Lying

Pride is traditionally the primal sin.

I think lying gives it a run for the money.

They're related. A lie can be a refusal to submit to reality, or an attempt to make my word a "fiat" like God's, making or remaking the universe to my will.

Pride of the "I'm superior" flavor is founded on lies. Either form of lies has a clear relationship to pride.

Some things about the two are similar, but not all.

Everybody hates the proud--but we don't mind being proud.

On the other hand, some of us are fine with being told lies. Politicians who tell the truth tend not to get elected. Politicians who lie destroy us. Take Illinois. A couple of generations of state employees were told that they had pensions, but as far as I can tell the legislators never intended to fund the pensions. To put the best spin on it, they seem to have hoped that money would be raised in the future--which means they were lying to themselves too. Illinois is broke, and a huge part of that is those pensions they lied about.

Lies break us apart from community.

Among the Gbandes: "He who steals is one who is also capable of killing and lying." Lying breaks the trust that binds the tribe together, and lost trust is potentially lethal when you live close to the margin.

We probably know a few Christians who drifted away from the faith when they were promised (perhaps as children, and they never learned the adult faith?) a happy life instead of a sacrificial one. The prosperity gospel is a cruel lie, though the consequences of it aren't always visible here; they lose the greater community, though.

Jesus called the devil "father of lies." That and "murderer" seem to be the important characteristics He wants us to remember about the devil.

I'm not going to say that I'm wiser than 2000 years of church theologians and give lying pride of place among the sins. But it is a fundamental one.