it relatively new in the scope of evolutionary time. Before language, most human ancestors could form beliefs only through what they directly experienced of the physical World around them. For perceptual beliefs from direct sensory experience, it is reasonable to presume our sense are not lying. Seeing is, after all, believing. In fact, questioning what you see or hear can get you eaten. For our evolutionary ancestors, it was better to be safe than sorry, especially when considering whether to believe that rustling in the grass is a lion. However, as a result, most people did not develop a high degree of skepticism when their beliefs were about things they directly experienced, especially when their lives were at stake. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

As complex language evolved, people gained the ability to form beliefs about things they had not actually experienced for themselves—and tended to believe them just as strong. Yet, a false statement or action made with intent to deceive is a lie. Nothing else is quite so despicable and cowardly as a lie. “Embracing the law of the Church, thou shalt not lie; one that lieth and will not be repent shall be cast out,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 42.21. This means excommunicated from the Church. Unfortunately, lying is currently a widespread practice. It is one of the most disturbing and peace-destroying practices in out society. The sad fact is that there is a growing trend to regard getting caught as worse than lying. There are many individua among us who, as a consequence of lying, are bereft of composure and happiness. Society generally is suffering for the same reason. Lying is one of the cardinal evils of our day. A cardinal sin is a very bad or serious sin. Giving false information is a cardinal sin in news reporting. No one is justified in lying because someone else has lied. The Lord have the Prophet Joseph a lesion on this point at the time the 100-page manuscript copy of the Book of Mormon translation was lost. Education is a crutch with which the foolish attack the wise to prove that they are not idiots. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

Only one is an artist who can see the mysterious in what is ordinary, and can thus transform a solution into a problem. Knowing that the lost manuscript was in the hands of enemies and that they had altered it, the Lord told Joseph not to translate the same material again. “The adversary stirreth them up, that he or she may lead their souls to destruction. And thus he or she flattereth them, and leadeth them along until he or she draggeth their souls down to hell; and thus the adversary causeth them to catch themselves in a snare. And the adversary goeth up and down, to and fro in the Earth, seeking to destroy the souls of humans,” reports the Lord in Doctrine and Covenants 10.22, 25-28. The fake person and the fake news media can do anything: they can sin, and they can atone for it. However, sinning makes them no worse, and atoning no better. A political system which seeks freedom through force can easily get stuck halfway; whereas that which seeks license through liberty always attains its goal. The prostitute resembles the journalist in that neither is expected to experience any feeling; but he or she differs from him in being able to experience feelings. God reveals your true potential in scripture. “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of human beings,” reports Moses 1.39. Eternal life, or exaltation, means receiving everything God has to give us. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

No matter how bright you imagine your future to be, it is indescribably brighter than that. And that is exactly why a certain lying, scheming wretch of a bad person is jealous of you! The adversary knows he or she cannot improve, he or she cannot progress, that Worlds without end he or she will never have a bright tomorrow. The adversary is a miserable individual, bound by eternal limitations, and he or she wants you to be miserable, too. We, do not fall for that. The adversary will do all he or she can to thwart you along your way back to our Father in Heaven, which includes whispering (or in some cases, shouting) every lie under the Sun in an attempt to harvest your soul and dam you to hell. However, God always wants to hear from you, even if it has been a while. God hears our prayers and is sensitive to us and our needs. God will see us with eyes of love and mercy—love and mercy that we cannot fully understand. Fear seems to be one of the adversary’s favourite tools int these latter days. However, do not give in to that nonsense. Even when things are hard, even when they are extremely hard, God’s plan provides hope and joy! The long story is a memory in our hearts; happiness in the past years is still in our hearts and will pass into the future. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9