Ecclesiastes and Meaninglessness

It's a beautiful scripture. Ecclesiastes Chapter One (scroll).

Though much in human behavior seems to be, as reported by The Teacher, a Ground Hog Day-like repeat of what has gone on before, ie. meaninglessness... a marked increase in technological progress seems to belie the message of The Teacher, alternatively summarized as "there is nothing new under the sun." Scientific discovery has been exponential in recent decades. Are we to assume that scientific progress won't continue? Where does it stop? Mormon prophet Lorenzo Snow, in 1840 said, "as man is, God once was; as God is, man might become." One conception of God might be: that entity who/which possesses more scientific knowledge than any other life-form while continuing to learn and grow. And, if Lorenzo Snow is right, mankind is, similar to God, on a quest for perfection or the acquisition of all truth in the universe. Considering the ongoing technological progress seen over the last few decades, there may be, in fact, something new under the sun.

Bishop

Stephen DeWitt Taylor
[email protected]
www.stephendewitttaylor.com
435 640 6310

Ecclesiastes, Chapter One

1 The words of the Teacher, [a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

3 What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south.
and turns to the north.
round and round, it goes,
ever returning on its course.

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

To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.

8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.

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

10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago
it was here before our time.

11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered.
by those who follow them.