Separate, Not Equal

Separate, Not Equal

Mankind is conditioned to recognize patterns. Children learning their ABC’s are practicing pattern recognition. It is how we learn to count and how discipline is remembered. Pattern recognition is how we learn new languages, it helps deepen our appreciation of music, and allows us to expand our problem solving skills. It is an incredibly useful tool, as long as it is used correctly. Apophenia is the term used for when our pattern recognition breaks down, specifically when we see connections that do not exist. It is common in many gambling addicts and can be found at the heart of most conspiracy theories, where laymen “red-string” together disparate events into one crazy amalgam of nonsense. So if we are busy drawing connections or making inferences, it’s good to double check our notes. Because chasing after a pattern you see can be pointing you in the right direction, or it could lead you straight to delusion. 

One of the biggest mistakes we make in this regard is toward the notion of equality. (Be very, very careful now…) Most people look at two opposing forces and assume that, but for the one or two big differences between them, they are in all other ways equal. This was a popular viewpoint during the Cold War when viewing the Soviet Union and the United States. At the briefest of glances this can make sense. They were two world superpowers, they commanded large armies and nuclear arsenals. They were both active on the global scale and dominated any geo-political conversation. Many looked at the data and said, apart from an economic system these two entities are fairly equal. They were monumentally incorrect. William F. Buckley Jr. had the perfect illustration. “[T]o say that the CIA and the KGB engage in similar practices is the equivalent of saying that the man who pushes an old lady into the path of a hurtling bus is not to be distinguished from the man who pushes an old lady out of the path of a hurtling bus: on the grounds that, after all, in both cases someone is pushing old ladies around.” Attempting such a bird’s eye view of things allows one to miss some pretty important aspects. In the Cold war, and in many of the conflicts raging in the globe today (cold or otherwise) it is that moral dimension that is usually ignored. 

Abraham Lincoln got to the heart of the matter in the midst of the Civil War. Supposedly he was approached by some officer who spoke to him heartily of the war’s progress and said something to the tune of, ‘We are sure to win, since God is on our side.’ The President was said to have replied, “My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.” Therefore there is not an Option A and an Option B. There is right or there is wrong. And they are not equals. In John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost the character of Satan is famous for declaring, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” The picture is portrayed of a defiant, egotistical, and envious being. The portrait painted in Dante’s Inferno is decidedly different. In that epic poem, Satan is depicted at the 9th circle (lowest level) of Hell. And far from the fiery furnace so many times imagined, it is a cold and desolate place. It is dark, and the ice is formed from the tears that continually fall from the devil himself, made ice by the fruitless beating of his wings as he remains trapped up to the waist in that miserable chasm. Dante seems to have the better argument. Life without God is not equal to one that He is involved in. There is no contest. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10) These are opposites, but they are far from being equals. 

We are used to seeing the world as dichotomous. Split into two distinct portions, us vs. them, rich vs. poor, night vs. day, vegan vs. normal, intelligent, good looking people. (We all have our biases.) The point is that these distinctions usually do not mean what we think they do. Most are distinctions without any differences. There is no meaningful difference between a rich person or a poor person. “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26a) We are trained to think that there exists a conflict between light and dark. But darkness is merely the absence of light. Cold is merely the absence of heat. Neither can exist on their own terms. Keep that in mind the next time you have a temptation to choose “the darkness”. Dante’s version of the devil shows him weeping, both cold and alone. That is what is left to those without the light of God’s presence. It is also a fate we are commissioned with stamping out. “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.” (Matthew 5:14) If so much of the world seems a cold and desolate place, mired in darkness and loneliness, then it speaks to the lack of the church, not the power of the devil. “Jesus said, ‘For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.‘” (John 9:39) Blind or with sight, distinct, but one far more desired.

Regarding what you see, beware of pareidolia. It is a perversion of our pattern recognition system, a type of apophenia listed above. It is the perception of apparently significant patterns in random or accidental arrangements of shapes and lines. (Oddly enough, usually faces.) This phenomena turns a group of shadowed hills on Mars into a human face. We are conditioned to chain ideas in our mind together. Linking one event to another, usually connected by nothing more than our perception. When jumping to such conclusions always be aware of who is the center of your focus. 999 times out of 1000, it’ll have nothing at all to do with you. And keep in mind that there are many separate and distinct things in this complicated, messy, but altogether lovely world. But there is an absolute hierarchy of importance, and not all of those things are created equal. “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6) The ways are distinct, the ways are completely separate. But there is only one worth choosing. The other is not even really a choice at all, it is merely the absence of one, full of frigid darkness. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13) There is no equal.

Jordan Williamson