Believing vs. Knowing

I often pass my daily commute time listening to books.  My current listen is Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts.  I'm still in the early portions of the book (so don't rely on this as a recommendation or anything), but the language and metaphors are quite beautiful thus far.  As I started the commute home this afternoon, my mind was pondering a conversation I'd just had with a friend about his lack of belief in God, and the continuum from hope to belief to knowledge.  And ultimately, the question of whether you can ever really "know" that there is a God as opposed to believing it to be so.  (In my view, a belief can be a conviction strong enough to carry you through life and ward off the darts of doubt.  But perhaps it's just semantics.)  

Anyway, I turned on my iPod to listen to Shantaram, and (although the book hasn't really involved religion or spirituality up to this point) I was somewhat amazed to hear this exchange between the protagonist (a man who has escaped from a maximum security prison in Australia and is now living in the slums of Bombay, as a doctor of the poor of sorts) and a mafia leader (who is something of a Robin Hood and spiritual paragon to the poor of the city).

"You are a Christian fellow?" he asked.

"No.  I don't believe in God."

"There is no believing in God," he declared, smiling again.  "We either know God or we do not."

"Well," I laughed, I certainly don't know God, and frankly I'm inclined to believe that God is impossible to believe in, at least most of the notions of God that I've come across."

"Of course, naturally God is impossible.  That is the first proof that he exists."

I was so floored by the coincidence of it that I turned off the story and drove the rest of the way home in silence, pondering the impossibility (and magnificence) of God.  

Isn't life funny like that?  If you're paying attention, there are so many connections between the seemingly unrelated parts of the parts that make up our days.