An open letter to the members of the Baha’i Faith

Embracing Deist thought was not so much a matter of me leaving the Baha’i Faith as much as evolving out of it. One of the most important imperatives that I learned as a Baha’i was the independent investigation of the truth. It was always a firm conviction of mine that the search for the truth was not something to be taken lightly, nor did it concern finality. Truth is something that always needs to be sought after. Religious truth has always been a vocation of mine, an innate impulse and desire to know and understand more, no matter what the cost.

I must confess that after leaving the Baha’is, I did try my hand at Christianity, so to speak, but found the narrow mindset, puerile dogma and fatuous doctrines more of the same rhetoric with just a different nomenclature.

I realized upon discovering a copy of the book The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine and reading it, that another piece of the puzzle had yet been unfolded to me. Paine’s logic, argument and reasoning gave me a framework to unshackle my mind and to see the religions for what they were, man-made creations.

The concept or doctrine so often quoted by the Baha’is of “Progressive Revelation” is flawed from several points. If God could not seem to “get it right” the first time with Adam, what makes a believer think that successive “Manifestations” or “Prophets” will fair any better? I used to believe as a Baha’i that the common foundation of all religions was one. (An essential Baha’i teaching), meaning that God authored them all. Now, I have come to understand, with an altered point of view, that yes, they do come from the same source, the hands of men who believed, for whatever reason, that they were chosen by God, the Creator of the Universe, who being so concerned with this tiny rotating speck of dust, to guide the rest of us unfortunate souls and entrusted these “Manifestations” with “His message”.

One only needs to study religious history to understand the convoluted nonsense of these “Holy Books” and the resulting bloody swath that they have cut through the ages of humanity, up to our present day. Read, watch or listen to the daily headlines from your preferred media source, television, newspapers, books or the internet to catch up on the latest religious atrocity, bombing or act of genocide. I must emphasize that humanity has evolved and advanced, not as the Baha’i writings contend, because of religion and progressive revelations, but in spite of it. The Baha’i Faith did not usher in a “New age for mankind”, that began in the 17^th and 18^th centuries with enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire, Locke, Paine, Jefferson and Franklin. These thinking and conscientious men turned their backs on religion and revelation and used God’s gift of the mind, free-will and reason to forge ahead a new and progressive age for humanity, divested of the religious superstitions and institutions that have for centuries imprisoned the minds and souls of men and women.

Baha’i friends, use your minds, investigate the truth and do not settle for a system of religious dogma that relies on “institutional infallibility”. Think for yourself. Free your mind and reason or imprison it. The choice is most certainly yours.