It is deeply ingrained in our intuition that there is some kind of deity out there—a higher power that is responsible for much of what we see and experience. Recently, a study at the University of Oxford concluded that “human thought processes were ‘rooted’ to religious concepts.” (This study came with a price tag of £1.9 million…

When interpreting this “vanity of vanities” mantra, it is important to keep in mind both the scope of “vanity” (everything “under the sun”) as well as the final point of the whole book: “fear God and keep his commandments.” By relentlessly emphasizing that nothing in life will yield certain meaning or ultimate satisfaction (“all is vanity”),…