Magic tricks and lying

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Magic tricks involve deceiving the audience about the true mechanism of the illusion. Is this considered lying?
If not, where is the difference?
Thanks.
 
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No, you may not lie to your friend if the purpose is to deceive.
“Messing” with someone can either be fun or obnoxious, depending on the circumstances. Sometimes people take a joke too far…
There is the concept of the “tall tale”, but in that case, everybody knows you’re exaggerating for comic effect.
Novels are also not true stories, but novelists are not considered liars.

This is an interesting question!
 
Are movies lying?

Nic cage is not Ben Gates, but he appears to be in National Treasure
 
Magic shows are not lies, they are illusion. Big difference.

Now, if you use magic tricks to dupe people out of money (such as with those three card montey people who seem to be everywhere in movies, but nowhere in real life >_>), then that would be a sin.
 
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Yes I find this interesting.
Of course I know magic shows is not quite the same as lying but I just can’t get around in my head EXACTLY where that difference is.
Any help would be appreciated.
 
The audience generally understands that it is a trick, even if they don’t know how the magician is doing it.
 
The same logic can be applied to theatre and cinema.

My sister played Maria in West Side Story.
She didn’t lie to the whole crowd - both sides knew it was fake.

John Paul II was a thespian and a playwright.
John Bosco used magic tricks to reach out to young boys.
 
Sometimes the line is fuzzy–
For instance, we were all sitting around one night and a weird noise happened.
Someone said “did you all hear that?”
The rest of us were all “nope”
But then we started laughing.
 
Moses did the real thing -
Pharoah’s magicians - had some power -
Perhaps derived from wicked black magic study…💀

…be it as it may…God, through Moses,
demonstrated feats unheard of,
and impossible to duplicate.
 
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Elf01 said:
The audience generally understands that it is a trick, even if they don’t know how the magician is doing it
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So if my friend asked me to go out and I make up some poor excuse that I know my friend will know it’s not true eg I’ve got a project to do when in fact it is school holidays.
Then it’s ok to lie like this because my friend understands that this is just an excuse?
 
I wouldnt say so.
Why not just be truthful to your friend?

I would say that the crucial distintion is that magc tricks and dramatic performance uplift the audience, while lying to a friend about a nonexistent commitment is destructive and corrosive.
 
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Ok let’s say my friend actually enjoys my hyperboles and finds it amusing and uplifting that I make up such stupid excuses. Does that make that not lying then?
 
I think that would be ok.

(Keep in mind im just a lay person and have no authority)
 
So the act of lying depends on whether the person being “deceived” like it or not?
 
ratio1 said:
So the act of lying depends on whether the person being “deceived” like it or not?
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More like is your friend actually being deceived. In the example you gave above, your friend apparently knows he’s not.
 
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