a vertical reality

 I finally finished a book of my brother's that I have been hogging, and the final quote in the book put me to tears, despite most of the book being really dry and factual:

We allow ourselves to be blown by the winds because we do know what we want: our hearts know it, even if our thoughts are sometimes slow to follow -- but in the end they do catch up with our hearts and then we think we have made a decision.

~ Leopold Weiss, from 'The Road To Mecca', quoted in Apostate, by Joram van Klaveren

...Dr Umar Faruq Abd-Allah (who) spoke of a horizontal universe, a worldview in which matters are explained solely by comparing them to those that appear to be similar to the object of research. In such a reality there is no purpose, there are no absolutes. Everything is subjective and there exists no absolute Truth. Within it, any metaphysical expression is irrelevant, absurd even. This is the worldview of the postmodern West. I call it macro-nihilism. Opposite to that, he places the earlier mentioned vertical universe. Within the framework, one also looks 'upwards' to the philosophical principles and fundamental points of departure. By inserting the vertical aspect, a proverbial tent arises, a building structure with a benchmark and definitive reality. Human perception of reality, by way of previously mentioned 'first principles', points to that one Reality, God.