A Collection Of Curious Coincidences: An Exploration of Science and Faith

By Kenneth Diehl

We live in a divided world. Politics, nationality, customs, economic status, and more seem to be the stuff of contention and conflict. None more so than the zealots that divide our search for and understanding of the truth regarding our existence. On the one hand, we have the naturalists who believe that the entire universe can be explained by science. On the other hand, there are the religious who believe that everything has already been explained through faith. Many in both camps believe that only their view is correct and the other must be wrong. In support of their belief, each side has their rationalizations that serve only to satisfy their own egos and comfort members who already support their opinions.

What if both camps are equally right? What if science and faith are reconcilable? Wouldn't that be interesting?

This book is an attempt to illuminate beliefs from both camps that appear, quite coincidentally, to be saying the same thing. It is an effort to illustrate how details of what we learn through physics, chemistry, history, archaeology, and other sciences appear to support the broad explanations of what we believe on faith. It is offered as an explanation of how if we really stop to think about what we believe we know, we may find some common ground between the two extremes of faith and science that can stand the scrutiny of criticism. Furthermore, it is not an attempt to evangelize or convert. It is a collection of topics where both science and faith have a lot to say and, to this author's mind, appear to be in tremendous agreement. Hopefully, the discussions herein will prompt greater interest in evaluating our beliefs and encourage the reader to look deeper into their apparent meaning.

In any case, I hope the reader finds the topics as interesting as they are challenging.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798886544107

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A Collection Of Curious Coincidences

An Exploration of Science and Faith

Kenneth Diehl

Copyright © 2022 Kenneth Diehl

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 979-8-88654-409-1 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88654-410-7 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

The Word

Chapter 2

What Is Truth?

Chapter 3

The Beginning

Chapter 4

Creation

Chapter 5

The Unique Earth

Chapter 7

Exodus

Chapter 8

Nature's Impact on Faith

Chapter 9

Time and Other Wacky Ideas

Chapter 10

Prophecy

Chapter 11

Purpose

Conclusion

Notes

About the Author

Introduction

There is nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child.

—Frank A. Clark

From my early days in elementary school at St. Jude in Detroit, Michigan, until now some sixty-five years later, I have always thought that merely accepting everything we are told as fact is a great disservice to our own intellect. Anything worth believing is worthy of an explanation that doesn't include the phrase It's a mystery.

It was this kind of thinking that put me at odds with the nuns in elementary school and found me leaving high school before graduation. It served me better in college though, where I was often at odds with some of my professors who found many of my questions, especially those in archaeology and sociology, difficult.

Regardless of their frustration and frequent confrontations, I managed over time to earn a bachelor of science degree in computer science with a minor in mathematics and earn a living as a systems analyst, spending most of my forty-five-year career working for the military as a software engineering specialist.

I don't think it is an act of hubris to say that in that time I developed an ability to recognize patterns, investigate processes, and understand complex relations. Nor would it be bragging to say that I have a substantial grasp of logic and the ability to apply it when reflecting on ideas published by other thoughtful minds. It doesn't, however, mean that my conclusions must, of necessity, conform to those made by those other minds. In fact, it indicates that just the opposite is true when encountering weak arguments based on faulty logic or incomplete facts.

That is what I see whenever I encounter arguments between faith and science. There is no foundation to the argument that these two competing processes of belief must conflict. In fact, if critics would simply evaluate the evidence of these two very different systems, they might find that many times the facts support both ways of thinking.

My effort in writing this book is to present this argument and evidence that, without having to rewrite either source of belief, the very academic sources that we teach in our halls of learning and in our temples of faith very often tell the same story.

It is my hope that the reader will consider the arguments and facts presented here with an open mind and decide for themselves whether my arguments are credible or not.

Chapter 1

The Word

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.

—George Gordon, Lord Byron

How often have we heard people say that the Bible is the Word of God? I have heard it many times and wondered just as often what such an exclamation is supposed to mean, beyond the obvious. It is fair to assume that the intent of uttering such a phrase is to stifle argument by impressing one's opponent with the authority of the scripture. However, whatever the authority of those printed pages, it is clear that the authority of the interpretations that emerge from the Word are not of the same origin. If they were, then clearly all interpretations would be the same.

What many people do not realize about the book they revere as sacred is that its history is not what they assume it to be. Nor was it written in the language that is parsed so carefully in order to receive that precise meaning upon which their faith is cemented. These are two ideas that I would like to explore here.

First, why the Word?

After fire, written language was the greatest thing ever invented by man. The notion that one could convey an idea from one mind to another through a commonly agreed upon set of symbols that represented guttural vocalizations is really quite remarkable. It gave man the ability to organize and cooperate in many endeavors. While taken for granted today, consider how crucial written language must have been to every major human accomplishment throughout history. All of civilization—Egypt, Greece, Rome—and all early communal efforts could not have succeeded without language.

Moreover, those would have been lost concepts for the people who created them if those humans had not been able to transfer their ideas over time and space through the written word. This is of major import since it appears from what we know of ancient peoples that the written word was special. It was to be revered.

Written language was so important to business and government that the position of scribe was invented by the Babylonians and Egyptians to make sure that the all-important word, especially the word of the king or pharaoh, could be captured as intended and conveyed over time and space to the widest possible audience. Who were the scribes?

The scribes were individuals who knew the symbols of the language and the rules for recording ideas using these symbols well enough to have men of power retain them to ply their craft for a fee. Their position in the proximity of priests and kings made them prestigious figures in the community. In Egypt, these were the technicians of their times. While the majority of the population were familiar with the simpler more phonetic script used for business and such, useful in everyday activities that fed and housed their fellow citizens. The highly valued individuals skilled in the logographic language of their time, they performed their work in the service of the highest classes of society. They were—to be clear—the Silicon Valley, high-tech, upper echelon rock stars of their day.

In other cultures, the symbols of the language and their interpretation were more widely known. Persians, Greeks, Phoenicians, and later, Romans—to name a few—had less use for a special class of wordsmiths but did employ them for special purposes. These cultures used the written language to write more than decrees and inventories. They wrote histories and poetry and invented literature. But to the common man, the peasant and lower classes, this ability to send ideas by paper from one person to the other must have been a mysterious and magical ability.

Then, as now, not everyone aspired to learn such cutting-edge technologies. There wasn't always a public school system available to educate the ignorant masses. There was, however, always a peasant class; and they only needed to know enough to sow and harvest crops, run a loom, make bread, and do the menial kinds of work that supported the upper classes.

The idea that a person could make marks on papyrus or clay and then store it for weeks at a time or send it miles away to communicate meaningful information must have seemed like a miracle to these masses. Thus, the power of written words likely attained the power of magic to many.

The belief that the written words themselves have some inherent power beyond that of mere communication is evidenced by a few factual circumstances that survived into modern times from the Middle Ages.

There was, of course, the Latin Mass and other rites of the Roman Catholics that survived up until the twentieth century. Ancient words in a dead language that were uttered at mass or when performing other sacraments needed a priestly class to make sure they were uttered precisely—a throwback to the Middle Ages and beyond that survived until the 1960s.

So revered were these ancient words that those who would rebel against God and his church—the Satanists and so-called black magic cults—chose to mimic these in their black mass with magical runes that were at one time, and to some extent even now, believed to command demons or nature when spoken as written in ceremony with a bell, book, and candle.

It was the power of the written language penned in the ancient Book of the Dead and painted on the walls of entombed Egyptian pharaohs, as well as other important people of that time, that would guide them on their journey on the river Styx.

It was undoubtedly with this same sense of reverence for the written word that John wrote, In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the word was a god (John 1:1 New American Standard). Or is it that the Word was with God (John 1:1 KJV)? Or perhaps the Word was God (John 1:1 Douay-Rheims).

The power of the Word—how many even today believe that God created the universe and all that is in it by merely speaking the Word? The notion is now, as it was then, both powerful and intentional.

It was meant to convey the mystery and importance of the Creator and of the man whom many believe to be the living Son of God. And for those who believe that the author of the universe wrote every word of their particular version of the Gospels, the intent was not wasted. And here is the problem, from my perspective as a lowly human creature struggling to find the truth. If John tells us that the man called Yeshua (i.e., Jesus) was the Word, why do so many followers of Christ contradict John and insist that the Bible is the Word? It is because the Bible is here and Yeshua is not—a fact that speaks to the second point to be made.

It is our human condition that often requires two things in order to maintain a belief system: the first is physical, and the second is psychological.

From birth to death, humans interpret every moment of their lives in the context of the three-dimensional space we occupy. Whether we choose to acknowledge the fact or not, nothing seems real unless we can see it, touch it, hear it, taste it, or smell it. It is through our five senses that we interpret every waking hour. It is our reality.

So the idea that there could be an unseen world, a spirit world that represents a greater reality more real than the one we're born to, is just too contrary to our experience and nature to be believed. Therefore, in order to make the connection, humans need something physical that they can hold on to and to which they can project that otherworld property.

This concept was not lost on the writers of the Bible, as even there we see this fact portrayed in any number of instances—from trees and serpents to arks and staffs, tablets of stone, and cups full of wine.

Tokens, icons, medallions, paintings, potions, candles, and books bridge the gap. No book fills this purpose better than the Bible, which since its first publication in AD 1516 has become the most widely revered token of faith in Western civilization. Even now some five hundred years later, this book enjoys the status of being a best seller. It is also, unfortunately, one of the least read books ever printed. It seems that for every ten copies sold, less than one will be read cover to cover.

And of those that are, the understanding of the text will happen only with the help of another requirement for faith among humans: the psychological support of the group.

Whether in synagogue, mosque, or church and through a study group, catechism class, or Sunday school, every collection of faithful of every religion has their group of collective interpreters of the Word who, while in many cases they completely contradict other interpretations of the same scriptural verses by other groups, remain steadfast in the belief that their understanding is the correct understanding, revealed to them by God Almighty through the Holy Spirit or his representative on earth.

For proof of this belief, they will point to their own particular collective and offer their common understanding. If the authority of their understanding is still not convincing, they will point to the scripture, which until quite recently has had no corroborating evidence. Faith needs no evidence, but reason does. And whereas there was a time when those who looked for reason could argue that there was no creation and the universe always was. Now we know that at least that much of the story in Genesis is true. There was a beginning, which, at least as far as that goes, requires less faith than in times past. So while science and faith of all stripes can agree on this at least, there is still much upon which they disagree.

Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Church of God, Latter-day Saints, Baptists (all synods), Jehovah's Witness—to name a few—all have their own particular take on the scripture. There are an estimated thirty thousand Christian denominations in the world today and forty thousand Christian churches if you include independent, nondenominational churches. Every one of which points to the same book.

They all regard it in different degrees—from a mere source document for the faith all the way up to and including the inerrant, inspired Word of God. It hardly seems possible that the same entity that brought order out of the chaos that was once the preuniverse could have done such a poor job of writing his book—a book meant to reveal his intent for man and to bring unity to those of faith.

I suggest to the reader that all forty thousand flavors of Christianity are equally right in their interpretation for the simple reason that all interpretations are all equally flawed. And the flaw is not so much with men but has to do with the collection of books we commonly perceive as a single book with a single author—the Bible itself.

But first let me explain why this focus on the Bible when there are any number of other holy books—from the Koran (Muslim) to the Pali canon (Buddhist) to the Sanskrit writings of the Hindus.

There are older scriptures in other languages with ideas that, in my opinion, have been even more corrupted over time than those of the Bible. Others that are so misogynistic that their values are,