This is a good point, and symbolically speaking, lying is almost like playing god considering that God is “all-knowing”, and the liar is distorting knowledge. The liar assumes the power to know what others are thinking. Also, liars assume the power to change reality or perception of reality. Generally, lying is a power, which resembles god because he is all powerful. Using power to ill-ends is obviously undesirable. In the Adam & Eve story, snakes, generally, are symbols of lies, and the apple was a symbol of desire / knowledge / becoming god-like. So coming back to your point, conjuring up a boogieman, or conning someone, is diety-like because you are using the realm of imagination (i.e., god) to change reality, but it’s snake-like or satan-like to manipulate imagination to harmful ends. Notably, imagination is also “timeless, spaceless, and immaterial” and in my opinion i think god is imaginary. “God is imaginary” is very atheist sounding, but It’s also religious from a platonic forms perspective.