Steady, now, you few-but-feisty readers of atheistic bent.

By sin, I (and my morbidly obese dictionary) mean "a transgression of a religious OR moral law [emphasis added], especially when deliberate. Something regarded as shameful, deplorable, or utterly wrong."

Those even fewer and feistier readers whose libertine leanings accept lying as a human birthright should turn their attention from the following opusette, in which that particular shrine is to be peed upon (metaphorically).

In politics, jurisprudence, international diplomacy, business and inter-genderal relationships, prevarication is often raised to a form of dark art requiring Machiavellian skill and the conscience of a back-alley tomcat.

Officeholders, those coveting the same offices and those covering the asses of both coveters and incumbents, ravage the truth with impunity. No stronger evidence of this can be found than the polarized positions taken by partisans, all of whom swear by the truth of their conflicting "facts."

Exhibits A through Z can be found most days in any legislative hall or on C-Span, where congressional orators bloviate their diametrically opposed views, usually to nearly empty chambers.

Lawyers either routinely make statements about their clients that they know to be untrue, unless they dwell in a Neverland of naivety. (Like, O.J. did NOT do it? DUH!) At the bar of American justice - biblical advice notwithstanding - certain truths shall not set you free, so you gotta do your best to make them inadmissible.

Diplomats have been only half-whimsically described as highly articulate individuals who are hired to lie for their countries, all of which entities are held to be totally innocent of internal corruption, human rights violations, territorial avarice, warlike tendencies, unfair trade practices and, presumably, bad manners.

Aside: For sure, our own international politics have made strange Bedouinfellows.

Some business people embrace standard s of truthfulness that exempt advertising, full disclosure, accounting practices and what should always be an overarching principle of fairness to co-workers, competitors and customers.

In the battle of the sexes, truth is a major casualty, ranging in severity from the "he-said-she-said" standoffs in rape cases to the little white lies that attack the adhesive of even the most solid marriages.

Actually, the more egregious lies are probably the least damaging to society, since the perpetrators thereof are most likely to be exposed and taken to task eventually - some obvious exceptions noted above.

A major preventive of big fat whoppers in American courts is our constitutional protection against self-incrimination, a protection for really bad guys perhaps second only in effectiveness to Omerta, the Mafia code of silence.

It was this shield that may have allowed Michael Jackson a return to his playground, although the trial almost certainly crushed any hope he might have had of achieving scoutmastership.

More treacherous, damaging and, unfortunately, prevalent than the big lies, though, are the obfuscations that cast a fog of doubt without exposing the pronouncements as flat-out fibs.

Examples of such camouflage abound among notable American officeholders, including Richard Nixon on the Watergate break-in , Ted Kennedy on the Chappaquiddick caper and Bill Clinton on....well, in the interest of good taste, let's not go there.

The underlying truth about untruth is that it is dishonest and, by its very nature, hurtful to others.

The sainted Sister Borgia, who spent four years trying to Christianize me and a herd of puerile misfits, considered it to be more serious than a combination of all seven Capital sins.

To this day, I can see and hear her turning those bazooka-like eyes on the class and thundering, "you can catch a thief, but you can't catch a liar!" (Maybe it was because she had caught me so often, but I always felt that she was looking directly at me.)

There are, arguably, many more heinous crimes than lying, but it seems to me - as it clearly seemed to Sister Borgia - that it would be a much better world if people always told the truth to each other or had to carry their lies externally, like a sandwich sign.

If so, there would be a lesser need for law enforcement, sitting judges, standing armies, spin doctors, divorce courts, the Internal Revenue Service, door locks, divorce courts, private eyes, public defenders, paternity suits, polygraphs, and TV talk shows.

Sadly, though, modern life is more like a paraphrase of an old bit of ironic humor: "The secret of success in life is absolute truthfulness...and if you can fake that, you've got it made."