To tell the Truth

What is the truth? For now, forget about philosophical definitions and arguments.
I'm speaking colloquially. Truth is what you have learned and experienced to be true. Communicating truth involves an active consideration and avoidance of deception or attempt to influence others by partiality or omission. Truth is "the whole truth".
No doubt that truth is useful. It bolsters scientific knowledge and discovery. Truth generates trust. It can be comforting (or discomforting).
My question is: is truth necessary? I think anyone could think of hundreds of times where the truth seemed hurtful, complicated, or disadvantageous. Everyone lies. The world goes on. Absolute, constant truth is not necessary. I have been thinking that the world would be a very strange place if everyone's primary and highest value was to tell the truth.
First of all, there would be no poker games. Perhaps not a great loss for many.
Secondly, everyone who could survive the truth might develop an hardened self-concept, comfortable and inured to the truth. Imagine a homely women asking someone in a dress shop how she looks in the dress she has selected. The clerk responds, "You look pale and misshapen in the dress.Try another color. Your pockmarks clash with the dress's pattern. Try a larger size, your big ass and gut show."
Thirdly, what would happen in the world of politics? I think I would need a book to describe an honest government, but in a nutshell it would be different, strange and wonderful.
I'm stopping the counting. I don't know how many more examples are necessary to make the point, but I'd certainly like to add how different religion would be. Truth is the death of religion. Not end of belief, but certainly the end of organized religion which requires members to lie about their beliefs, or most certainly refrain from questioning them. Which religions are true? Certainly those religions with conflicting dogmata must expose several which cannot be true, by logic alone. Would any religion buy stock in Truth?
Imagine leaving a religious service one morning when the woman who sat in front of you asks how you liked the service. You reply, "It was about the same as usual, very boring, I don't know why I come any more. I almost left in the middle because your noxious body odor was making me sick."