Opening a New Account with Existing Retained Earnings

[Roger]

I thank you all for your input but of course I am still slow to understand:

Here is a dummy account from Gnucash that I would like to use help me 
understand, I used the Business Account template in the account wizard.

Assets                    
Assets           $0.00      
       Current Assets    $0.00             
             Petty Cash    $0.00             
             Checking Account    $3,000.00        **** Opening Balance    
             Savings Account    $0.00             
       Accounts Receivable           $9,999.00      
Total Assets                  $12,999.00
Liabilities                    
Liabilities           $0.00      
       Credit Card           $1,000.00                **** Opening Balance
       Accounts Payable           $0.00      
Total Liabilities                  $1,000.00
Equity                    
Equity           $0.00      
       Opening Balances           $2,000.00        **** Opening Balance 
(This seems to be the same as retained earnings from previous years)
       Retained Earnings           $0.00       (Not sure what this is for?)
Retained Earnings                  $9,999.00  (This seems more like 
current earnings than retained earnings as it reflects an amount I 
entered as Sales Income)
Total Equity                  $11,999.00
Total Liabilities & Equity                  $12,999.00

Some questions I have:

1. Why are there two accounts named "Retained Earnings" generated in the 
template?
2. Why isn't the "Retained Earnings" ($9,999) in the template not called 
"Current Earnings" ?
3. Isn't the account "Opening Balances" identical to "Retained Earnings 
from Previous Years"?  If not, what is the difference?
4.  Why with option "Account Balance" are the amounts for Parent 
Accounts $0.00?

Thanks,
  Roger