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Originally written by Synergy67:

Riibu, you are quoting Ecclesiastes. So you would say that this poetic writing (possibly or possibly not by Solomon) is a viewpoint offered by God, rather than stating man’s view of himself “under the sun” apart from any inkling of his spiritual nature or the existence of God. The voice in Ecclesiastes over and over says, “All is vanity!” So, is all of life vanity? Is it better as the author suggests, that we had never been born at all, than to be born and suffer? Look at the book and its “wisdom.” It greatly contradicts truths we know about the nature of God and man and our purpose in being. It’s downright bleak and depressing. It’s a great piece of prose making its point from an intended perspective, however.

This is what I mean when I say we have to look at the inspiration of scriptures from a contextual point of view and from one of spiritual understanding. I have no problem believing that there is Divine Inspiration underlying any or all of the books we have in the Bible. If so, Ecclesiastes was divinely inspired to tell us a lie from the point of view of godless man, that all is vanity and men are no better than beasts who also live and go to their end in the grave. It makes a point, if we can be wise enough to rightly divide it, what voice speaks it to us, and for what purpose it is speaking. It is plainly not the voice of God speaking to us to instruct us. Yet that is exactly what the Divine Word of God theory of scripture would have us believe everything in the Bible must be.

Ec 3:19 For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts; for all is vanity.

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