That's John Milton's Paradise Lost, from the point of view of Lucifer:
Farewell happy Fields
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
> "Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."
Ironically, that quote from Paradise Lost is spoken by the character Satan and is intended to deceive his fellow fallen angels into believing being condemned to Tartarus after losing their revolt isn't so bad, even though it is, quite literally, the depths of Hell.
On the other hand, considering the topic, maybe it's rather apropos instead.
It's what John Milton wrote about in Paradise Lost: To serve in Heaven or to rule in Hell. Milton backed the republicans during the English revolution, and saw his beloved revolution be usurped by the Cornwall dictatorship, and ultimately the restoration of the British monarchy. He had to flee for his life and was effectively banned from all public life. Whereas he used to serve in prestiges jobs, at the end of his life he was marginalised, broke and blind. Survivorship-bias gives a wrong impressions of rebels, most end on the outskirts of society. Milton dictated the verses of Paradise Lost to a scribe, as he put it, to justify the ways of God to Men. Substitute an all-powerful God for an all-powerful government, and it get a hole new meaning. IMHO it's still one of the best poems in the English language. There is a wise lesson here, I don't like it, but I can't say it's not true.
> a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking
“The mind is its own place and, in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.” That satanic line alone should be cause for reflection. How often human beings shack themselves up in their delusions where they feel they can reign, because pride looks upon service with disgust, screaming "Non serviam!"
Of course, cut off from the truth, we are cut off from being, and thus condemn ourselves to insanity, to rot in the noxious vapors and mirages of our decaying souls. And it is here, through this void, that we embrace the demonic and prepare ourselves for enslavement to the demonic.
> We can’t know what heaven is like at all so it’s likely that whatever we think of as heaven is actually much more applicable to some kind of hell.
Your comment reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode "A Nice Place to Visit". Henry Valentine's eternal punishment is to always get what he wants. At first he thinks he's gone to heaven, it takes him a month of always getting everything he wants to realise he's actually been damned to hell.
But that saying, authored by Milton in Paradise Lost, is ascribed to Lucifer/Satan. Not exactly a fountain of wisdom and good judgement.
Also, Milton wasn't particularly orthodox, but in conventional Christian theology Satan is not said to rule in Hell- he suffers with the rest of us.
In an absolute sense, though, it would only be better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven if the status of a servant in Heaven was worse than that of a ruler in Hell. Status is relative, but not only relative to the other participants in the study - it's relative to the entire population. I'd prefer to get $10 and have one neighbor get $20 than $8 and $5, because the wealth of millions of people establish the price of goods to me, not one person getting a little more. In a world where a million people get $0, I get $10, and someone else gets $20, I'm relatively wealthier than if a million people still got $0, I got $8, and my neighbor got $5.
Yeah, it might be more economically rational to seek to get $8 million if the entire world was going to get $20 million if I didn't take the option, but then there's the old saying "a rising tide lifts all boats..."
> So, one place has us separated from everyone, in a lake of fire, and burning non-stop. Satan will be there, too.
This is a curious statement, as the subject is Dante, and the "Inferno" shows us not a huge lake of fire with all the damned burning within it, but rather a diverse Hell in which one's torment reflects one's vices. This has a theological resonance, as the very nature of Hell is first and foremost the fulfillment of one's corrupt and sinful desires, it is God letting you have exactly what you want, your dark little heart's desire (the logical outcome of having been created a free being; Matthew 6:21[0] captures this quite nicely). When you die, your orientation becomes fixed forever, and if it isn't on the Summum Bonum, the Highest Good, the only thing capable of satisfying Man's heart, then it will be some lesser real or apparent good. This is the consummation of utter hopelessness and despair.
And what is at the very center of Hell in the "Inferno" if not a lake of fire? An absolutely frigid place, a frozen lake, with Satan lodged permanently in the ice up to his waist, with every flap of his wings making the place even colder. Fire is actually a better metaphor for God (even when we speak of the fire of God's just wrath, a kind of friction resulting from our evil will colliding with the Will of God). If God is the Logos, and Logos is like fire, and God so often is represented by fire, by its dynamism, then the opposite is the lifelessness of sin, a world of ice and death, a cold void.
>The secret of Hell, I think, is that you get there before death. By doing evil things, you invite an evil mentality into your mind which will prey on you as you become more feeble.
That's the Christian orthodox view btw -- that you make your own hell by your stance and action (in which view, hell is not an actual place, even in another dimension, with fire pits and demons, but just your resentment and the distance you feel from God's love).
".?.?. those who find themselves in hell will be chastised by the scourge of love. How cruel and bitter this torment of love will be! For those who understand that they have sinned against love, undergo no greater suffering than those produced by the most fearful tortures. The sorrow which takes hold of the heart, which has sinned against love, is more piercing than any other pain. It is not right to say that the sinners in hell are deprived of the love of God .?.?. But love acts in two ways, as suffering of the reproved, and as joy in the blessed!" (Saint Isaac of Syria).
That we must change for Heav'n, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: fardest from him is best
Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream
Above his equals. Farewel happy Fields
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.
-- Lucifer in Milton's Paradise Lost
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