Could Religion be the Ultimate Nihilist's Response?

The moral world is a spectrum. On one end: absolute faith, a world full of meaning, if not moral certainty then at least the belief in a moral compass. A world of structure and direction. It may be a bit contradictory (Libral Muslims favourites: boozing yes, pork no, adultary yes, jizyah no, interest no, fajr no, the list goes on-- its all interpretation silly!). But you've got God looking over your shoulder. Logical inconsistency or arbitrarness is a small price to pay.

On the other end of the moral spectrum: Nihilism. The belief that there is no inherent meaning but the one that we create. Amoral. Directionless, but also, by definition, contradiction free. Also free of Judgement (of others and oneself). The opposite of complete Faith: complete Doubt.

But, to give you my favorite quote: in doubt, there is freedom.

In reality, this spectrum may just be a mobius strip. (I keep telling this to my mother- a woman of great faith- she, greatly influenced by the Sufi Mystic tradition sees "the connections" and the Unity, still cant help but take swipe's at Darwin and Atheists every now and then. Why swipe if you we all pray to the same God in our own different way?).

If you have ever traveled by foot ALONE in the mountains or the deserts for even a day, you will know what I am talking about. There is sense of being tiny and insignificant- of dare I say it, being meaningless. A solo trek in the mountains or desert, my friends, is the first steps down the road to nihilism- as much as it may be a turn towards religion.

Imagine a boy in the desert, herding sheep, close to nature in all its grandeur. In the old story, the boy is (or becomes) religious, and goes on to create the great religion of Islam. In this story, the boy is a little different. Being a humble shepherd, someone who tends to the simple practicalities of life, the boy in this story is, well, practical. He has also lost both his parents. His way of dealing with meaninglessness is simply to accept it as reality. This adventurous soul, didn't latch on to the ready made meaninglessness destroying "memes" of his forefathers. In the desert he searches for his own meaning.

When Nietzsche talks about Nihilism, he compares it to drowning in a sea; It is as if the earth become one vast ocean, a giant drop of water, and you are sinking in it. There is no up or down (a myth that is to this day pervasive, even after we know the vastness of the cosmos is directionless), no right and no wrong. It is an Abyss. It takes time to come to terms with such a world view. In this story, it takes the boy till 42 to come to terms with it. And in coming to terms with it, the boy finds in it the Freedom of what Nietzsche called the Superman.

In many ways, believing in something, actually makes it true. The credit crisis is in ways nothing more than a self fulfilling prophesy- a lack of confidence in the economic future. At the individual level, another example is confidence itself- as I like to say before my friends at Cornell before they go in for interviews: the only way to have confidence is to believe you have it. The placebo effect is another well documented example of mind over matter. These are trivial concepts. The wise shepherd thought about and understood them quickly. Indeed, he is tempted to create his own reality (and did he not indeed succeed) to escape the meaninglessness.

But before he can do this- he must die. So strong are the chains of the value system your parents, friends and family wrap around you, that they only come off after death.

Why did god take away my parents? he asks. Our shephard is drowning in the Abyss. The only way it made sense to this simple shephard was to say that it made no sense at all. When the boy has lost his mind as well as the old value system, Gabriel finally comes to him. The boy (who is now a middle aged man of 42) is reborn in a moment of clarity, a moment of complete freedom.

Freedom: to question the traditions and beliefs of your forefathers. This is what the shephard understood. He questioned the traditions of the tribes of his time, from their belief in multiple gods to the treatment of women, children and orphans. He preached goodness. Why? Because he finally understood why his parents died: for no reason, other than, they were human. Fragile creatues. Of flesh and blood.

Like Kant was trying to say (but not in so many words), goodness that springs from the Abyss of Nihilism, is true goodness. It has no other motive behind it besides the will to do good, an end itself. It is not coerced goodness, which is what we practice today, afraid of the police or heaven and hell.

Muhammad became Superman, and, as the story goes, Nihilsm gave birth to its alter ego, Religion.

Next time: why our shepherd Superman did not give the order for the Quran to be compiled.