It seems to me that most people would not like or understand my view on spiritual matters. For religious people I must look like an extreme skeptic (in the line of Gorgias), for skeptics I must look like a fanatical religious (because I don't even doubt the existence of "God" - something that makes this life worth living).
The compatibility between this radical skepticism and religiousness is something that astonishes even me, and if someone were to describe this way of seeing the world I would find it hard to believe that someone could espouse, simultaneously, such apparently diverse views.
So are they incompatible or not?
Well, to me they seem perfectly compatible, perfectly complementary even. One deals with the basis for reason and cognitive knowledge. On this area I know that, at most, we have beliefs that we may consider sufficiently justified. However, the concept of "justification" is itself open to question and far from consensual. For some people it would seem that solipsism or the theory that we live in a simulation is plausible enough to figure as a plausible account of the world we live in, for others these perspectives must count as highly unlikely, and to believe in them would be akin to believing in the invisible pink unicorn, or in the flying spaghetti monster. It seems to me that the concept of what is "plausible" is far from clear, which would explain why there is no consensus regarding this question. What seems clear is that from the point of view of coherence, there is no incoherence in supporting solipsism, the invisible pink unicorn, or even a lazy santa claus that provides no toys in Christmas and leaves generally no marks and has no visible home.
To me this shows the limits of conceptual knowledge. Of course, conceptual knowledge is perhaps the only kind of powerful knowledge that we have available. It has created medicine, astrophysics and is the basis of a sound, lucid, life. But, however powerful, it is always a bit uncertain and mysterious. Why does it work? Why are the laws of physics the way they are? Can they change?
So, I don't think it is odd that I cannot say, from the point of view of conceptual knowledge, if there is a God, or if there is an after-life. Indeed, we know so little about the world, conjectures are all we have, so it would be very unlikely that we, although unable to decide even if the sun will rise tomorrow, would be able to know anything about the ultimate causes that have led to the existence of the world.
So, this is the skeptic part. No lets go to the religious part.
Suppose I believe that solipsism is a coherent theory, would that make it impossible for me to be in love? Or suppose that I would consider it a logical possibility that all the world was a simulation for some sadistic intelligences to enjoy. Would that make it impossible for me to be in love? It seems to me that, even if I can't prove to myself that the ones I love are "real" (even though the word "real" as a dubious use when we consider thesis such as solipsism or simulations), I can, nevertheless love them in such a way as to have no doubts that I love them. And if someone asks them if my love is real, if the object of my love is real, what is love, what produces love, is love an illusion, and all those things, then, of course I will not be able to answer any of those questions except to say that: "I do not doubt that I love such and such, I do not have the slightest doubt regarding that".
For me the existence of God is as clear as being in love, I have no doubts that God exists, just I have no doubts that I love such and such. But if you ask me if God is an illusion, or if the evidence I feel is an illusion, I will have no answer to give you, because, just like feeling love, there is no such answer. This kind of certainty is not conceptual. Like when we see the beauty of a waterfall. Can we really prove that the beauty we see is not an illusion? Well, of course we can't, because we may create several concepts of the word "illusion" that may apply to what we sense as the beauty of the waterfall. (for instance: everything that is not physical is an illusion. In this case it is not clear that "beauty" is an illusion, since it is not clear if "beauty" is "physical".) From a conceptual point of view we may want to say many different things about the reality or illusory nature of the waterfall's beauty. But there is an inner sense in which we do not doubt it. There is an inner sense where you would die for the ones you love, there is an inner sense where you would live for the love of God... These things may indeed be illusions in the appropriate cognitive context, but in another context they are quite real.
Now I may seem religious enough for some religious people to identify with me. But now we have a problem that won't diminish the abhorrence of skeptics but will provoke that of the religious: I don't find the God of any religion worthy of such inner certainty. In fact what I call "God", although I have no doubts that "it"(?) exists, corresponds, in fact, to nothing in the imagination or in the intuition. I have no object or image that corresponds to that which I have no doubt exists. So, I would not even call it a belief, because there is no object that the mind can relate to. It is like speaking of an n-dimensional object that, unfortunately, has its most interesting properties outside the three dimensions that we can accede.
But, whereas we access geometrical objects with more than three dimensions through mathematics, here we have to use something for which I have no word. I would call it the inner eye, although it is not really an eye, because it produces no imagery (neither perceptual or in the imagination). It produces only inspiration and even certainty sometimes. It is where original music comes from, where dreams and beauty are born. It is somewhere invisible.
It is in this place that the ontological argument makes sense: you see something so absolutely perfect that you have no doubts that it must exist, in fact, it is the only existence which must necessarily exist. Existence is that. What it cannot exist. And you are filled with this music, this certainty. Now, of course we must ask: is this an illusion? Was Descartes and others having allucinations when they were experiencing all that? We must reply an honest: «I don't know, perhaps!» and the cultural being, the knowladgable being, the conceptual being, must remain in doubt. He should continue to look forward for answers, alternatives, etc. But the inner I, the stuff from where life and decisions and values emerge, that inner fountain of freedom, can no longer doubt, because he has, not "experienced" through the mind, "not-experienced" but nevertheless "been there" (here the words fail us) - there, where the dreams are born and freedom is real.
So, you see, or perhaps you won't, that I have the properties of a religious fanatic and an incurable skeptic.