The Subtle Divide Between Truth and Interpretation
Knowing there’s a God is not a religious concept; believing in a God is.
One is a recognition—silent, direct, and intimate. The other is a construct—layered with doctrines, culture, and inherited symbols.
What is known requires no belief. It reveals itself without needing validation, much like light doesn’t require agreement to be seen. The moment belief arises, there is already a distance. A gap. A reaching toward what seems separate.
Belief is an echo of knowing, distorted by time, language, and fear.
It builds shrines to certainty where awe once stood unguarded. It memorizes truths that once moved freely through silence. And often, it turns the unknowable into a caricature—a God of preferences, sides, and punishments.
Knowing is not about having answers. It’s the crumbling of the question.
It doesn’t declare “There is a God.”
It dissolves the very boundary between the knower and what is known. There is no longer a subject seeking an object. Only the raw immediacy of Being aware of itself.
Those who know are rarely interested in convincing others.
Those who believe often are.
The danger isn’t belief itself—it’s mistaking belief for truth.
Truth, when known, renders belief obsolete.
It doesn’t divide, it doesn’t declare superiority—it simply is.
To know is to surrender the need for interpretation.
To believe is often to defend the interpretation, even at the cost of truth.
And yet, belief can serve as a bridge. A necessary illusion for those not yet ready to let go of the comfort of form. But let it be a bridge, not a home.
Morgan O. Smith
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Morgan O. Smith 