Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire So, man has no immortal soul?

Simple question to the OP. Why did you post that?

Solomon outlined the meaning of life and human existence APART FROM GOD. Humans are no different from animals apart from God.

At the end of the book Solomon said man goes to his eternal home, while mourners go about in the street, Ecc 12:5. The dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it, Ecc 12:7

Solomon was challenging those living apart from God to reconsider their purpose and meaning in life.

Exactly. Been dead twice. Nothing. No light. No tunnel. No relatives, no history of me before me. Nothing. You are worm food, should you make it to the ground.

I was surprised to find any part of the Bible so closely aligned with my own thoughts. After reading through the entire book, I thought I would ask for other's views on the material.In twelve chapters the verses make no mention of "those living apart from God". Though the material speaks repeatedly of keeping ones vow. It seems to me the author expects God to be omnipresent in the reader's life.

In his younger years, Solomon was very close to God. He fell away later and so enraged God that his kingdom was split in 2 and never reunited before it fell to the Assyrians and Babylonians. Ecclesiastes was believed to have been written in his old age but scholars now think it was written centuries later. It includes some references to things that wouldn't have been possible in Solomon's day. I'm not familiar enough with it to say just what those impossible things are.

Obviously those apart from God think nothing matters in the end. The final message in Ecclesiastes is just the opposite—everything matters in the end, Ecc 12:13-14. The book’s conclusion says to fear God and keep His commandments, for God will bring every work into judgment.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end, Ecc 3:11

Life apart from God is futile. A relationship with God gives life meaning, along with the assurance of eternal life.

Are you aware how pius, snarky, stupid and bigoted your entire diatribe is ? Find your "Christian Charity" . Live that.

Does the Bible contain untruths and errors? -- Truly, it does. Start at Genesis 3 and keep reading... and reading... the documentation of man's errors repeats over and over again. This does not make Scripture errant.

Ecclesiastes truly records the Preacher contemplating meaning in life under the sun. Compare Ecclesiastes with Psalm 90 by Moses. I certainly wouldn't consider this present time to be heaven. This is the great tribulation. There will be a Last Day under the sun, after which... [see elsewhere in Scripture].

The Bible talks about murders, rapes, all kinds of sexual immorality, deceit, theft, human sacrifice, every kind of sin you can think of. Does that mean the Bible is in error? No, it's just saying what man does. In no instance does it condone any of these things.

Thanks for this explanation.

Ecclesiastes is a collection of musings by the Preacher. His musings may or not be factually accurate but they are factually accurate in that they record his thoughts at the time.

This stuff is fairly simple. So my question remains. Why is our most outspoken resident atheist scouring the Bible for relatively obscure books in the Old Testament to prove or disprove anything? Why worry?

I think there are very few secure atheists. For that matter, there might be an equal number of Christians with a good bit of doubt as well. We’re all imperfect and sinful beings doing our best to make it through the world. The only difference I can tell is that Christians have come to terms with the belief they can’t do it themselves and have decided to trust that Jesus will help them. Atheist reject that idea. Acceptance of Jesus doesn’t magically remove the human tendency to question and doubt. And atheist aren’t lesser persons if they doubt their course.

But I do believe a desire to destroy the faith of others when it is doing one no harm is indicative of some deep seated issues.

Precisely, and not just bad acts but bad theology as well. Job, in particular, is a minefield.

How about the 'theology' of Job's wife when Job was suffering from sores put on him by Satan....

Job 2:9 Then his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die."

Of course she didn't know about what was coming when Satan killed her and all of Job's sons.

yep

Isn’t this a Byrd’s song??? 🤔

And someone is just trying to be funny and get people going this morning?

Paul said that ALL men have a built-in knowledge of God. That includes atheists. If an atheists searches his soul, he'll find that he does know there's a God. He's fighting against it and is trying to convince himself that there is no God but it's in his genes. When he's trying to prove the Bible is fake, he's fighting against what's built in to his inner being.

Well said Joe Bob.