I listen to the radio regularly. The other day, I tuned into a talk show where a caller said, “God is great, while the devil is weak.” Before he could continue, he was abruptly cut off — leaving me to wonder: Was there a conspiracy between the announcer and the phone company or was it the devil himself (apologies to gender warriors) at work without conspirators? Or was it simply coincidence?
Both culturally and spiritually, almost nothing is seen as coincidence. Humans crave meaning to make sense of events within the cycles of life. Beyond that, faith and religion keep many of us constantly reflecting on the afterlife.
Our expressions of faith often function as moral reassurance that we are living acceptable lives, but they do not necessarily validate our beliefs. Faith is often symbolic, rarely empirical. We speak of how “God is testing us,” or, as the caller might say, “the devil is at work.” Believers interpret events by placing God at the helm — guided by deliberate purpose, wisdom, and sovereign will.
For those who swear by science and the atom, radio cuts happen all the time and technology fails regularly. More often than not, they argue, coincidence explains events. They are guided by an approach that emphasizes logic, reason, and intellectual deduction as the primary sources of truth and knowledge, rather than unscientific interpretations shaped by tradition or faith.
And yet, a great percentage of humanity continues to interpret life through experiences connected to their belief systems, reinforced by the fact that these systems frame events as always having purpose and meaning. Random, inexplicable events feel incompatible with normal human existence. When faced with such moments, even those who follow the scientific method offer an explanation: science has simply not yet found one. Most humans prioritize their beliefs and seek out what aligns with them.
Belief and doubt should be seen as two interpretive lenses, not enemies, though it takes a “leap of faith” for either side to accept that they can coexist. Where faith sees messages, scepticism sees coincidence. Faith seeks answers to all of humanity’s questions, while science sometimes admits it does not yet have them — but holds open the possibility of finding credible answers with time.
The silenced caller is likely still wondering what happened, though I suspect the moment only strengthened his faith. Perhaps the meaning of the incident lay not in what he said — but in what listeners projected onto the silence, shaped by our foundations, whether cultural, religious, or scientific.
