Reply to Solon, Now by Me (Though Victor Did a Great Job)
> Christianity condemns the bodies we know, this world we know, as false and meaningless.
Attributing the properties “false” and “meaningless” to bodies seems as absurd as attributing, say, hunger to triangles. What’s a “meaningless body”?
> The suspicion arises, however, that this “other” world does not exist, and that it is thus, as the opposite of this world, the opposite of life, i.e., death, nothingness.
Yes, this suspicion may arise in anybody who reflects on the ultimate issues. And yet our friend Solon here who promotes his death and nothingness doctrine is accusing Christians of being anti-life. Beam me up.
> Christianity’s genealogy suggests it’s judgments arose out of a hatred of life, by a people that suffered from life. Is Christianity an expression of revenge upon life? Hence a form of illness?
Now look, I’d be the first to argue that we ought not to give up and struggle valiantly in life for happiness, our own and of those we love. But, you see, death is inevitable and with it, as might appear to an unenlightened mind, the destruction of all subjectivity, all meaning, and all previous action and striving and success. At least Christians are reconciled to death through a highly sophisticated doctrine. (Or, at least, more sophisticated than “your soul (if such there be) corrupts into nothingness, and your body rots into death.”) Christianity, then, far from being anti-life, is much more aptly described as anti-death.
> Christianity fundamentally devalues our world and bodies, and values the opposite, but if we reject this “opposite” that Christianity is selling, we’re only left with this world, and then Christianity strikes us as a bizarre predilection for the opposite of life.
Let’s consider the most friendly to Solon possibility. The body may well be simply an incredibly complex tool, a way of permitting us to interact with the material world, and most important, a means to soul-making. Once it is shed at death, the personal identity built with its help remains and is glorified in the hereafter. Christianity does not devalue our world and bodies in the absolute sense but only relatively, as compared with heavenly existence. It “devalues” them to the same extent as the life of a fetus is devalued compared to the life of an adult, as the life of a caterpillar, to the life of the butterfly. There is a transformation, a transcendence going on as the soul leaves the body.
But even if a tool, an essential one. And a means is valued proportionately to the value of the end. So, the body and mental and physical health and natural happiness are important.
> It’s again telling that Christianity had to proscribe against suicide early on.
You don’t want to commit suicide because you do not want to miss valuable opportunities to succeed in some way and make a difference in this life precisely such as will “echo in eternity.” (Gladiator) Further, we read that “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (Lk 12:48) Thus, letting go when your body is at the point of death is not wrong, yet killing oneself in the prime of life is clearly wicked. (Note that the existence of difficult cases, such as assisted suicide and the like, does not entail that there are no obvious cases.) Surely, proscribing suicide is pro-life, while looking at it in some pagan, perhaps, way as just another option, is hardly such.
Solon might argue that getting to heaven is an incentive to suicide or improper martyrdom. I’ll grant him that point. But where there is a problem, there is a solution, and we see the correct behavior clarified: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” (1 Cor 3:16-17) Suicide, normally, is just the wrong way to that “better place.” The life here and the life there are connected, and the transition must be in some way “natural.” (See, Christianity likes nature. Will Solon now be reduced to arguing that Christianity does not permit certain forms of euthanasia, abortion, etc., thereby still being anti-life?) Perhaps the point can be put in this way: the nature of heaven is such that it precludes attaining heaven by inappropriate means. Understanding this should only strengthen the natural repulsiveness of self-murder.
> What I am saying is simply that next to pagan religions’ divinization of procreation and sexuality, Christianity’s anti-animality (and hence anti-sexuality) is put into very strong relief.
Yes, well, Christianity claims that there exist pleasures in comparison with which the pleasures of sex pale. In fact, Christianity is not anti-anything; it is pro-happiness (like Ron Paul is pro liberty, property, and peace); it’s just that it teaches that true happiness can be hidden in what to uninitiated, to “natural men” untouched by grace, might seem like odd places.
At any rate, even the Catholic church does not micromanage sex within marriage. If you want to have sex 5 times a day 7 days a week, by all means, more (sexual) power to you. Yes, artificial birth control is frowned upon, but this attitude is not arbitrary; there are reasons for it, whether you agree with them or not. And it encourages having children. But even our author will concur with the point that having children outside of marriage is crazy, and even premarital sex is highly problematic, because true communion between lovers is impossible.