Plan Suggested For a Universal Religion

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in his preaching of a universal religion, says this: “If a religion be the cause of hatred and disharmony, it would be better for it not to exist than to exist.” He contends that at the bottom all religions are one — that the divine speaks as well through one creed as another.

But his idea that a religion that creates hatred is no religion at all is right. There are several men in the world, and we see them quite often, whose religion makes them dislike men who hold different views. Of course, such men have no religion at all. They are just as irreligious as a man who doesn’t believe anything. For the basis of all religion is love, and it is paganism if it hasn’t that element in it.

And that is the force religion uses to make the world better. Where a reformer comes out hating his opponent, one might as well distrust that reform from the start. And it is that way all through life — the only way to make society, politics, religion, business better is to treat men and women in a sincere and brotherly fashion.