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Congratulations, Randy. Terrific accomplishments.

I just read up on it. The similarities are cool. I guess if you're going to invent an afterlife based on Revelation there will be similarities.

Yup, looks like it's accessible and posted in Premium. You're good to go. I'll try reviewing it shortly to make sure there are no glitches.

1. I prefer to continue calling it the lake of fire instead of purgatory, primarily to remain consistent with Revelation. I treat the lake as symbolic; mortal sinners go into the lake of fire, where there is some burning based on the number and gravity of your sins, after which you come out on some alien world elsewhere in our galaxy, which I consider to be part of (inside) the lake. The worse your sins, the worse the planet. The original mortal sinners (and their descendants?) will never be allowed to leave, but they will be allowed to die (once they become holy enough) and their souls can then rest, although they remain connected to their planets. The more holy souls a planet has, the more paradisical it becomes.

2. Your point number 2 is problematic from a Catholic perspective. As I've written before the 1000 years is not literal to them. It merely represents a really long time. And Christ is already present in the form of the Eucharist, so the 1000 years is the Church age and is well underway. Given that, Satan must already be chained and locked up in the Abyss, which is a bit weird considering he's still considered to be active in the world today. That's why I gave De Rosa stigmata every time he kills or orders the death of a clergyman. It's sufficiently painful that it limits his ability to do it.

3. Don't forget, this story takes place on a different timeline. God actually helped create the Antichrist, not just by providing a soul but also by helping Satan breed all of Connor's powers over two millennia. Otherwise it could never be done in that short amount of time. The reason God does this is that he needs Connor to rule the lake of fire (the planets) and guide all mortal sinners and their descendants to holiness. Thus, every power Connor has and every challenge Connor faces are all part of preparing him for that task.

The one fly in the ointment is that there is a big separation between humans who made it to heaven the first time around, and those who didn't, including the latter's descendants. Seems unfair that the descendants would be excluded from heaven. Perhaps the way I should do it is that the holy souls of the descendants who contributed to turning their planet into paradise will get to heaven when that task is done. And the holy souls of the original sinners remain connected to their planets and maintain it as a paradise for their descendants, which is no longer a punishment but a privilege. This means the mortal sinners never leave the lake of fire, which is also consistent with Revelation.

I think the above works while still conforming to Revelation, at least symbolically. Technically, then, Connor should never be allowed to leave the lake of fire, either, although I'm willing to bend Revelation in his case (remember, different timeline) so he can someday get to heaven. The alternative is that he doesn't get to heaven but becomes increasingly holy as the planets he rules become holy. Ultimately, he could turn into a Lesser God, although that would happen way beyond the end of book three, so it'll probably never happen, except perhaps in an epilogue.

It shouldn't.

Joseph sailed over his mother's desk and cowered behind her, his head under her skirt. Alexander grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and scourged him senseless for being such a wuss. Joseph wailed, terrified and in pain. His mother grabbed the Royal Sledge Hammer and hit Alexander in the nuts before tearing out both of his eyes with her fingernails.

When I was really young, my father took us to see his mother for the first time. I still remember looking up at her face and asking her why she had a moustache?

My cousin managed to top that one though. I won't repeat the actual words, but there's a rather offensive expression in German about Polish people, and I guess someone used it in front of my cousin when he was maybe 4 years old. One day, my aunt took him upstairs to see a neighbour, who happened to be... Polish. My aunt said she almost died when he said it. Lucky for her, the woman barely spoke German.

From the mouths of babes.

Will do. Can you please resend me the link and login details? For some reason they're not in my password manager.

Check out my last big post near the end of page 52 since my thinking on some of these issues have evolved. Also, I'm pretty sure the 1000 years is a symbolic number in Catholicism, meaning a "very long time", and the rule of Christ is already well underway through the institution of the Eucharist.

Coffee's on. I only have decaf, I'm afraid.

Hmm. Out of curiosity, I looked up the actual definition of righteous. Then compared it to virtuous and holy. Depending on which definition/website you read, you get different answers. My favorite was the two sites that had almost exactly the opposite definitions of each other for righteous and holy. A total mess. And Gemini was equally useless.

Basically, I'm trying to decide if the mortal sinners at the end of the trilogy should strive for righteousness or holiness in order to get to that next plane of existence and closer to God.

If someone is trying to live a sinless life, I tend to think of that more as the pursuit of holiness, which is probably the better choice.

Of course, just to keep it interesting, someone online asked is it possible to be holy but not righteous or righteous but not holy. Can anyone suggest examples of those?

Thanks
Dirk

So where did I leave off with regard to Lesser King Constantino? :-)
Some of this may change as I go forward.

I've worked out that the Lake of Fire does punish those passing through it based on how grave their sins were. Those persons are then reunited with their bodies and transported to a place (usually a planet) that reflects their sins. The worse the sins, the worse the planet. The way I intend to remain (mostly?) consistent with Revelation is by taking the position (articulated by the Father, no less) that those planets are "inside" the Lake of Fire and the mortal sinners who were "thrown" into the lake will never return from there. Hence, they are forever being punished in the Lake of Fire. Tada!

I took it a step further as well. They will remain "alive" and must "toil" on their planets until they develop into true righteous beings. Living forever when you have to work every day to feed and clothe yourself, etc., would be a hard life. Thus, the sane ones eventually choose to stop committing grave sins. Soon thereafter, they are able to "die" and enter a higher spiritual plane (though not Heaven) where their thoughts can subtly influence those mortals who remain alive, nudging them toward righteousness. Enough dead (ascended) righteous beings on a planet will slowly transform it into a righteous paradise for those who remain alive. Now repeat that thousands of times, once per planet, and each planet eventually becomes a paradise. Since these once mortal sinners can reproduce, there will be ever more of them, spread across ever more planets (sent to those places by God), until they spread righteousness across the cosmos (this last part is probably over the top, still thinking about it).

Connor asks God whether any of those beings will ever be allowed into Heaven, and the answer is (probably) no, since I want their souls so that the planets on which they lived all turn into paradises. But, the Father tells Connor he's not averse to additional "rescue missions" to lift some of them out of the Lake of Fire (remember, all those planets are, symbolically, in the lake) and into Heaven. Or, perhaps when their planets and inhabitants have been transformed, then the dead can enter Heaven. I currently lean toward the former.

Connor, whose new body is immortal, will have to rule this entire kingdom initially as Lesser King but will eventually send his children, grandchildren, etc. to all those worlds to rule them as Lesser Princes and Princesses on his behalf. The Father tells him to focus on becoming the Shepherd (spiritual leader) of all those beings. He's to help turn all those grave sinners and their descendants into righteous beings. The task will be much easier than trying to turn all humans currently on Earth into righteous beings since demons won't exist on human planets anymore.

During that conversation, Connor jokingly refers to himself as the Unholy Shepherd. But the Father corrects him and calls him the Holy Shepherd, telling him that the Antichrist no longer exists since Connor's old body, bred by Satan, burned up in the lake of fire. When Connor asks if he'll ever get to Heaven, the Father tells him to remember that the Father chooses his champions wisely (meaning yes), which is the line I used in the epilogue from book one.

Satan, as I mentioned previously, is transported to a moon spiralling into the Milky Way's black hole. Some of his demons may go with him, or all demons (except Satan) will go to a hellish world they can never leave. Unless there's a book four. :-)

The End