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Mankind has developed by stages and gone through various orders: from the family to the tribe, from the tribe to the city state, from the city state to the nation state. In the process it has abandoned the settlement by war of conflicts between the superseded orders, without all men having come to lead a saintlike life. Thefts and murders have still been committed, and yet the nation state has been created. The political task we are faced with, the outlawing and abolition of war and the creation of a universal order of peace, is far harder and more complex. But it can be achieved before men abandon, in.. (the theologian's) words, "the roots of self-seeking, envy, greed and lust for power." The "Most Great Peace," a further stage in the development of world peace, is, of course, not possible without the realization of the unity of mankind proclaimed by Baha'u'llah. (70:1) Take Baha'u'llah's commandments of independent and free search after the truth and of overcoming shibboleths, superstition and prejudices of all kinds: how is that a "pious Hope"?.. If.. such a proposition can (not) be the content of a religious ethic at all, then it only exposes once more the inflexibility of.. (such) thinking.. Does it in any way contradict the Bible? Can.. (one) be in doubt of its usefulness? Would humanity not be a good bit further advanced if at least national and racial prejudices were overcome? Surely prejudices and superstitions above all things have proved barriers to kindness an compassion. Surely the Churches particularly have taken on a burden of guilt through superstition and prejudices, in their attitude to the advance of science, in the persecution of millions of innocent people as witches, in their attitude to the Jews. If the Christian message is so unutterably superior to all others as the Christians always assert, why is it that in states like Germany and the United States, where 95 per cent of the citizens are adherents of Christianity, the race question could gain such importance; that six million people were wiped out like insects; that in the United States civil strife between the races often occurs? Surely it is only because love of one's neighbour is 'limited' to neighbours, and mankind is not conceived as a unity. Nothing will stop the repetition of such occurrences and the worsening of such conditions except the overcoming of prejudice regarding the superiority of one race and the acknowledgment of every human being as of equal value regardless of colour, class or religion.
(70:3)
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