Anticross! 
I really like crossdoodle.
Picaword? Pickaword? Or other variants.
Guessaword? Etc.
Assuming the answer requires the user to guess or pick a word, check a thesaurus for other variants of those two words. Take your favourites, and append -aword, -aname, or some other relevant suffix to the end of it.
Or: Ask Gemini. :-)
Yes, although it was part of a prolonged chat that went into the weeds. Mine often answers the ways yours does.
God Uses Deception as a Judgment (Biblical Examples)
However, the Bible contains specific instances where God is depicted as the agent of deception against those who have already rejected the truth, often as a form of judgment. These passages are the foundation for the "ethically wrong" argument:
Sending a Delusion: Paul writes that for those who refuse to love the truth, God will send them "a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false" (2 Thessalonians 2:11).
Deceiving Prophets: God is described as deceiving prophets who lead Israel astray as a judgment on the people who sought them out (Ezekiel 14:9; 1 Kings 22:23).
The Hardening of the Heart: God "hardened" Pharaoh's heart, preventing him from agreeing to release the Israelites. This is a form of judicial action that prevents an already-willful person from seeing or accepting the truth.
was writing a prophecy during the Middle Ages and was trying to keep from being burned at the stake for heresy for suggesting
Or... an alternative view is: One expects the author of the verse to die for the truth, not fib a little to escape his doom
Isn't that exactly what John of Patmos did?
>> What? Just a warning? No, it's definite.
In the meeting in the year 430 after Rome receives the documents supposedly written by Augustine on his deathbed, the Last Challenge is described as being about corruption in the Church. Specifically, Satan is said to have claimed in the late first century that, by the End Times, the Church will be so corrupt that Christ will not find even one priest worthy of Heaven. That ruse is used by Satan because it supports the narrative that the Emissary is holy and has come to purge the Church of corruption. In reality, it allows Connor to purge the Church of his enemies (real priests still dedicated to God).
So, when Satan, who is in the meeting as a corporeal, discusses the Last Challenge, he explains to the others that, since God accepted the Last Challenge, there is no way the existing ending of Revelation can describe what will actually happen since it does not account for the events related to the challenge. In fact, it was the existing ending of Revelation that led Satan to issue the challenge. He adds that, had it been mentioned in Revelation, along with the likely outcome (God wins), Satan would never have issued the challenge. So, regardless of what John of Patmos wrote, Satan would have done something different to try to "change" the ending.
So, were John's ending "real", Satan would have invalidated it simply by issuing the Last Challenge (assuming God accepted). Although there is precedent in the Bible to change a "prophecy" (the people of Nineveh escaped destruction in the Book of Jonah), for now, I'm going to have Satan go with the argument that Revelation's ending is just a warning, so i don't need to justify how my ending could possibly change one of the biggest prophecies in the Bible. Technically, one could argue that Jonah's prophecy was also just a warning, so no prophecy was actually altered.
How about if the verse says "He'll come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven," and he returns as a boy (like my first draft)? He's still flesh, blood, and bone, which is what he was when he left. He's still God. He's just not yet an adult, which I believe is a requirement to satisfy some of the verses about his return, so the Second Coming might not begin until he grows up, floats up into the sky, and returns on a fluffy cloud with a host of angels.
Or, what if the author of your verse was writing a prophecy during the Middle Ages and was trying to keep from being burned at the stake for heresy for suggesting that he will return but not in this dimension? It would still be factual to write he will return. And since God never lies, the interpretation of that would be: God didn't lie. He spoke in riddles to confuse the "authorities." And if we get the interpretation wrong, that's our fault, not his. We're too limited to understand it all.
God's statement is factually correct. The Bible is full of verses that require careful interpretation to avoid misunderstanding their meaning. Revelation, itself, is drowning in figurative language that will never be understood with 100% certainty. Are those falsehoods? Satan is supposed to be brilliant. All he had to do was ask what that means. Being the arrogant s--t that he is, he assumed God intended to humiliate him rather than burn him. Even if Satan knew his fate might be a black hole, he at least has a chance to avoid that fate and end up ruling Earth. As opposed to being burned alive for eternity. If it were me, I'd go ahead with the challenge. The real reason it's not clearly spelled out is because I want to withhold that potential fate from the reader as a surprise for when it actually happens.
Notes r.e. the Last Challenge:
- There are actually two Last Challenges. The real one, which requires Connor to choose who to throw the dagger at, Christ or Satan. And the fake one, which supposedly involves the coming of the Emissary to purge the Church of corruption (in reality, to purge those who resist Connor), and create the Lambs of the Lord, which are youth priests and priestesses, who Connor would be able to manipulate more easily than adult priests.
- Why would Satan issue the Last Challenge? Because he's desperate to avoid burning for all eternity in the Lake of Fire. He has no choice. His plan is elaborate, including many contingencies in case things don't unfold as he expects. That includes insisting that if Christ wins the challenge, then both Satan AND Connor should be cast into the lake. Satan intends to make it almost impossible for Connor to throw the dagger at Satan.
- Why didn't John of Patmos mention the Last Challenge in Revelation since Satan does issue it? Because Satan only did so because he read Revelation (circa 100 CE) and saw he would burn forever. Had John written about it, including the likely ending (God wins), Satan would have had to come up with something else.
- Why would Satan believe he has a chance at winning the Last Challenge given that God is omniscient and accepted the challenge? Given that part of the stakes is that God, if he loses, has to return to the spirit realm and no one gets saved, Satan should reasonably expect to lose.
- Why would God agree to the Last Challenge? Because he wants Connor to come into existence and eventually become the Lesser King to rule and redeem the damned.
- God tells Satan there is a way for him to win the Last Challenge, although Satan will never realize that the answer is for him to demonstrate his (non-existent) love for Connor.
- God also tells Satan that if he issues the Last Challenge, regardless of whether he loses, Satan will not burn, which is true since his demise will have him on an asteroid spiraling into our central black hole. Instead, God tells him when Satan issued the challenge that he will in fact be given a kingdom of his own, whose size will be smaller than the smallest grain of sand in the universe. This is true since God is referring to the black hole. Satan interprets this potential outcome as figurative language for Satan being humiliated when God grants him a mere spec as a kingdom.
- And God tells him that He wants Connor (Satan's future son) to be the one to decide at whom to throw the supernatural dagger. Naturally, Satan jumps at this.
- The ending of Revelation (Satan et al are cast into the Lake of Fire) is merely a warning, not a certain outcome. In other words, change your ways, or this is what will happen to you. That's the other reason John didn't write about the challenge: Revelation is just a warning of what could happen, in this case of what could happen with no Last Challenge.
To be continued...
If he wanted. I suppose. Eden, in this case, is in a different dimension - still on Earth, but separate from the "fallen" part of our world. Gemini suggests that's a reasonable way to frame it since the geographic details given in the Bible about real-world rivers downstream from Eden are physically impossible in our dimension (those rivers don't have a common source).
Assuming Satan loses (what are the odds?), he and the rest of the demons will also end up in the "virtual" Lake of Fire, which consists of a burning pool somewhere in a cave in the Holy Land (the entrance to the lake), with a portal at the bottom, leading to the virtual LOF, including the Thousand Worlds (TW), the fallen Earth, and Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
Satan and co. will end up on an asteroid spiralling into the black hole. Most of the damned will end up on one of the TW, with varying degrees of harshness; you end up on a world commensurate with the gravity of your mortal sins (i.e., how much of a dick you were in life).
Connor also ends up in the LOF, but the portal brings him directly back to the fallen Earth of our dimension (e.g., just outside the cave with the burning pool, where he threw himself in). Like all the other damned, he can't go back through the portal and emerge in the cave, so he too, technically, is stuck forever in the virtual LOF, and fallen Earth becomes his base.
Remember Connor's background: He considers himself the son of Satan, which to a certain extent, he is; he was kidnapped by Satan and raised since infancy by him and his minions, indoctrinated into Satan's lies; and he's genetically bred with an overwhelming need to follow Satan, which he doesn't realize until the middle of book 2. All of that makes it plausible that he might throw the dagger at Christ.
The dagger was originally in Satan's possession. It was forged by God for Connor to wield, includes the word Antichristus engraved in the handle (i.e., it's clearly labelled for Connor), and it is delivered to Connor when he is stabbed with it at the Vatican.
If you believe that humans are the only sentient species in the universe made in God's image, then leaving Satan to rule it all is no big deal since everything is racing away from us anyway. God would be leaving Satan to rule the galaxy/universe, with no tech to get from star to star. The tech that Connor will eventually use to help him rule The Thousand Worlds won't exist if Satan wins. So really, he's just getting the Solar System.
God doesn't have to worry about the severity of the terms if Satan wins since Satan will never realize that he has to love Connor or at least pretend to in order to keep Connor from turning away from him.
God will leave Creation behind anyway, moving with those who are saved to Eden in a different dimension. Although the Earth will be renewed, it will be done for Connor to use as the heart of his kingdom and the seat of his throne.
The term grave sin is often used interchangeably with mortal sin, although a grave sin refers more to the act itself (e.g., murder), whereas a mortal sin is a grave sin/grave act done with full knowledge that it's wrong/serious but you did it anyway/deliberately.
Hi Tamsin. My apologies for not responding sooner. I'm still massaging things, but I think I simplified things enough for the chapter to work. Since Augustine's real-life views conflict with my story, I'll have Satan include in Augustine's cover letter to the pope that some of what Augustine saw in his supposed holy vision disagreed with his own well-known views, which gives me the flexibility to break a few rules. Of course, the reader learns at the end of book one that the holy vision documented by Augustine was actually written by Satan, so stuff doesn't have to happen as Satan suggested. That fixes most of it.
In book three, the reader learns that God the Father accepted Satan's challenge, including some harsh (totally heretical) consequences, because he knew Satan would be unable to truly corrupt Connor (indirectly, his son) into throwing the supernatural dagger, created by the Father, at Christ. Christ, naturally, could easily sidestep the dagger, but he agreed as part of the Last Challenge to stand still and accept whatever Connor decides to do. The only way Satan could win would be if he actually showed Connor that he loved him, which he doesn't. Even faking it doesn't occur him.
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I spent part of the evening farting around with Gemini, getting it to analyze my trilogy (themes, archetypes, biblical connections, etc.) and some back and forth on the series title. It didn't like "As Darkness Gathers" either. :-) It gave me a bunch of suggestions for alternate titles, all of which stunk. But the chat did lead me to "Savior of the Damned - An Apocalyptic Saga" which has a nice double meaning: In book one, Connor is the supposed Emissary of the Lord, come on behalf of God for one last attempt to turn people from evil and save them before the imminent Last Judgment. Of course, at the end of book 1, you learn he's really the Antichrist. Then at the end of book 3, he learns that he was always intended to rule the damned (those not saved) across The Thousand Worlds, punishment planets (part of the "virtual" Lake of Fire) of various levels of severity for different degrees of sin/evil (Hitler and Stalin will be neighbors, lol), and that Connor's real task, as the immortal Lesser King, is to lead them all to holiness. The more holy a population becomes, the more paradise-like their worlds will become as well. Naturally, there's much more to it.
EDIT: Just realized when I shortened the book one title to The Emissary that I forgot to check how often that title has been used (way too much). So, the book one title will have to go back to The Holy Emissary.
I can't recall ever actively using Read & Review, at least not all of the tabs. Go figure. :-)
Only posted inline reviews end up on that tab. From looking at your public profile, you've only done one inline review, the rest all regular reviews. Your inline review does show up there, but you have to scroll a while. That tab loads more records on the fly as you scroll down.
Snow Falling on Cedars is a published work by someone else. On this site, you can link to other works on this site using the white +Read button on the posting view to add it to your reading list, accessible via the "loop" menu on the screen's upper right, and you can recommend other works from here, including your own, by clicking the blue Shelfit button on the posting view. You can also link to books on Amazon, although that's meant for linking to your own books.
I'm having a little trouble trying to home in on where you were in the system when your daughter-in-law pressed Next. If you went via Post Your Work -> Create New Work, then that would give you problems since it's not meant to be used to add chapters to an existing work (you can literally add a chapter 2 to a new, empty book, which is why chapter 1 might have looked like it was missing).
If you used Add Chapter from one of several locations here where that feature/wizard is accessible (e.g., +Chapter from the posting view), clicking Next should simply take you from the Content tab to the Publish tab within the Add Chapter wizard, where you would see a list of your existing chapters. I checked your book's content and you do have two chapters there at the moment. Please let me know if you still have an issue with that.
Yup, Dirk from Calgary. Small world. You know Tom, I presume, my neighbor? He mentioned another writer that he knows, although I can't recall if he gave me your name. Welcome aboard! I'll send you a connection request.
FYI, you had two identical posts in this forum (including this one), so I deleted the one with no responses.
I had a quick look at your public profile, which lists the reviews you've given. I am seeing that several authors have already responded to the reviews you've given them. Once you post (submit) a review, whether inline or regular, the author is automatically notified on their Home screen (under Feedback, located just under the avatar (picture) on each member's Home screen), and if they have email notifications enabled, they also get an email with a link they can click to take them straight to your review. Without email notifications, you'll have to wait for the author to log back into this site to see their Home page. Depending on their schedule, it may take them a few days (or more?) to come back here, see your review, and (one hopes) respond.
Did that answer your question?
Lee, I'm not sure I understand the workflow you're using. Do you mean you've written your reviews offline (presumably in paragraph format, which we call "regular" reviews)? If so, click on the work you were reviewing to open it again (the "posting" view). If you want to switch to "inline" reviews, there's a yellow button near the top of the screen to start an inline review (a really convenient way to give detailed feedback about individual words, sentences, paragraphs, punctuation, etc.). If you're trying to post a paragraph-style review, scroll down the posting screen to the bottom of the story or chapter you're reviewing, and click on the Write a Regular Review button. Fill in the fields on the right, then click at the bottom to submit the review. You should subsequently see it among the list of posted reviews for whichever story/chapter you just reviewed. Regular reviews require 50 words or more in order for you to earn points for the review. Inline reviews require at least five individual (inline) comments and closing remarks.
It's a 50-year-old living room wall unit, part of a teak set from my mother's estate. Most of it still looks brand new. It didn't fit in my living room, so it's in my office/cat palace. Now that the contractors are done , I can put my stuff back into it. It's the last room I need to clean up. Until next year. :-(
How about this? Don't forget to turn up your volume to hear the song with the video.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/kji93qHFmNBrub5EA
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipP … jPgRNx5hsc
Click to play the video. Be sure to turn up your volume.
>>I’m pretty sure an AN/UYK-3 is the missing link between me and finally achieving some level of control around here.
Now that you mention it, some of those switches might be useful in trying to herd cats. Or trying to keep Gandalf from knocking over the Christmas tree or a scratching post at 2 AM.
Dirk
Impressive, but did you ever program one of these:
Assembler? Tsk, tsk. Kids these days.
Charlton Heston would have poked machine code directly into RAM!
On a Timex Sinclair 1000!!!
Before breakfast.
Lizzie Bordan took and ax, and drove it deep into the VAX.
Don't you wish that you could do what really crazy people do?
- a modified limerick only DEC VAX users understand
- FORTRAN and BASIC? Pfft! John Wayne would have used COBOL!
In a moment of insanity, I briefly considered getting a second cat, thinking they could keep each other company. But ... twice the cost, twice as much carnivore poop, twice the hair, twice as many zoomies, twice the critters trying to jump on a hot stove the second I turn my back, twice as many paws and tails always one centimeter behind me, twice the demands for attention, twice as much distraction from writing, twice the sound of galloping hoofs across my hardwood floors, twice as much destructive mischief, etc. And there's no telling if they'd even get along.
In other words, Marilyn, you're a saint!
But, Gandalf is also an insanely sweet little furball, affectionately referred to as demon-spawn several times a day. :-) My brother and his partner, Maria, who have two cats, came over to finally meet him, and she absolutely adored him.
He's also devilishly clever. When he hears me moving around in my bedroom in the morning, he comes in and meows up a storm until I feed him. Well, my contractors were already in the house one morning working, and he went down to them and meowed up a storm until one of them decided he must be starving and fed him breakfast (he knew I wouldn't mind him feeding the cat). Sometime later, when he heard me moving around, he came up and meowed up a storm until I fed him. :-) That's not the only time he's manipulated me into doing what he wanted.
His IQ is definitely higher than mine, although, apparently, that doesn't take much. :-)
Okay. I'm stuck. I'm writing a scene set in the year 430, the year St. Augustine died. The Church of Rome (chief diocese of the Western Christian Church) had received a letter and scroll supposedly written by Augustine the day of his death after experiencing a holy vision about the End Times, including the coming of the Emissary, a boy sent by Christ to purge the Catholic Church of latter-day Pharisees and replace them with the Lambs of the Lord, teenage priests and priestesses, who will deliver God's final warning to humanity to seek refuge in the Catholic Church during the End Times. In other words, join the Catholic Church, which will be led by Connor, who is actually the Antichrist.
The letter and scroll were actually written by Satan, setting up Connor's arrival and conquest of the Catholic Church sixteen hundred years into the future. Satan not only wrote the documents, he's a senior figure in the Church of Rome in 430 and participates in the meeting itself, attempting to steer the meeting where he wants it to go.
I'm looking for a way that the Antichristus dagger (forged by God for Connor) could affect the future if Connor were to throw it at Christ when the time comes (as opposed to throwing it at Satan, his other option). God decided when he accepted Satan's Last Challenge that he would accept Connor as the one to make that final decision. If Connor throws it at Christ, then Satan wins. Not only does he not burn forever in the Lake of Fire, but he ends up in control of Earth, ruling all grave sinners. Further, God promised that he would return to the spirit realm and never return.
In order to remain compatible with the Book of Revelation yet still tell my story, Satan says in the meeting that he believes the Lake of Fire is actually a metaphor for Earth, devastated by the events of the Apocalypse during the End Times. Since the "New Earth" of Revelation for saved Christians (those who survived the Last Judgment) is often seen as a reference to a *renewed* Earth, clearly Earth can't be both. So, Satan suggests that the New Earth is actually a reference to a slightly different realm between Earth and Heaven that is where the Garden of Eden is located. That realm is "new" only insofar as it has remained "new", just as it existed when God drove Adam and Eve from there. According to Satan, that's where saved Christians will go.
However, if Satan wins the Last Challenge, it hardly seems sufficient for God to leave Earth with his saved people. That's not much of a victory for Satan since that's what would happen anyway: Satan and grave sinners will wind up in the Lake of Fire and God will live with his saved people on a New Earth.
There needs to be more to Satan's victory. I'm still considering that if Christ is hit by the dagger thrown by Connor, it would cause an end to the hypostatic union, separating the Lord's spirit from the physical body of Jesus. Since the dagger is a physical object, it ought to have a physical impact, hence the end to the union. Further, there ought to be no salvation at all, for anyone. Those people, too, should be left for Satan to rule.
The problem lies with the idea of no salvation. I'm trying to treat Revelation prophecies as being just as accurate as the prophecies written by Augustine (Satan) on his deathbed.
My explanation for why the Emissary isn't mentioned in Revelation is because he comes before the Second Coming, fulfills his destiny, then is killed in a battle to the death against the Antichrist.
As noted above, I have a way that Earth can be the Lake of Fire yet still accommodate the New Earth of Revelation.
What I don't have is a way for salvation to be eliminated (if Satan wins the Last Challenge) without invalidating the prophecies of Revelation. Also, an end to the hypostatic union violates Revelation prophecies.
I definitely don't want to simply ignore these plot problems, but I also don't see a way to reconcile them.
For what it's worth, Connor will ultimately throw the dagger at Satan, so the events in Satan's documents of him winning will never come to pass, nor should they since it's just a bunch of BS made up by Satan in the first place. But he needs to be able to explain how those events could reconcile with Revelation in the meeting in 430, otherwise his fellow meeting attendees will never believe Augustine wrote the documents.
For the life of me, I don't see a way to explain the differences (eg no salvation, end of the hypostatic union) in a way that can reconcile them, even if I were to claim some of differences are really just a matter of interpretation
