Decoding the Big Book - We Agnostics

belief in a higher power. Joe and Charlie, in their big book study, discuss the alcoholic affliction and how if we have a spiritual experience, we could improve ourselves even with a terminal illness. Bill was terrified he might push away the alcoholic with a message preaching about God. Thus, he was looking for a way to have the reader keep an open mind so they did not shut the book at this point. Even in the title of the book, Bill was working on being as inclusive as

possible. He could have called the chapter the agnostic. You agnostic or the agnostics dilemma, but he felt that this would have been confrontational, thus using we agnostics makes it more open and inclusive and references the fact that half the fellowship was initially strangers to a religious experience. Joe and Charlie talk about this and how we must still find a spiritual solution.

disconcerted. And I had to stop right here and say, see, what is my belief as far as this God thing is concerned?

spiritual experience. He was looking to give the prospective AA member an onramp to spirituality as time has gone by. AA members have become far more liberal in their approach to God. A higher power. The spirit of the universe, or however one wishes to call it, in the 21st century. Members of AA have adopted an expansive and elastic view of what God can be. There are members who discuss the, quote, group of drunks and quote

people who look to nature. Even those who see the radiator as their higher power because they know they are safe in that meeting. As much as Bill has been liberal in this approach, it's important to remember the time the book was written in the 1930s. Religion was more accepted and practiced and Bill had a strong upbringing in religion. He believes strongly that God got him sober and it's important to remember that the first group of drunks was in the Oxford Group, which practiced

first century Christianity. the liberalization of how one could view a higher power, helped make AA a success, and provided an onramp to those skeptical of religion. In Bill's mind, spirituality equaled God and God equaled spirituality. Early in AA, at the time of the writing of the big book, Bill believed that the Christian God was the path to staying sober. It was the only power that could prevent one from taking the first drink. Bill mentions the phrase willing to believe twice.

It is likely that Bill read William James's book, The Will to Believe, and then embraced the point James was looking to convey. On the first page, James said that the first chapter was, quote, an essay in justification of faith, a defense of our right to adopt a believing attitude in religious matters, in spite of the fact that merely logical intellect may not have been coerced and quote. Bill begins his appeal to the scientifically

minded. He discusses how everyone believes in scores of assumptions for which there is good evidence but no visual proof demonstrate. He talks about how the steel girder, according to science, is just electrons moving at high speed, which we accept but we can't see. He's making the point that there are things we believe, but we have no visual proof. Bill makes the point that it's the height of intellectual arrogance to believe our senses and minds are

the last word. The alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end of all. He adds that we agnostics have never given spiritual life a fair chance. Bill then uses the success of the first 100 people in A.A. who came to believe in a power greater than themselves and change their lives. He cites Columbus, Galileo and the Wright Brothers as examples of individuals who challenged fixed ideas and were successful. His point is that progress happens when we discard fixed ideas and become open to

change. And for alcoholics, belief in God is one of those changes that will allow them to succeed in living alcohol free. His final argument is the story of Fitz Mayo, who he says has such an interesting story that it should now be told. Bill discusses that despite Mayo's religious upbringing, he rejected God and fell into alcoholism while drying out in the hospital. Mayo was approached by another alcoholic who had known a spiritual experience which upset Mayo.

Bill writes the following about this conversation.

his knees. In a few seconds, he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the presence of God. He had stopped from the bridge to the shore. For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his creator.

probably alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. So one who feels he is an atheist or agnostic. Such an experience seems impossible, But to continue as he is means disaster, especially if he is an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy. Alternativ to face. But it isn't so difficult. About half our original fellowship were of

exactly that type. At first, some of us tried to avoid the issue, hoping against hope. We were not true alcoholics. But after a while, we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life or else perhaps it is going to be that way with you. But, Shira, something like half of us thought we were atheists or agnostics. Our experience shows that you need not be disconcerted if a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would

have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral. We could wish to be philosophically comforted. In fact, we could will these things with all our might. But the needed power wasn't there. Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient. They failed utterly lack of power. That was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could

live. And it had to be a power greater than ourselves, obviously. But where and how were we to find this power? Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find power greater than yourself, which will solve your problems. That means we have written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral. And it means, of course, that we are going to talk about God. here. Difficulty

arises with agnostics. Many times we talk to a new man and watch his hope rise as we discuss his alcoholic problems and explain our fellowship. But his face falls when we speak of spiritual matters, especially when we mention God, for we have reopened a subject which our man thought he had neatly evaded or entirely ignored. We know how he feels. We have shared his honest doubt and prejudice. Some of us have been violently

anti-religious. To others, the word God brought up a particular idea of him with which someone had tried to impress them during childhood. Perhaps we rejected this particular conception because it seemed inadequate. With that rejection, we imagined we had abandoned the God idea entirely. We were bothered with the thought that faith in dependence upon a power beyond ourselves was somewhat weak,

even cowardly. We looked upon the world of warring individuals, warring theological systems and inexplicable calamity with deep skepticism. We looked askance at many individuals who claim to be godly. How could a supreme being have anything to do with it at all? An who could comprehend a supreme being anyhow? Yet in other moments, we found ourselves thinking when enchanted by a starlit knight Who then? In all this, there was a feeling of awe and wonder. But it was fleeting and soon lost.

Yes, we have agnostic temperament and have these thoughts and experiences. Let us make haste to reassure you. We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend the power which is God. Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's

conception of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach into effect a contact with him. as soon as we admitted the possible existence of a creative intelligence. A spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things, we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction, provided we took other simple steps. We found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek

Him for to us. The realm of spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive, never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men when therefore we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God. This applies to two other spiritual expressions which you find in this book. Do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you.

At the start, this was all we needed to commence spiritual growth, to effect our first conscious relation with God as we understood Him. After Word. We found ourselves accepting many things, which then seemed entirely out of reach. That was growth. But if we wish to grow, we had to begin somewhere. So we used our own conception, however limited it was. We needed to ask ourselves. But one short question Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe that there is a power greater than

myself? As soon as a man can say that he does believe or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone, a wonderfully effected spiritual structure can be built. That was great news to us. For we had assumed we could not make use of spiritual principles unless we accepted many things on faith, which seemed difficult to

believe. When people presented us with spiritual approaches, how frequently did we all say I wish I had with that man? Has I'm sure it would work if I only could believe as he believes. But I cannot accept as surely true the many articles of faith which are so plain to him. So it was comforting to learn that we could commence at a simpler level, besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith, we often found ourselves handicapped by obstinacy, sense, itiveness, and unreasoning

prejudice. Many of us have been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things made us bristle with antagonism. This sort of thinking had to be abandoned, though some of us resisted. We found no great difficulty in casting aside such feelings. Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. In this respect, alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness. Sometimes

this was a tedious process. We hope no one else will be prejudiced for as long as some of us were. The reader may still ask why he should believe in a power greater than himself. We think there are good reasons. Let us have a look at some of them. the practical individual today is a stickler for facts and results. Nevertheless, the 20th century readily accepts theories of all kinds provided they are firmly grounded in fact. We have numerous theories, for example, about electricity.

Everybody believes them without a murmur of doubt. Why this ready acceptance? simply because it is impossible to explain what we see. Feel direct in use. Without a reasonable assumption as a starting point, everybody nowadays believes in scores of assumptions for which there is good evidence but no perfect visual proof and does not science demonstrate that visual

proof is the weakest proof. It is being constantly revealed as mankind studies the material world that outward appearances are not inward reality at all. To illustrate, the prosaic steel girders a mass of electrons whirling around each other at incredible speed. These tiny bodies are governed by precise laws, and these laws hold true throughout the material world. Science tells us so we have no

reason to doubt it. When, however, the perfectly logical assumption is suggested that underneath the material world in life as we see it, there is an all powerful guiding creative intelligence right there. Our perverse streak comes to the surface and we laboriously set out to convince ourselves it isn't so. We read Wordy books and indulge in windy arguments, thinking we believe this universe needs no God to explain

it. Where our contention is true, it would follow that life originated out of nothing, means nothing and proceeds nowhere. Instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agents, spearheads of God's ever advancing creation, we agnostics and atheists choose to believe that our human intelligence was the last word the alpha and the Omega, th beginning and end of all rather vain of us, wasn't it? We have traveled this dubious path. Beg you to lay aside prejudice even against organized

religion. We have learned that whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be, those faiths have given purpose and direction to millions. People of faith have a logical idea of what life is all about. actually. We used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and practices when they might have observed that many spiritual minded persons of all races, colors and creeds were demonstrating a degree of stability, happiness and usefulness which we should have

sought ourselves. Instead, we looked at the human defects of these people and sometimes used their shortcomings as a basis of wholesale condemnation. We talked of intolerance while we were intolerant ourselves. We missed the reality and the beauty of the forest because we were diverted by the ugliness of some of its trees. We never gave the spiritual side of life a

fair hearing. In our personal stories, you will find a wide variation in the way each teller expresses and conceives of the power which is greater than himself. Whether we agree with a particular approach or conception seems to make little difference. Experience has taught us that these are matters about which, for our purpose, we need not be worried. their questions for each individual to settle for himself. one proposition, however. These men and women are strikingly agreed.

Every one of them has gained access to and believes in a power greater than himself. This power has, in each case accomplished the miraculous, the humanly impossible. as the celebrated American statesman put it, let's look at the record. Here are thousands of men and

women. Worldly, indeed. They flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a power greater than themselves, to take a certain attitude towards that power and to do certain simple things, there has been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking in the face of collapse, in despair, in the face of the total failure of their human resources.They found that a new power, peace, happiness and sense of direction flowed into them. this happen.

Soon after, they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements. once confused and baffled by the seeming futility of existence, they show the underlying reasons why they were making heavy going of life. Leaving aside the drink question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory. Th show how the change came over them. When hundreds of people were able to say that the consciousness of the presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives. They present a powerful reason why

one should have faith. This world of ours has made more material progress in the last century than in all millenniums, which went before. Almost everyone knows the reason. Students of ancient history tell us that the intellect of men in those days was equal to the best of today. Yet in ancient times, material progress was painfully slow. the spirit of modern scientific inquiry, research and innovation was almost unknown in

the realm of the material. Men's minds were fettered by superstition, tradition and all sorts of fixed ideas. Some of the contemporaries of Columbus thought around Earth preposterous. Others came near putting Galileo to death for his astronomical heresies. We ask ourselves this Are not some of us just as biased and unreasonable about the realm of the Spirit as were the ancients above the realm of the material.

Even in the present century, American newspapers were afraid to print an account of the Wright Brothers first successful flight at Kitty Hawk head. Not all efforts at flight failed before. Did Professor Langley's flying machine go to the bottom of the Potomac River. Was it not true that the best mathematical minds had proved man could never fly? Had not people said God had reserved this privilege to the

birds. Only 30 years later, the conquest of the air was almost an old story and airplane travel was in full swing. But in most fields, our generation has witnessed the complete liberation of our thinking. Show any Longshoreman a Sunday supplement describing a proposal to explore the moon by means of a rocket. And he will say, I bet they do it. Maybe not so long

either. Is not our age characterized by the ease with which we discard old ideas for new by the complete readiness with which we throw away the theory or gadget which does not work for something new. Which does. We had to ask ourselves why we should apply our human problems to the same readiness to change our point of view. We were having trouble with personal relationships. We couldn't control our emotional natures. We were a prey to misery and depression. We couldn't make a living. We had a

feeling of uselessness. We were full of fear. We were unhappy. We couldn't seem to be of real help to other people. Was not a basic solution of these bedevil myths more important than whether we should see newsreels of lunar flight? Of course it was when we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the spirit of the universe. We had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work Bu the God idea did the Wright brothers

almost childish of faith? If they could build a machine which would fly was the mainspring of their accomplishment. Without that, nothing could have happened. We agnostics and atheists were sticking to the idea that self-sufficiency would solve our problems. When others showed us that God sufficiency worked for them. We began to feel like those who had insisted the Wrights would never fly. Logic was great stuff. We liked

it. Still like it. It is not. By chance, we were given the power to reason to examine the evidence of our senses and to draw conclusions. That is one of man's magnificent attributes. We agnostic, inclined, would not feel satisfied with a proposal which does not lend itself to reasonable approach and interpretation. Hence, we are at pains to tell why we think our present faith is reasonable. Why we think it more sane and logical to believe than not to

believe. Why we say our former thinking was soft and mushy when we threw up our hands and doubt and said We don't know. When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis, we could not postpone or evade. We had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or He is nothing. God either is or He is an. What was our choice to be Arrived. At this point, we were squarely confronted with the question of faith. We

couldn't duck the issue. Some of us had already walked far over the bridge of reason toward the desired shore of faith. The outlines of the promise of the new land brought us luster to tired eyes and fresh courage to flagging spirits. Friendly hands had stretched out in welcome. We were grateful that reason had brought us so far, but somehow we couldn't quite step ashore. Perhaps we had been leaning too heavily on reason. That last mile. And we did not like to lose our support. That was

natural. But let us think a little more closely without knowing it. Had we not been brought to where we stood by a certain kind of faith? Or did we not believe in our own reasoning? Did we not have confidence in our ability to think? What was that? But a sort of faith? Yes. We had been faithful, abjectly faithful to the God of reason. So in one way or another, we discovered that faith had been involved all the time. We found to that we had been worshippers. What a state of mental goose

flesh that used to bring on. Had we not variously worshipped people, sentimen, things, money and ourselves. And then with a better motive, had we not worshipped thee, beheld the sunset, the sea or a flower? Who of us had not loved something or somebody? How much did these feelings, these loves, these worships have to do with pure reason. Little or nothing. We saw it last. Were not these things the tissue out of which

our lives were constructed? Did not these feelings, after all, determine the course of our existence? It was impossible to say. We had no capacity for faith or love or worship in one form or another. We had been living by faith and little else. Imagine life without faith where nothing left but pure reason. It wouldn't be life. But we believed in life. Of course we did. We could not prove life in the sense that you can prove a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Yet.

There it was. Could we still say the whole thing was not? But a mass of electrons created out of nothing? Meaning nothing whirling on to a destiny of nothingness. Of course we couldn't. The electrons themselves seemed more intelligent than that, at least. So the chemist said. Neither is reason as most of us use it. Entirely dependable, though it emanate from our best minds. What about people who proved

that man could never fly? Yet we had been seeing another kind of flight, a spiritual liberation from this world. People rose above their problems. They said God made these things possible. And we only smiled. We had seen spiritual release, but liked to tell ourselves it wasn't true. Actually, we're fooling ourselves. For deep down in every man, woman and child is the fundament of the idea of God.

It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there for faith in a power greater than ourselves. And miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives are facts as old as man himself. We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was part of our makeup just as much as the feeling we have for a friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly. But he was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the great reality deep

down within us. In the last analysis, it is only there that he may be found. It was so with us. We can only clear the ground a bit if our testimony helps sweep any prejudice. Enables you to think honestly, encourages you to search diligently within yourself. Then, if you wish, you can join us on the broad highway. With this attitude, you cannot fail. The consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you. In this book, you will read the experience of a man who thought

he was an atheist. His story is so interesting that some of it should be told now. His change of heart was dramatic, convincing and moving. Our friend was a minister son. He attended church school where he became rebellious and what he thought an overdose of religious education. For years thereafter, he was dogged by trouble and frustration. Business failure. Insanity, fatal illness, suicide. These calamities in his immediate family embittered and

depressed him. post-War disillusionment ever more serious. Alcoholism, impending mental and physical collapse brought him to the point of self-destruction. One night, when confined to a hospital, he was approached by an alcoholic who had known a spiritual experience. Our friend's Gorge rose as he bitterly cried out, If there is a God, he certainly hasn't done anything for me. But later, alone in his room, he asked himself this question Is it possible? And all the religious people I've known are

wrong. While pondering the answer, he felt as though he lived in hell. Then, like a thunderbolt, a great thought came. It crowded out all else. Who are you to say there is no God? This man recounts that he tumbled out of bed to his knees. In a few seconds, he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the presence of God. It poured over and through him with the certainty and majesty of a great tide at flood. The barriers he had built through the years were

swept away. He stood in the presence of infinite power and love. He had stepped from bridge to shore. For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his Creator. Thus was our friend's cornerstone, fixed in place? No later. The sisterhood has shaken it. His alcoholic problem was taken away. That very night. Years ago. It disappeared. Save for a brief few moments of temptation. The thought of drink has never returned. And at such times, a great revulsion has risen up in

him. Seemingly. He could not drink even if he would. God had restored his sanity. What is this but a miracle of healing. Yet its elements are simple circumstances made him willing to believe. He humbly offered himself to his maker. Then he knew. Even so, has God restored us all to our right minds? To this man. The revelation was sudden. Some of us grow into it more slowly. But he has come to all who have honestly sought him. When we drew near to him, he disclosed himself to us.