Lying Cheerleader

The Lying Cheerleader; or, Why I Would Not Be An Atheist Even If I
Were An Atheist

By John Taylor; 30 November, 2005

Dear friends, let us speak today of truth telling and lies, of good
and evil, and how one can devolve into the other, truth into
deception, and deception into what Plato called "true lies." In Some
Answered Questions, an authoritative text vetted and approved by the
Master Himself, there appears a passage that has always puzzled and
stimulated me. Concluding an explanation of His concept of the
non-existence of evil, he mentions an exception to the normal rule
that one should always tell the truth. Let us consider carefully --
both in its entirety and in part -- the exact words that the Master
uses in explaining this startling exception that proves the rule:

"Then it is evident that in creation and nature evil does not exist at
all; but when the natural qualities of man are used in an unlawful
way, they are blameworthy. So if a rich and generous person gives a
sum of money to a poor man for his own necessities, and if the poor
man spends that sum of money on unlawful things, that will be
blameworthy. It is the same with all the natural qualities of man,
which constitute the capital of life; if they be used and displayed in
an unlawful way, they become blameworthy. Therefore, it is clear that
creation is purely good. Consider that the worst of qualities and most
odious of attributes, which is the foundation of all evil, is lying.
No worse or more blameworthy quality than this can be imagined to
exist; it is the destroyer of all human perfections and the cause of
innumerable vices. There is no worse characteristic than this; it is
the foundation of all evils. Notwithstanding all this, if a doctor
consoles a sick man by saying, "Thank God you are better, and there is
hope of your recovery," though these words are contrary to the truth,
yet they may become the consolation of the patient and the turning
point of the illness. This is not blameworthy." (SAQ, 215-216)

Interesting and crucial here is His picture of human and divine virtue
as funds, the "natural qualities of man, which constitute the capital
of life." Virtues, then, are one's life's savings; they fund or
finance acts and words. Virtue is like capitalism, it funds and
enables whatever one is after in life, for better or for worse. Money,
or virtue, can pay for crime, or it can promote beneficial ends. So,
the first example He adduces is a good rich man who donates money to a
poor but evil person, who turns around and misspends the money for
unspecified immoral ends. A God-given good turned to evil purposes;
evil has no positive existence, it is just goods and bounties misspent
and abused. Clear enough.

The Master's second example is the reverse, a good man, a doctor with
the good of others in mind, who resorts to telling a lie to his
patient. Under normal circumstances, He avers, a lie is the worst of
all immoral acts. But the doctor does it, not for his own benefit but
for that of the patient. "You are all better, guy, rest assured," he
says to the sicky, though in his heart and mind he well knows that by
all indications he is dead meat. The Master says emphatically that
this kind of lying is "not blameworthy." So, even though it
contradicts the truth, it does not qualify as lying.

But what puzzles me is this: What absolves the doctor of lying, his
good intentions? Or maybe the fact that the lie, properly told, can
and often does in medicine act as a self-fulfilling prophesy? (That
is, the placebo effect, a sugar pill that the doctor mendaciously says
is a real cure) Or maybe both? It is clear that if you accept only the
former answer, that good intentions justify telling a lie (a so-called
"white lie"), a whole Pandora's Box of moral ambiguities and
compromises is opened up. Just about any lie can be justified with,
"Oh, I meant well." I think it is pretty clear that He could not have
meant that, especially since in the following Tablet He makes it very
clear that He believed that being truthful is an essential for the
good physician:

"For the physician the first qualifications are: Good intentions,
trustworthiness, tenderness, sympathy for the sick, truthfulness,
integrity, and the fear of the Lord." (Tablets, v2, p. 419-420)

So, when that doctor bursts joyfully into the room declaring,

"You are cured, you hang in there, you are going to make it! You go for it..."

He cannot then walk out of the room and as soon as the door shuts
continue his sentence saying,

"…you hopeless loser, if I don't have you in the morgue and under my
scalpel on the autopsy table tomorrow afternoon I am going to shred my
med school certificate because then everything I learned there would
be utterly useless."

No, the guy would have to be sincere in his lying, he would have to
show not one but all of those virtues the Master mentions above as
essential to a good doctor, good intentions, trustworthiness, etc. He
has to mean it to the bottom of his heart and still lie through his
teeth all day long, as long as there is a chance that it might effect
a cure. And why not? There is lying, and then there is lying; there is
truth telling, and then there is truth telling. A lie that leads to
life is "truer" than a truthful assertion that kills you.

Think of it. Why have a human being in the loop in the first place? It
would be cheaper and in many ways better just to have a bunch of dials
and charts displayed before the patient telling exactly what is going
on in his or her body. Okay, the monitor also might include a Google
feed to answer any questions about what the data all means. The
displays and search engine would tell the patient everything he or she
needs to know. Then you would get the same "truth" that you hear from
the weather report every morning,

"You have a thirty percent chance of being rained on tomorrow morning."

Thus the live feed direct from your body, backed by medical databases,
might tell you in plain English:

"There is a ninety percent chance that a clot will reach your brain
tomorrow morning and turn it into a mushy mess that your doctor will
find very interesting to examine on the autopsy table tomorrow
afternoon."

But if you know "for sure" that the chances are 90 percent that
knowledge alone might up your percentages of dying to, I dunno, maybe
99 percent. But what does a percentage mean, anyway? It means that we
do not know. Nobody knows for sure. Maybe if a cheerleader instead of
a doctor came in dressed as a doctor and did a big song and dance
about how great things are, about how those charts and Google do not
know a danged thing and that you should consider yourself on the road
to recovery, maybe that would raise your chances of non-survival to
eighty or seventy percent. And hey, psychological studies have found
that the way you present data means a great deal to people. All the
cheerleader need do is turn the numbers around and say the same thing,
but that your chances of living have gone from ten percent to thirty
percent. That is a three times increase! And we did it just by
switching the numbers around. Introducing a non-medically skilled liar
into the loop might just be worth it. Would this cheerleading imposter
justify her pay by doing that song and dance? I should think so. Then,
just imagine what a skilled, respected physician could do to your
chances of survival, especially if she had the power to take away the
charts and the Google feed if she deemed it advisable?

Why all this talk of cheerleading liars? Well, I read yesterday on the
Net that pharmaceutical companies are actually targeting cheerleaders
as the best possible recruits for selling their drugs. The exaggerated
motions, the extreme, affected enthusiasm that these zero percent body
fat, prancing minions display before a huge crowd is perfect
qualification for promoting Big Pharma's latest concoction. That being
so, in view of the latest findings, maybe medical schools would be
well advised to elbow into that recruitment feeding frenzy for the
cheerleading squad. Consider this headline, to be found at
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10242034/

"A new spin on the placebo effect; Expectations can trigger physical
healing, scientists find."

What researchers are finding -- now that improved instrumentation
allows them to actually monitor the brain as it turns its cogs -- is
that doctors should be cheerleaders for every drug they prescribe. If
the physician does not act as if this prescription is the greatest
thing since sliced bread as they write it out, the drug has no effect.
They do just as much good talking about the percentages of rain today
as filling in a prescription pad. That is, nill. Researchers look
inside the patient's brain and see the drug not working. But if the
doctor does sell the patient on the drug, the researchers can look
into their brain and watch as it takes its intended effect.
Astonishingly, in many cases they observe that the placebo has more
effect, that it distributes more "drugs" (generated by the body
itself) in greater quantities to the body than the "real" pill, an
artificial application of outside drugs, does.

Other specific findings: as soon as an Alzheimer's patient's mental
processes decline to the point where they cannot remember to expect
that painkillers will relieve pain, the drug immediately stops
relieving pain. Same physical treatment, different expectation.
Parkinson's patients who are lied to and told that there is an implant
in their brain to stop the seizures, actually respond better than
those who actually have that implant stuck in under their skull.

Given all that, the Master Himself was not above -- if I may be
forgiven for saying so – playing the true-lying cheerleader. Consider
what He said in Maiden Speech His maiden public speech in London,
England.

"In the Hidden Words Baha'u'llah says, `Justice is to be loved above
all.' Praise be to God, in this country the standard of justice has
been raised; a great effort is being made to give all souls an equal
and a true place. This is the desire of all noble natures; this is
today the teaching for the East and for the West; therefore the East
and the West will understand each other and reverence each other, and
embrace like long-parted lovers who have found each other."

What? If you want to speak the strict and naked truth, England was
sunk in class tensions and would be for fifty years, after which it
would switch over to racial tension, as America was already number one
in the world at already. It was running a huge empire preaching free
trade among European powers but practicing feudal mercantilism in
relation to its colonies. That is justice? The West generally was a
powder keg of bigotry about to explode into two bloody world wars,
wars that the Master himself foresaw better than anybody, predicting a
"100 percent chance of war in the next couple of years." But there is
no hint of that in His public talks. Not a shadow of a hint. Why not?

Because the Master was not there to speak the strict and naked truth,
He was sent of God to speak of our chances for life, to speak words
that promote our cure. Curing is not filling in a prescription pad, it
is acting, it is pretending, it is conjuring up the reaction that
leads to healing. It is cheerleading. Consider the last words of this
maiden speech, how he does not mention the word "Baha'i" (he rarely
does in public talks), but He puts front and center the word "God,"
the real Most Great Cure-all.

"There is one God; mankind is one; the foundations of religion are
one. Let us worship Him, and give praise for all His great Prophets
and Messengers who have manifested His brightness and glory. The
blessing of the Eternal One be with you in all its richness, that each
soul according to his measure may take freely of Him. Amen."

This is why I say, even if I were an atheist, I would not be an
atheist. God is the cure, praying to, cheerleading His Order, that
will lead us out of the darkness of unbelief and animalistic
tendencies. Take freely of this prescription, my friends, and do not
worry about whether it will work physically, because the real work is
done of belief, of faith, anyway. Sis, boom, bah.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com