Ecclesiastes Part III

Ecclesiastes Part III

     This is the third and final posting for the questions for the Book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is a mournful and depressing book, much like many in the Bible, but the difference I find with Ecclesiastes is its depth of depression that very obviously originates with the horribly hopeless idea that EVERYTHING is meaningless. Remember, this absurd and deeply melancholy notion of meaninglessness is in text that is supposed to be inspired by God. You might think that a God of everlasting love and immutable beauty would be more adept to something more along the lines of shining inspiration, truly happy words that uplift and encourage. I guess not.

1. Ecclesiastes 10:4

     4 If a ruler’s anger rises against you, do not leave your post; calmness can lay great offenses to rest.

Questions

     1. If calmness can lay great offenses to rest why doesn't it work when it comes to the anger of God when He thinks people have really offended Him? 

     2. People pray and plead and put on sackcloth and all kinds of shit, and does God reign in His anger? Sure, after He promotes a new pestilence, kills a couple of really innocent people, ravages the crops, and causes a mighty flood that kills a b-zillion people, right?

     3. Do not leave your post. Does this infer that people should not forsake their belief in God, even when really screwy things happen because God is supposedly angry? If they stay at their POST and maintain their belief is that supposed to bring the calmness that gives rest to their supposed offenses?

2. Ecclesiastes 10:11

     11 If a snake bites before it is charmed, the charmer receives no fee.

Questions

     1. What about the greatest snake charmer of them all, God? What about Him? Why should God receive His fee of glory when He fucks up everything He does from the very start? 

     2. God creates this innocent man and woman in the Garden of Eden and they make a huge mistake, yet they don't know any better because they don't know about good and evil and disobedience because God didn't create them with such knowledge. So, God's planning and creation fails from the very freaking beginning and He punishes man for God's bullshit mistake and STILL tries to collect on his fee of glory?

3. Ecclesiastes 10:20

     20 Do not revile the king even in your thoughts, or curse the rich in your bedroom, because a bird in the sky may carry your words, and a bird on the wing may report what you say.

Questions

     1. Sooo, God/the Lord is the ultimate Big Brother, isn't He? Be careful of what you say because a little bird might go back and report what you said to someone who just might put your ass in a sling? So much for being born free.

4. Ecclesiastes 11:3

     3 If clouds are full of water, they pour rain on the earth. Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there it will lie.

Questions

     1. Sure, in the place where the tree falls it will lie, but when it falls and there is no one around to hear it fall does it still make a sound?

5. Ecclesiastes 11:5

     5 As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

Questions

     1. Isn't it true that we now know the patterns of the wind on the earth and what causes the wind?

     2. Isn't it true that we now know how a fetus develops within a woman's body?

     3. If we now know these things then wouldn't it stand to reason we CAN understand the work of God?

6. Ecclesiastes 11:8-10

     8 However many years anyone may live, let them enjoy them all. But let them remember the days of darkness, for there will be many. Everything to come is meaningless.

     9 You who are young, be happy while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

     10 So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless.

Questions

     1. What do the days of darkness matter if everything to come is meaningless?

     2. If everything to come is meaningless and if the judgment is part of what is to come, doesn't it also make sense that the judgment would be meaningless as well?

     3. Verse ten says to cast off troubles and banish anxiety, but what do these things matter if everything is meaningless?

     4. Why banish anxiety and cast off troubles when Ecclesiastes 7:3 says that frustration is better than laughter and a sad face is good for the heart?

7. Ecclesiastes 12:14

     14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

Questions

     1. Ecclesiastes 12:8 says that everything is meaningless. This is not the only verse that states such. In fact, much of Ecclesiastes is about everything being meaningless. If everything is meaningless, why in the world would God judge anything?

     2. If something is meaningless is it still worthy to be judged? If so WHY?

     3. Would judging the meaningless be considered pointless? If God is judging the meaningless wouldn't He be behaving in a pointless manner? Why would a perfect divine being behave in a pointless manner?

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Ecclesiastes Part I

Ecclesiastes Part I

     Here we are at the Book of Ecclesiastes. This is a depressing book of the Bible if there ever was one, right? I mean, Psalms was pretty bad and Proverbs wasn't exactly a piece of pie but Ecclesiastes is seriously depressing. As you read through this book of the Bible you really must wonder about the state of mind, the depth of depression of the individual who wrote it. Many individuals who read it will choose to take the words as poetic in value, mere metaphors and similes. Yet, the dark nature of many of these words really leave the reader to wonder...did God/the Lord really inspire these terrible words of dread and depression and sorrow and deep absence? 

1. Ecclesiastes 1:7

     7 All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full.

Questions
     1. Let us take this verse for the poetic value since, obviously, the sea does not have a brim to which it may be filled. Now, if you consider the symbol of water as having to do with emotion does this verse mean that there are many emotions, just none that are fulfilling?

     2. There are many emotions that make up everything that it is to be a human being. If there are no adequate emotions to be fulfilling does that mean that being a human is an empty experience?

     3. If many emotions fill a sea of emptiness didn't God/the Lord know that this would happen to humans? Why didn't He change this to make the human experience more meaningful?

     4. How can an all-powerful creator create something that can never be fulfilled?

2. Ecclesiastes 1:9

     9 What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Questions
     1. Okay, if there is nothing new under the sun then why are the followers of the Bible constantly looking for new signs and things they have never seen before but have supposedly been told will happen sooner or later?

     2. If what has been done will be done again wouldn't that mean that God/the Lord will NOT behave in a manner He has not already behaved in before?

     3. If God/the Lord has a track record for losing His temper, revoking promises, murdering people en mass, and pretty much fucking things up for everyone and everything on the entire planet won't He simply do it again since there is nothing new under the sun and what has been done before will be done again?

     4. If there is nothing new under the sun then when a baby is born into the world they have actually been here before, right?

     5. If there is nothing new under the sun then when people say there is more evil now in the world than ever before they are wrong, right? I mean, wouldn't there be just as much evil present now as there has ever been?

3. Ecclesiastes 1:14

     14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Questions
     1. Is this verse only referencing what people do and not what God/the Lord does?

     2. Why is it that whatever man does is stupid and pathetic and meaningless? Is it because he does it all for himself?

     3. If man is doomed because whatever he does he does for himself, wouldn't the Lord/God also be doomed since everything He does and everything He MAKES man do is for Himself, for the glory of God/the Lord?

     4. If everything that God/the Lord does or causes is for His own glory how in the fuck is He any different than when man does something for himself? Is it because God is God and man is man?

     5. If everything man does is meaningless does this mean God/the Lord created a meaningless creation?

     6. If everything man does is meaningless then how can he show glory to God/the Lord? Wouldn't glory construe something with meaning?

4. Ecclesiastes 1:15 

     15 What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.

Questions
     1. If this is the case then why does God/the Lord count on man to show God glory?

     2. If man is crooked and cannot be straightened then why does God even try?

     3. If what is lacking cannot be counted shouldn't you look to the Creator for the true beginning of all the trouble/problems? How does such a great Creator put out so many things that are lacking and crooked?

     4. If what is crooked cannot be straightened does that mean there is no hope?

5. Ecclesiastes 1:17-18

     17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.

     18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

Questions
     1. What the hell happened to all of the great things that Solomon said about wisdom in the Book of Proverbs?

     2. God sure did make sure that man had no way out, right? I mean, with folly there is sorrow and with wisdom there is sorrow? WTF? There is nothing man can do, right? Wouldn't this be a divine catch-22?

6. Ecclesiastes 2:16

     16 For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered; the days have already come when both have been forgotten. Like the fool, the wise too must die!

Questions
     1. Sooo, then the promises of the wise living a long life really amount to a pile of beans, correct?


7. Ecclesiastes 2:26
     26 To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Questions
     1. But it does not freaking matter whether or not God gives wisdom and knowledge and all of that happy crappy if such things still equal empty sorrow in the end, right?

     2. What good is a gift if it is no good to the one who receives it?


8. Ecclesiastes 3:1, 3, 8
     1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

     3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,

     8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

Questions
     1. Is this why bad things happen to good people?

     2. Is this why good things happen to bad people?

     3. Is this God's excuse for all of the bad shit He does/lets happen?


9. Ecclesiastes 3:10, 14
     10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.

     14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him. 

Questions
     1. Ahhh, so God/the Lord IS the One Who fucked it up for everyone, right? God is the Placer of the enmity in man, correct?

     2. Is enmity the burden of man?

     3. If everything that God does endures forever wouldn't this mean that God placing the enmity within man will last forever?

     4. If nothing can be added or taken does this also mean that God cannot add or take away?


10. Ecclesiastes 3:15
     15 Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.

Questions
     1. Do you think that when God calls up the past He will remember all of the bad shit HE has done to man?

     2. Will God remember how He purposely hardened Pharaoh's heart?

     3. Will God remember that He instructed His people to kill the inhabitants of entire cities?

     4. Will God remember that He brought His people to the brink of starvation and then punished them terribly when they asked for food and water?


11. Ecclesiastes 3:16
     16 And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment—wickedness was there, in the place of justice—wickedness was there.

Questions
     1. Wouldn't this then mean that God/the Lord is wicked?

     2. If nothing is new under the sun then the Lord has judged wickedly and with regularity, correct?

     3. Think about the story of the Flood. Is not God's brand of justice WICKED?
     
     4. Think about the commandment to stone bratty children to death. Is not God's judgment WICKED?

     5. Think about God shirking the attributes of Love. Is not God WICKED?


12. Ecclesiastes 3:17
     17 I said to myself, “God will bring into judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time to judge every deed.”

Questions
     1. But if God's judgement is tainted and wicked then the good folk are just as fucked as the bad folk, correct?

     2. If someone was judged during their life for something bad that they did are they going to be judged AGAIN for that same thing when God supposedly judges every being at the end of all time? Has God ever heard of double jeopardy? This would be a very good example of God's wicked justice, wouldn't it?


13. Ecclesiastes 3:18-20
     18 I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals.

     19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath ; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless.

     20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.

Questions
     1. What horrible and depressing verses these are, right? Everything meaningless? This is supposed to be text that is God inspired?

     2. If everything is meaningless then wouldn't the Creator of everything ALSO be meaningless?


14. Ecclesiastes 3:22
     22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?

Questions
     1. Doesn't this totally sound like something from the movie The Matrix?


15. Ecclesiastes 4:1
     1 Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed— and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors— and they have no comforter.

Questions
     1. And WHO is the Oppressor? WHO allows all of this oppression to happen, right? This oppression cannot simply just happen because of man since man has no power to do anything of meaningful value on his own. God does it all, correct? So, again I ask you WHO is responsible for the oppression?

     2. If the Truth has the ability to set one free then realizing the Truth that it is God Who is the Oppressor should set the oppressed free, correct?


16. Ecclesiastes 4:2-3
     2 And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive.

     3 But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.

Questions
     1. These verses are seriously fucked up, right? The dead happier than the living? WTF kind of horseshit is that?

     2. Hey, if those who are never born are better off, why give people who get abortions so much trouble?


17. Ecclesiastes 4:7
     7 Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:

Questions
     1. If everything under the sun cannot exits without the express permission of God then God is responsible for anything and everything that is meaningless, correct?


18. Ecclesiastes 4:10-12
     10 If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.

     11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?

     12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Questions
     1. Oh, these verses sound all nice and cherry until you realize that it is God who constantly pits people against each other, right?

     2. A cord of three is not easily broken unless God is right there in the middle, correct?


19. Ecclesiastes 5:12
     12 The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether they eat little or much, but as for the rich, their abundance permits them no sleep.

Questions
     1. The sleep of a laborer is sweet even when they have had little to eat? Are you insane? Have you ever gone to bed hungry? Did you sleep well with your hungry belly burbling away? Did your hunger allow you to sleep sweetly?

     2. Why wouldn't the rich sleep well? Isn't that what insurance is for?


20. Ecclesiastes 5:20
     20 They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart.

Questions
     1. How nice. Sooo, does this verse mean that human beings as a whole really serve no purpose whatsoever (other than the dastardly plans God has for them) and so the Great Divine keeps them occupied with happy little hearts?

     2. If they are being kept occupied isn't that akin to being sidetracked or tricked?


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