Why do Christians lie?

Google this subject and you'll get religious sites listing the evils of lying or those that criticise Christians as baldfaced liars because what they say is so obviously bunkum. Between these extremes is the idea that Christians by creed abhor lying yet, because of fear of man or not wanting to "let God down", exaggerate or misrepresent the facts. For example, when it comes to answers to prayer, it is not uncommon for the evidence to be skewed in favour of God, keeping quiet about all those times that a prayer was, frankly, not answered in the way expected.

As if God needs propping up.

Convince me that God does, in fact, need propping up and I will be more inclined to become apostate.

Some Christians claim to "hear God" on a very regular basis and in very mundane ways. I suspect that they get confused between the Voice of God and the voice of their inner conscience. I find I can play all manner of such games: Shall I do so-and-so? - Yes, that will be OK, and so on. Call it your alter ego if you like.

Assuming that there is a God at all, I rather think that He is a good deal more economical with words than many of would like. The Gospels portray the man Jesus speaking only what "my Father has taught me" and indicate that none of his words were wasted.

There are many passages in the NT that warn about lying, too many for comfort. I think it is rather more prevalent among Christians than they would admit.

In the film The Life of Pi Pi tells two stories. Since only he was there at the time and he is not saying any more, we cannot tell which one is the truer. But at least one of them is a lie. The proposition is whether one is more likely to be true because it appears to be more rational.

Jesus accused the Pharisees of lying. They effectively accused him of the same. Which party was true? The Pharisees' argument seemed the more rational.

In his epistles, four times the apostle Paul takes pains to tell us that he is not lying - so was lying commonplace in the church?

Rather than try to embellish our faith with lies perhaps it would do better "to enter into life lame than to have two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched."