Bahais Online 
What happens when people try to unite the world by creating yet another cause for division? This provocative, profound, humorous video tells the mytho-poetic story of how religions can begin with very good intentions but degenerate into tragedy and farce.
Maggie was very excited because this week she had a visitor, her grandfather. Maggie’s grandfather was very old. He spent his whole life traveling around the world, but it was now time for him to rest. Maggie often heard stories about her grandfather from her parents. They said that he always did good things for other people, loved everyone, and always remembered his prayers.
The night that Maggie’s grandfather arrived it was very late and Maggie was asleep. “You’ll see him in the morning dear,” her mother said before putting Maggie to bed.
In the morning, earlier than usual, Maggie heard a voice from down the hall. It was a deep voice, almost singing, but more like speaking. Maggie peeked out her door, and tip-toed quietly down the hallway. The noise was coming from Grandpa’s room. His door was slightly open, so Maggie peaked inside. She saw grandpa standing with his arms stretched to the sky. His words sounded like a magical spell.
I thought I'd put up a short story that I wrote for my course. It is an allegory about the fate of the Baha'i revelation so far. I thought that its tragic theme was fitting for the commemoration of the martyrdom of the Bab.
Squire Edmond Denman stood with his back to the fire. His legs were locked back, his feet set apart and his arms crossed at the wrists behind him. He looked straight ahead at an oil painting on the opposite wall; the dark figure of his grandfather stared back with a dour face. The weak morning rays of winter filtered in through the window of the parlour, which gave sweeping views over the fields and woodland on his 600-acre estate.
David Denman, the squire's son, sat with crossed legs in one of the two armless, high-backed chairs, which stood on each side of the fireplace. His right arm lay across his stomach, and the curved fingers of his left hand were jutted up against his bottom lip. He stared with a deep frown at the translucent flames dancing off the top of the burning logs and glowing embers.
David let his hand drop. "I do not want to marry her, father," he said. "I have no affection for her. She is spoiled and disagreeable."
"These things are of no conseqence," said the squire. "Isabella is from an old family. Been in the county for three centuries - almost as long as we have. She is very suitable."
"Well, they matter to me. And it is my marriage we are talking about," said David. "At the very least, I would like to have a wife I can tolerate."
What happens when people try to unite the world by creating yet another cause for divison? This provocative, profound, humorous video tells the mytho-poetic story of how religions can begin with very good intentions but degenerate into tragedy and farce.
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One of Brian Pain’s many claims to fame was that he invented the term - The Apostinals. This is the collective term for Baha’is and ex-Baha’is that produce the dangerous oppositional material strewn across the Stream. It represents the dark place you fall into when you publicly criticize the Faith or look as if you might.
Some of the branded are self-proclaimed celebrities from the Unenrolled Baha’i faction; some are stand-alone attack dogs but the vast majority are kids in a rage - square B’s. They certainly aren’t that group of like-minded and highly organized comrades as Cuddus declared. When not targeting the inadequacies of the Baha’i Administration, its members, actions and policies, the Apostinals are quite likely to be pulverizing each other.
{josquote}Brian loved it. Here was a tool he could use to pummel non-conformists.{/josquote}Cuddus had resurrected an apologetic academic article written in 2007 by the eminent Baha’i scholar Dr Moojan Momen. It was titled “Marginality and Apostasy in the Baha’i Community”. Mostly, it looked at some of the key opposition personalities in the early Internet Baha’i Wars from the perspective of a core believer. It claimed to show how the Internet had provided a community setting that allowed some dissatisfied believers (marginals) get onto that slippery slope resulting in them becoming jealous, revenge-seeking, delusional haters (apostates).
