Lying!

June 6th, 2026| Topic: Uncategorized | 0

Study Finds, an independent agency consolidating interesting scientific studies and results, recently reported on an interesting piece of research recently, that sought to compare states in the USA and rank them based on fraud reports and on how many people confessed to lying.

Coming in at #1 was Nevada, America’s most deceitful state, with almost 60,000 fraud reports filed in 2024. Nearly one in five residents admitting they lie often in ye olde state.

But the big surprise was the tiny New England state of Rhode Island, better known for clam chowder than con artists. A staggering 40% of Rhode Islanders admit they lie frequently, nearly double the national average (22%) and the highest rate in America. That means two out of every five people in the Ocean State are, by their own admission, regular liars.

Florida rounded out the top three. The Sunshine State lost more than $92.5 million to romance scams in 2024. Floridians also reported the most identity theft cases per capita in the country.

Thankfully, not every place in America is drowning in deception. North Dakota claims the title of most trustworthy state, with zero survey respondents admitting to lying frequently. Nobody. Not even one. (That, I’d say, based on that result, means that all of them are lying!) Fraud cases? Minimal. Identity theft? Barely a blip.

Americans apparently tell an average of 11 lies per week. More than half have been cheated on. And in some parts of the country, dishonesty has become something of a local specialty. False words from everyone!

Do deliver, Yahweh, for the devout one has come to an end,
for the faithful have disappeared from among humans.
Falsehood they speak, one to his fellow;
with the lip of smoothness, in a double heart, they speak.
May Yahweh cut off all lips of smoothness,
the tongue speaking big things—
[those] who have said, “With our tongue we will prevail.
Our lips are in our own [power]—who is lord over us?”
Psalm 12:1–4

The wicked’s speech is characterized as “falsehood,” uttered with “lips of smoothness,” generated by a “double heart” that powers the “tongue speaking big things.” The hubris of the wicked goes so far as to claim that they are the “masters of their fates” and the “captains of their souls”: “Who is lord over us?” They are assured of the power of their words: “With our tongue we will prevail.” So the focus in this psalm is not particularly on the activity of the wicked, but on their words.

But countering the wicked’s false words are deity’s words:

“Because of the devastation of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the needy,
now I will arise,” says Yahweh;
“I will set in deliverance, the one who pants for it.”
The sayings of Yahweh are clean sayings,
silver refined in a furnace on the earth, distilled seven times.
Psalm 12:5–6

And God’s “sayings” alone will stand. Yahweh is going to “arise” and “set in deliverance” the suffering righteous, who are panting for relief. This is an explicit answer by God to the supplication that began the psalm: “Do deliver, Yahweh.” God is responding, and responding “now.”

And divine speech, unlike that of the wicked, is “clean”—emphatically repeated to be “distilled seven times,” like silver in a furnace. Faithful, not false.

And the consequence of a faithful God keeping his faithful words is that that the righteous are protected:

You, Yahweh, will keep them;
You will preserve him from this generation forever.
Psalm 12:7

Yes, the faithful word of God and his fail-safe action will counter the false words of the wicked and their felonious actions.

SOURCE (of ideas, numbers, words, …): Study Finds