Ecclesiastes 4-6 | Solomon’s Dissatisfaction
Published on Sep 24, 2012
Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 23, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider
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Debating with Ark Times Bloggers on “The Meaning of Life” Part 4 “Without God in the picture is there any relief for those who have been oppressed?”
I have enjoyed going back and forth with the Arkansas Times Bloggers on many subjects over the years. Now I have discussed the subject of “The Meaning of Life” with them recently and I wanted to share some of this with you.
I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular humanist man can not hope to find a lasting meaning to his life in a closed system without bringing God back into the picture. This is the same exact case with Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Three thousand years ago, Solomon took a look at life “under the sun” in his book of Ecclesiastes. Christian scholar Ravi Zacharias has noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term ‘under the sun.’ What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system, and you are left with only this world of time plus chance plus matter.”
On May 28, 2013 on the Arkansas Times Blog I posted the following:
Chris Martin of Coldplay revealed in his interview with Howard Stern that he was raised an evangelical Christian but he has left the church. I believe that many words that he puts in his songs today are generated from the deep seated Christian beliefs from his childhood that find their way out in his songs. The fact Coldplay’s songs deal so much with death and the search for meaning and purpose of life (similar to Solomon’s search in Ecclesiastes), and that our actions are being watched, and Chris describes different ways God tries to reveal himself to us, and many songs deal with trying to find a way to an afterlife and heaven, and he stills uses Christian terms like being “blessed” and “grateful.”
People are looking for a purpose for their lives even if they have millions in the bank and have the world at their finger tips.
https://thedailyhatch.org/2013/05/28/the-mo…
Saline–I don’t know what the heck Chris Martin’s religious beliefs have to do with anything but you sure know how to copy and paste. Do you even know who Chris Martin is or anything about his music?
Later “NeverVoteRepublican” went on to say:
All you have proven again Saline is that you can copy and paste from the “Daily Hatch”. I bet you have never even listened to Coldplay or formed your own ideas of what the lyrics mean. And again I ask, what do Chris Martin’s beliefs and how he got them have to do with anything?
On May 29, 2013 on the Arkansas Times Blog I responded with the following:
Here is my answer:
I guess that Chris Martin’s views matter because we can see how closely then compared to Solomon’s 3000 years ago when he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. When Solomon looked at life “under the sun” without God in the picture he concluded in Ecclesiastes 4:1 “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.” IN OTHER WORDS WITHOUT GOD IN THE PICTURE THE WICKED GET OF SCOTT FREE!!!!
Chris Martin was raised as an evangelical but he left the faith in his teenage years and he writes all of the songs for the rock band Coldplay and he does write a bunch of lyrics dealing with various subjects that suggest that he is searching for a lasting meaing to his life. It is my belief that he just can’t get away from his deep seated childhood religious beliefs that he keeps coming back to. Let me give you a great example.
If you do not believe in God and in the afterlife, then you have a big problem with the issue of how you live without an enforcement factor. My favorite example is Adolf Hitler. Hitler was probably the most evil man who ever lived. Our society is still talking about Hitler today and it seems that a month doesn’t go by without reading another story in the news about Hitler. On May 28th many observers on the Internet felt that a picture of a tea kettle in a JC Penny ad on a bill board in Culvert City, California looked like Adolf Hitler and that made national news!!!!!
Here is the paradox you will find in Chris Martin’s life concerning the issue of hell because he told Howard Stern on November 9, 2011 that he left Christianity because of their belief in hell and then he sends the evil king in his #1 hit song “Viva La Vida” to an everlasting hell.
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Viva La Vida
Published on Jun 23, 2012 by TheRyanj64
Coldplay’s Viva La Vida at American Airlines Center in Dallas on June 22, 2012
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Chris Martin was brought up as an evangelical Christian but he left the faith once he left his childhood home. However, there are been some actions in his life in the last few years that demonstrate that he still is grappling with his childhood Chistian beliefs. This is the third part of a series I am starting on this subject. Today we will look at how the Bible has influenced the lyrics of Viva La Vida. (There are many interpretations of this song on the web.)
On June 23, 2012 my son Wilson and I got to attend a Coldplay Concert in Dallas. It was great. We drove down from our home in Little Rock, Arkansas earlier in the day. Viva La Vida was one of our favorite songs that did that night.
But the doctor’s crime is never discovered. Later in the film, Judah reflects on the conversation his father had with Judah’s unbelieving Aunt May during a Jewish Sedar dinner many years ago:
“Come on Sol, open your eyes. Six million Jews burned to death by the Nazi’s, and they got away with it because might makes right,” says Aunt May.
Sol replies, “May, how did they get away with it?”
Judah asks, “If a man kills, then what?”
Sol responds to his son, “Then in one way or another he will be punished.”
Aunt May comments, “I say if he can do it and get away with it and he chooses not to be bothered by the ethics, then he is home free.”
Judah’s final conclusion was that might did make right. He observed that one day, because of this conclusion, he woke up and the cloud of guilt was gone. He was, as his aunt said, “home free.”
The basic question Woody Allen is presenting to his own agnostic humanistic worldview is: If you really believe there is no God there to punish you in an afterlife, then why not murder if you can get away with it? The secular humanist worldview that modern man has adopted does not work in the real world that God has created. God “has planted eternity in the human heart…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). This is a direct result of our God-given conscience. The apostle Paul said it best in Romans 1:19, “For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God has shown it to them” (Amplified Version).
It’s no wonder, then, that one of Allen’s fellow humanists would comment, “Certain moral truths — such as do not kill, do not steal, and do not lie — do have a special status of being not just ‘mere opinion’ but bulwarks of humanitarian action. I have no intention of saying, ‘I think Hitler was wrong.’ Hitler WAS wrong.” (Gloria Leitner, “A Perspective on Belief,” The Humanist, May/June 1997, pp.38-39). Here Leitner is reasoning from her God-givne conscience and not from humanist philosophy. It wasn’t long before she received criticism. Humanist Abigail Ann Martin responded, “Neither am I an advocate of Hitler; however, by whose criteria is he evil?” (The Humanist, September/October 1997, p. 2.). Humanists don’t really have an intellectual basis for saying that Hitler was wrong, but their God-given conscience tells them that they are wrong on this issue.
Evidently Chris Martin who said he resented dogmatic religious views a few years ago, has now written a grammy winning song that pictures an evil king being punished in an afterlife. Could it be that his God-given conscience prompted him to put that line in? Or do men like Hitler get off home free as Woody Allen suggested in Crimes and Misdemeanors?
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Even though Chris Martin says he does not believe in hell in this discussion below with Howard Stern he writes Viva La Vida (seen in clip at beginning of this post) where the bad king goes to hell. Again his childhood biblical views are coming out again.
On the Howard Stern Show Chris Martin was questioned about his religious beliefs on November 9, 2011:
CM: I was raised very religious.
HS: I know that. What religion?
CM: I am not really sure. People kept asking me that.
HS: You were studying religion but you don’t know what it was.
CM: It was Christian, but there are so many branches of that now. I don’t know which branch we were on.
HS: Are you a religious man?
CM: Not any more religious. I believe I am a spiritual guy I guess.
HS: Do you believe there is a heaven and a hell.
CM:There definately is not a hell. That is what made me stop being religious.
HS: Would you take your children to church or do you want them to get religious training?
CM: No. I think it is important to show that there is all these kinds of religions and this person believes that and you can believe whatever you want.
HS: What do you do if you want your children to get religious training and you want them to embrace all religions and get the concept of God? Where would take your kids to learn that?
CM:That is a good question. I have been doing it in the nihilist approach and I haven’t been taking them anywhere.
HS: So they are not going to be raised in any religious way.
CM: Not in any strict religious way, no…. Religion is not the same as having faith is it. Faith is different right. I am not saying I don’t believe in anything. I not saying that it has to be this and if you believe something else then the other person is going to hell and all that crap.
HS: I am with you on that.
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