Quote for the Day: The Fear of Deception

"Western culture has feared nothing quite so much as it has feared deception. This concern over deception has played a fundamental role in the formulation of our doctrines of sin and salvation, our definitions of philosophical problems, our conceptions of mental health, and even our justifications of the scientific enterprise. It would not be excessive to claim that in the Western tradition deception has commanded as much aversion as death itself." (Loyal D. Rue, By the Grace of Guile: The Role of Deception in Natural History and Human Affairs; cited in Mark Given's Paul's True Rhetoric, p 5)

As I promised before, I will be shortly dealing with Mark Given's ideas about Paul's conniving deceptions. Rue's observation is spot on. The western aversion to lying and deception is amazing when considered in proportion to how often everyone does it.