Religious prejudice

“ Until all these barriers erected by prejudice are swept away, it is not possible for humanity to be at peace. For this reason Bahá’u’lláh has said, ‘These Prejudices are destructive to mankind’.
Contemplate first the prejudice of religion: consider the nations of so-called religious people; if they were truly worshippers of God they would obey His law which forbids them to kill one another. ”

“ We have succeeded before now in establishing elaborate codes of conduct—yes and enforcing them, without any better sanction than habit, prejudice, tradition. A schoolboy has his notion of right behavior, not traceable to Hebrew or Christian ethics; so has the grown man, putting his quaint ideas of "honor" and "sportsmanship" far beyond any religious teaching. Our scorn of the tell-tale and the coward is not based on the Bible, but on experience; our inhuman cruelty to "the woman who has sinned" is based on mere ignorance and falsehood. ”

“ They invent words from an inability to explain things, and they give the name of mysteries to what they comprehend no better than ourselves.
All the religions in the world are founded upon predestination, and all the pretended revelations among men, as has been already pointed out to you, inculcate this odious dogma, which makes Providence an unjust mother-in-law, who shows a blind preference for some of her children to the prejudice of all the others. ”

“ Yet still, habits of religious restraint, even more, perhaps, than religion itself, checked the dangerous impulse; and that ardent sentiment which resisted the force of his reason and the influence of his faith, submitted to the dictates of what might be deemed rather his prejudice than his principle. ”

“ My conduct and our constant conversation compelled her to recognise the error of thinking that every unbeliever was perverse and every atheist a hardened criminal, since I, a convinced atheist, manifested symptoms very different from those which her religious prejudice had led her to expect. ”

“ One of the forms of prejudice which afflict the world of mankind is religious bigotry and fanaticism. When this hatred burns in human hearts, it becomes the cause of revolution, destruction, abasement of humankind and deprivation of the mercy of God. For the holy Manifestations and divine Founders of religion Themselves were completely unified in love and agreement, whereas Their followers are characterized by bitter antagonism and attitudes of hostility toward each other. ”

“ The priests have had the art to unite their religious system with some moral tenets which are really good. This renders their mysteries more sacred, and lends authority to their ambiguous dogmas. By the aid of this artifice, they have given currency to the opinion that without religion there can be neither morality nor virtue. I hope, Madam, in my next letter, to complete the exposure of this prejudice, and to demonstrate, to whoever will reflect, how uncertain, abstract, and deceitful are the notions which religion has inspired. ”

“ By a train of religious prejudices with which the priests infect the mind of their weak devotees, these believe themselves infinitely more culpable when they have omitted some useless practice, than if they had committed some great injustice or atrocious sin against humanity. ”

“ Our opponents have availed themselves of prejudice existing against us, because of our religious faith, to send out a formidable host to accomplish our destruction. We have had no privilege or opportunity of defending ourselves from the false, foul, and unjust aspersions against us before the nation. ”

“ The prejudice against all the lower faiths inspired by the claim of Christianity to a monopoly of religious truth--a claim nowise set up by its founder--has led to extreme injustice toward the so-called heathen religions. ”

“ So, for example, one man, although he may be an atheist, has his infant baptized in the usual Christian fashion; another goes through his period of military service, though he may severely condemn all hatred between nations; and a third runs into the Church with a girl because she comes from a religious family, and makes his vows to a priest without feeling ashamed of it. “It is of no importance if one of us does what every one else does and has done”—so says ignorant prejudice! ”

“ You look upon a reform of religious prejudices as impossible, because it is the interest of many of those persons who alone can effect it, to continue mankind in that ignorance of which themselves reap the advantage. ”

“ We have not considered how large a part the prejudice, which always follows a religious belief that deviates even in the least from what is known as orthodox, has played in the lurid tales with which our too eager ears have been regaled. ”

“ Sociability, indulgence, humanity, those first virtues of all morality, are totally incompatible with religious prejudices.
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Every national religion is calculated to make man vain, unsociable, and wicked; the first step towards humanity is to permit every one peaceably to embrace the mode of worship and opinions, which he judges to be right. But this conduct cannot be pleasing to the ministers of religion, who wish to have the right of tyrannizing over men even in their thoughts. ”

“ Prejudice and Tradition.—There is still another enemy opposed to reform, which is so deeply rooted in human nature that we can only hope for a slow improvement in the quality of men, by its progressive weakening. I refer to the host of prejudices, traditional customs, mystic superstitions, religious dogmas, fashions, etc. I should require many pages of moral preaching to deal with all the vices which are perpetually created and supported by the wretched tendency of the human mind to sanctify every ancient tradition and consider it as unalterable. ”

“ Every side has its say, every prejudice its voice, and every prejudice and side and vagary even has the philosophical reason given for it, and the charitable explanation applied to it. She analyzes the religious motives without obtrusive criticism or acrid cynicism or nauseous cant—whether of the orthodox or heretical form. ”

“ It is in this aspect that gloomy religionists have presented the compassionate and sustaining hope of the gospel. Instead of inspiring sweet and consoling ideas, they have succeeded in filling innocence with remorse.
The other prejudice is intolerance, or that spirit which causes us to view all persons guilty, whose faith is different from ours. While religion enjoins it upon us to cover the faults of our kind with a veil of indulgence, intolerance teaches us to transform their opinions into crimes. ”

“ Their own superstitious abhorrence is inculcated by the Mohammedan creed, which they regard as sacred; but our prejudice is in direct opposition to the maxims of that religion, which we profess to reverence. ”

“ The unwillingness on the part of many wealthy and fashionable churches to accept this responsibility in the spirit of the founder of the Christian religion may be attributed to ignorance of actual conditions, to fastidiousness, or to race prejudice, if not to actual indifference. ”

“ Is reason so largely developed in the great mass of men that the priests should interdict its use as dangerous? Are mankind sufficiently advanced in knowledge to be able to overcome the prejudices and chimeras which render them unhappy during the greatest part of their lives? In fine, have the beasts some species of religious impressions, which inspire continual terrors in their breast, making them look upon some awful event, which imbitters their softest pleasures, which enjoins them to torment themselves, and which threatens them with eternal damnation? ”

“ As I have said before, I have often gone incog., and taught persons the Gospel, and they would drink down its principles as eagerly as a thirsty ox would drink water; but an ignorant prejudice causes all the trouble. The excitement among the priests, and directed by politicians, raises this erroneous prejudice and hue-and-cry. ”

“ So, again, when allowing for the strength of prejudice in alienating the Protestant mind, we are in danger of false charity—by forgetting that prejudice may easily be a sin; and that wilfulness plays a large part in popular “ignorance” nowadays. ”

“ Who has not, at a bedside, twenty times wished and not once dared to throw himself at their feet and implore them to show mercy?... One day this prejudice will strike us as barbarian. Its roots go down to the unacknowledged fears left in the heart by religions which have long since died out in the mind of men. ”

“ The relaxation of worship, or spiritual communion as practiced by the Master, relieves tension, removes conflicts, and mightily augments the total resources of the personality. And all this philosophy, plus the gospel of the kingdom, constitutes the new religion as I understand it.
Prejudice blinds the soul to the recognition of truth, and prejudice can be re- moved only by the sincere devotion of the soul to the adoration of a cause that is all-embracing and all-inclusive of one’s fellow men. Prejudice is inseparably linked to selfishness. ”

“ Christians have created prejudice, hatred, against Christianity, but it is not Christianity which they have been exhibiting. We repudiate the hideous travesty which they have made, the hideous travesty which is credulously or maliciously accepted by assailants as a correct representation. ”

“ The acrimonious controversies agitated among those who agree in the principal doctrines of the Gospel, and their mutual contempt and revilings of each other, together with the extravagant notions and wicked practices found among them, form the grand prejudice in the minds of multitudes against evangelical religion, and harden the hearts of heretics, Pharisees, disguised infidels, and careless sinners against the truths of the Gospel. ”

“ This, then, I humbly conceive to be the weapon with which errors in the Roman Catholic's faith may most appropriately be assailed, for though it inflict a temporary wound upon men's self-love by questioning the powers of discrimination, leaves, at least, their moral and religious intentions unquestioned, and themselves, as a necessary consequence, unfettered by the strongest of all shackles, that of outraged principle. ”

“ Every person in the least conversant with the history of mankind, knows what dreadful mischiefs have been committed by religious persecution. Under the color of religious tests, the utmost cruelties have been exercised. ”

“ The prey of adverse circumstances, and subjected to wicked and unchristian rulers, they owe their existence as a community professing Christianity through centuries of ever-increasing ignorance, not to the force of conviction arising out of a well-grounded knowledge of the faith as handed down to them by tradition; but, under God, to the power of human prejudice, and to the influence of those ceremonial and ritual observances, whereby they continued to celebrate the most glorious mysteries, and to practise the outward show, at least, of the most exalted virtues of the Christian religion. ”

“ Behold the wide spread ignorance and degrading superstition; the power of prejudice and the authority of custom; the unchristian character of our systems of education; and the dread of the frowns and ridicule of the world, and we discover at once a host of more formidable enemies to the progress of true religion in Christian, than in heathen lands.’ ”

“ The folk who suffer from the real disease, and who complain most loudly of its miserable consequences, declare themselves atheists, declaim against what{104} they call prejudice in their sophisticated jargon, while they bless the legitimate, veracious prejudice, which is the fount and source of all the evils over which they weep, lament, and shriek. ”

“ So singular and so melancholy is the dominion of prejudice over the human mind, that professors of Christianity in our New England States have often, with very serious self-denial to themselves, sent the gospel to heathen as dark-complexioned as the Africans, when in their very neighborhood were persons of dark complexion, who, on that account, were forbidden to send their children to the schools, and discouraged from entering the churches. ”

“ I AM aware that there exists a deep seated prejudice in the minds of many of my hearers against what are called the forms of religion. We have too long experienced their limitations and restraints, not to be jealous now of our hard won liberties. But let us ask ourselves what it is that alienates our sympathies from the ritual and ceremonial observances of the dominant creeds? Is it the forms as such? Is it not rather the fact that to us they have become dead forms: that they no longer appeal to our sentiments, that they fail to stir, to invigorate, to ennoble us? ”

“ Yes, because I think that all religions will be found to be of equal authority, and because I believe that the supernatural will be discarded and that man will give up his vain and useless efforts to get back of nature—to answer the questions of whence and whither? As a matter of fact, the various sects do not love one another. The keenest hatred is religious hatred. The most malicious malice is found in the hearts of those who love their enemies. ”

“ But as I wish to shape my objections into a tangible form, allow me to say that the introduction and exposure on the stage of any person making pretensions to elevated piety is, of itself, an objectionable feature, and more calculated to excite prejudice against all professions of religion, than to induce the hypocrite to throw off the mask. ”

“ Now religion in the hands of corrupt nature, serves only to discover vices of a worse kind, than in nature left to itself. Hence are all the disorderly passions of religious men, which burn in a worse flame, than passions only employed about worldly matters; pride, hatred, and persecution, under a cloak of religious zeal, will sanctify actions, which nature, left to itself, would start at. ”