Agnosticism and Surrender – Big Book – Tim – Workshop – Neptune, NJ – Part 9 of 18 – Local AA Speakers

Good evening everyone, I'm Recovered Alcoholic called Big Book Tim. Welcome back to the Argument Hour and welcome back to to the people who are coming back from research and development. That's got to stop for a minute that's all I can say about that it really does so you're in the right place hopefully you know like you said sit back relax listen it's okay welcome to our out of town guest it's great I got to speak in Baltimore that was a lot of fun too so it's always nice when people are from where you get to carry a message So, page 48. We're in the chapter we agnostic this week. It's very exciting. The God chapter. Dun-dun-dum! So, we left off at the middle of the page, basically. We were talking about being beaten into a state of reasonableness last week. You know, and I described that as just, you know, just getting punched and going, Oh, I don't get punched. Okay, no, I'm going to keep fighting punches and then you probably go, oh my God, I give up. You're being beaten into that state where you're finally reasonable. And I talked about reason being a basis or a motive for action. So when alcohol has kicked your ass enough, it's time to get into it. That's really what it comes down to. And he says that. He says sometimes this was a tedious process. Sometimes. I don't know any time it was an easy one. That's my experience. and then he goes on to say we hope no one else will be as prejudiced for as long as some of us were and Bill himself was prejudiced for 15 years before he got sober you know, he wasn't beat into a state of reasonableness right away and the cool thing about it, Bill Wilson's sobriety date is December 11th so that's just past, so that kind of close here, that we're around that you know, the start of this thing kind of this year time of the year and you know it's funny when it started snowing the other day I was thinking ah, I wonder what it's like up there you know and and there was no snow on the ground coming up today so it's kind of like well I guess God wants me to keep coming here too bad so the next thing he presents us with is the reader may still ask why he should believe in a power greater than himself. We think there are good reasons. Let's have a look at some of them, okay? So we think, he said, we think there are good bases or motives for action. So let's take a look at them. And I just think it's funny where those little teases that he does throughout the book, you know, the reader may ask meanwhile like, he's talking directly to the person who's got the book in his hand you know what I mean? You know, so So it's that whole, like, well, we're going to be nice about it. Because if you look at the original manuscript, it was a lot of, you know, like pointing and you and you're going and they, you know. And they were like, dude, kind of relax with that crap. Because people are going to go, I don't have to do anything. You know, what's your life? You're an alcoholic. Did anybody tell you? You're going on watch TV. You know. Like, you're gonna do this. No, I won't. Well, you'll go to jail. You'll have to catch me. You know, like he talked about being handicapped by obstinacy, right? We are. So I think it's cool that he's envisioning at this point, 48 pages later, a preface and four forwards and a doctor's opinion, you know, that there's still going to be some misgivings of like, well, why should you listen to us all this time later? Like, okay, we've been telling you all over and saying crap over and over and ever and over again, and you're still not convinced. So he's envisioning hearing somebody say, well, why should I listen to you? Right? And it's like, well, don't. That's kind of my answer nowadays. It's like don't, keep getting your results, that's fine. But fortunately for me and for other people with fathers, he said, all right, good question, we'll give it to you, right? So he gets in there and he says, He's the practical individual of today. He's a stickler for facts and results. We don't know about feelings again. Back to that, we're anti-feelings because that's why we drink, to numb those feelings, and the results. We're not interested in what you're doing. We're nicht interessiert in your intentions. We're interested in the results of what you do. Are you getting results? I intend to be thin, but I'm not. The result is I'm still fat. Well, obviously you're not going to listen to me when it comes to trying to get there. Right? You're going to go to the person who's getting results doing what it is that they're doing with the thing that you want to do. Okay, so these people are sober. Okay, what are the results? What are the facts and the results about the facts or the results Okay, cool. Alright, so he says nevertheless the 20th century readily accepts theories of all kinds provided they are firmly grounded in fact. There it is again. 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 and use without a reasonable assumption as a starting point. And I talk about that all the time. We have to get to a particular point of saying, alright, well I'm not going to argue about this, I'm going to start here. I believe that you people are sober as the result of a God in your life. I'm gonna have to start there. Because that's what you're telling me, right? Well, here's why I'm telling you. So he says, 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 reality at all. To illustrate, colon... Yay, alright. Well, remember, good. Tell them I'll call them back. The prosaic steel girder is a mass of electrons whirling around each other at incredible speeds. 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 and 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 and follow that life originated out of nothing means nothing and proceeds nowhere. So keep drinking and die. Duh. Right? Okay? so right there he's challenging the reader who's still thinking like there's no God and it's like really? you're stupid I mean that's what he's saying right there you're stupid we read wordy books and tell you many arguments there's still God like that's when he's doing right nice and eloquently but ultimately it's a bar argument that he's having really? you don't believe in God? you're a moron we'll step outside and say sure, no problem me and God will kick your ass let's go you know and it becomes that because that's what he's setting up here because the chapter is we agnostics we who did not know we who had no knowledge of God it doesn't say you that don't have it it says we right so he's presenting an argument through which he definitely had windy arguments because he talked about that earlier in the book in his story right? I know I did, I had windy arguments about like what God was, I mean I didn't really think that there wasn't one, I just didn't think that yours, you know it just became all that and who cares, like go be a philosophy major if you want to do that crap like I'm trying to save my life and that's what this is about, right so it becomes he goes on to say it, more challenging, right instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agents, spearheads of God's ever advancing and creation, we agnostics and atheists chose to believe that our human intelligence was the last word. The alpha and the omega. The beginning and end of it all. Rather vain of us, wasn't it? Right? Again, there's the same argument. Same argument. You are stupid. Like really? You think you know who God is? You thinks you can tell somebody who God is? I mean, really. Because I can't. I can't even fathom, I can't even wrap my head around what God can possibly be in totality. I can tell you I've had a connection to something that's not human, not me, and lives in my heart and does things that's miraculous. Don't ask me what it looks like. I don't know. No idea. Could be a ferret for all I know. I have no idea. Okay, so when I'm approached with this concept of this is God, I'm like, I look at people like, what are you talking about? Who are you? Right? Because that's the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. And if that's where you want to stay, hey, God bless you. But for me, that's just entirely too, you know, enclosing, and it's not broad and roomy. You know, ever expanding. It's linear and closed off and blinding. You know? That's not happy to me. Right? And he says, we who have traveled this dubious path beg you, beg you to lay aside prejudice even against organized religion. Right? That's a tall order, man. Because most people come in here with some sort of experience of organized religion that has been damaging their life. Right? And the ones who don't are fortunate. And listen, I talk about this all the time. Organized religions are wonderful because they give access to something that we're desperately searching for without, like... It just becomes easy for most people who can get there. You know what I mean? Like, that's been my experience. People who believe in their religious faith, they do it so easily. And I struggle on a daily basis to make sure I maintain a relationship with God. And they're just like, oh, whatever, God. and it's just interwoven in their life. Right? That's my experience of organized religions. Other people may have something different, that's okay, but despite that, despite that he's saying, man, put that aside. And he says, well, we've 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. You know those people, they have order in their life. They wake up and they make breakfast for the kids, and the kids go off to school and have their brown paper munchies. You know, like the people, the families that I grew up with that were like alien to me. I'm like, what are you talking about? Your mom gets up and makes breakfast. What? No, my mom's at work. You know like, I just read this interesting article about like 21 things that 80s children did that would never happen now. Now I'm sure there are people who are older than me that would laugh at that too. from their generation, one of them was being a latchkey kid by the time you're seven. Right? You know, you have a key to the house and you come home from school and you let yourself in. I laughed because that was me. Seven, that means you're in second grade. You're in 2nd grade with a key for the house and you're going home, letting yourself in and watching yourself. Right? That wouldn't go on today. But like, okay, so how is it that we survive? Well, there's got to be some reason. Maybe there was more God going on than we realized. Maybe. You know, I don't know. But like today, forget it. You know diapers would be called like two minutes you leave them alone and oh my god it's just all this craziness right? So it just becomes this you know people of faith you go in a church on Sunday and it's not even any money. It just becomes like hey we're going to church. Oh wow. Really? You like going to Church? Yeah why wouldn't I like going To Church? We go oh my god would you want it alphabetically or chronologically why you wouldn't like going to church those are the things so he says actually we used to have no reasonable conception whatever we used amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and practices when we might have observed that many spiritually minded persons of all races, colors and creeds were demonstrating a degree of stability, happiness and usefulness which we should have thought ourselves right so how many because I know I've done this and from time to time I still do it for comedy's sake for my own amusement or maybe others you know talking about miracles and stuff like that you know hey man let's go walk on some water you know like we can only do it if it's the puddles in the street those types of things but yet people who believe in that sort of have direction they have purpose they have stability you know, but I'm like joking about it give me a fish, hey, 10 million yeah, you know like nobody else did that, just me, right okay so then he goes on to say, he's repeating here now, right, on page 50 he says instead we looked at the human defects of these people and sometimes use their shortcomings as basis as a basis of wholesale condemnation right, isn't that funny we do that in here too right, we talk about those people those so-and-sos and those those people and yet we're the same thing like we expect the world to accept members of Alcoholics Anonymous as being the chosen people of recovery well but at the same time we're going oh those people, they're bad we're over here, where are the people do you remember that? 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, right? In our personal stories, right, there's a mention of it again, it's on page 50, in our personal stories, so he's mentioning, you know, the part of the program that really isn't the program you know the stories in the back of the book people say it's not part of the programme well here, you have just the first 164 well here's a second mention of it in the first 64 right, in our personal stories you will find a wide variety in the way each teller approaches and conceives of the power which is greater than himself right, 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 there are questions for each individual to set up for himself right so okay, yeah, no, I don't agree with that nope, nope, no I don't agree with that, no. Like, I don' t care. So here's why, right here. On 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 that's humanly impossible. As a celebrated American statesman put it, let's look at the record. Okay, so now let's take a look and let's not look at the record, shall we? like that's a true statement that statement right there is the antithesis of don't drink and go to meetings completely, right there because don't think of going to meetings as human power human possibility for anybody who has tried to stop on their own willpower and is beyond that they know that that statement is certainly true and then it says right here that every one of the people who are writing the stories in the back of the book in the other book that I have experience, strength and hope which are all the stories that were taken out of 1, 2 and 3 that don't exist in edition 4 anymore every single one of these people from their own point of view agree on the same exact thing that they have an access to a power greater than themselves that has stopped them from drinking and has reconstructed their lives that's the purpose of AI not to stop drinking and get sober you know that came years later you know our preamble was written in 1944 it was written for our magazine that we thought we were going to put out into the world but you know they fooled him on that one too because that was the purpose of it he wanted to define what AA was to the general public and that magazine doesn't go out to the general public talking about the grapevine it was first published in June of 1944 right but here we are I mean it talks about in the foreword to the first edition what we are as a society, as a group of men and women. Our primary purpose is to stay sober. Okay, well how do you do that? Well, according to all of these people they strikingly agree you've got to get God. But yet we're still like here we are all these years later 75 years later after this was written we're sill arguing about that point. Thank you much God and A.A. A.I. would be great if it weren't for that God thing. I'll go somewhere else, you know I say it all the time I said there's lots of ways of getting sober Lots of ways Of getting sober And successfully This one's got God in it We're not changing it Agnostic meetings There's no such thing Oh they can try No such thing Without God It's not A.S. Next So off that soapbox, on to the next one so let me start right here this is a repeat of page 25 remember I talked about what we have on page 25, well here it is again here are thousands of men and women worldly indeed that flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a power greater than themselves to take a certain attitude toward 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 and despair, in the case of total failure of their human resources, they found a new power. Peace, happiness and sense of direction flowed into them. Wow! I want that! This happened when? Soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements. I wonder if he's going to tell us once confused and baffled by the seeming futility of existence they show the underlying reasons why they were making so heavy going of life check this out leaving aside the drink question well since we're here let's leave that aside for a minute they tell why living was so unsatisfactory They show how the change came over them. When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the presence of God is today the most important fact in their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith. What the hell happened to that AA is what I want to know. I wantto know that. Because I don't experience that. I experience a bunch of people talking against the opposite of that. You don't need God. Get a meeting done. Just don't drink. Don't have a meeting. Get sponsored. Get home-grown. Get active. Okay, well why don't we ask a bunch of people who have done that that relax. See if they did that. Okay? Because I've talked about that before. We all know they're going to say the same thing to us because, you know, that's what the cult has ingrained into their head. Let's stop going to meetings. What are you talking about? You're at a meeting before you drink. Right? No, just me, my experience of it. Okay, so why is it that we're taking this book and ignoring it? It's not written in this book anywhere. Don't afraid to go to meetings. Nowhere. It's Not Written in This Book. I've looked. Not in any edition is that written. Right? Because remember we read it, the fact that we are assuming the reader desires they want to quit, so we're not even getting into that. Like, okay, you want to say stop, right? Well, here's how we did it. So, here is why, right. This world of ours has made more material progress in the last century than in all millennium 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 invention was almost unknown. In the realm of immaterial, men's minds were fettered by superstition, tradition, and all sorts of fixed ideas. Some of the contemporaries of Columbus thought a round earth preposterous. Others came near putting Galileo to death for his astronomical heresies. Because how could the earth be the center of the universe if God's not, right? Elephants held up the earth, right, when Columbus we asked ourselves this colon are not some of us just as biased and unreasonable about the realm of the spirit as were the ancients about the realms 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 had not all efforts at flight failed before did not Professor Langley's flying machine go to the bottom of the Potomac River? Was it not true that the best mathematical minds had proved men could never fly? And not people said God has 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. Here comes some really cool stuff, man. There's some like awesome stuff on this page here. Right? But most fields our generation has witness complete liberation of our thinking. Show any longshoreman a Sunday hold on, Sunday's supplement describing a proposal to explore the moon by means of a rocket and he will say I bet they do it too, maybe not so long either wow whew that's heavy 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. And there's a crux right there. Is your way working? All of it is? Okay, keep it up. If not, well, we have a way that's us. You've got to follow some directions, right? Now, love this paragraph. We have to ask ourselves, why shouldn't we apply our human problems, 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 appraised of 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 bedevilments more important than whether we should see newsreels of lunar flight? Of course it was. Four words again, right? so let's talk about this paragraph the second part of step one talks about unmanageability that our lives have become unmanagable we admit that our lies have become unmanigable well so then why do we keep telling newcomers to manage their lives if they have no power to do it right they're powerless over alcohol and their lives have been become un manageable we're asking them to manage their lives based on their own human will and we get mad at them when they fail right these big elements now what I was like this right here is unmanageability we could change these into questions for ourselves and for people that we may be working with we should say to them are you having problems with personal relationships my answer was no, I don't have any could you control your emotional nature I'm not emotional I'm passionate are you a place of misery and depression I'm miserable I just don't like what's going on in the world I'm really depressed I just like sleeping Could you make a living? Sure. I'm a waiter. Yeah, but how many jobs have you had? What, this year? Do you have a feeling of uselessness? No, I just told you I'm not a waiter! Are you full of fear? No, not really. Except maybe cops and women, you know? are you unhappy well only when I'm sad right because that's the mindset right, that's unmanageability if you look around even, listen, it doesn't matter how long you're sober right, myself included in this if I'm stuck here, my life is unmanable if my life isn't manageable guess what's missing I'll tell you what's missing. It's the next paragraph is what's missing. 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 didn't work, but the God idea did. And we're still going to argue about that? Well, go manage your life then. right I always talk about it being stuck in the dash you know because the first step says this if we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol dash then our lives would become unmanageable right because most of us are quite oh yeah I'm powerless over alcohol and then we try to manage our life keep those plates spinning you know right hey dude why don't you just let God do that for you oh no don't do that oh, I've got to take care of it. Oh, I have to. Why don't you just let it go? You know, like, let go and be dragged. You know? You're kind of like, you seem unhappy. Why are you unhappy? Because things aren't going my way. Well, what's your way? I mean, is your way selfish? Because, you know, we know where that's going to get you. So it just becomes all this unmanageability. And we can't manage it. We need God to do that. He says it right there. Our ideas didn't work, but the God idea did. Our ideas didn't works, but God idea did. Here's a great story about God. When I was sober coming up on four years because I was a young man at the time and I was full of fear and I wasn't happy and I had problems with personal relationships I was married at the time. Yes, I was married. You know. Problem was she was an earth sign and I was a water sign and together we made mud. So I'd had enough. You know what I mean? I didn't have God in my life. This is what God gave me. You know What I mean. I was like 25 I wasn't even 26 yet I was 25 and I'm married miserable and this this. This is why I'm sober at this. I'm going back to drinking. That's where I was at. I'm gone back to making. And I started telling everyone. Because you know, you announced that shit. Excuse me. You announced that. I'm doing back to drinking. Now I'm like, okay, do you need a ride? I'll buy you the first round if you want. You know what I mean? What are you reading? Well, don't threaten me with your sobriety. You know? If you want what I have, you'll do what I did. Okay? So what happens? What happens? Everything gets dramatic, of course. I mean, we like that because now we're the star again. You know? Oh, you better not. You better not drink. You drink, I'm going to kick your... I'm like, oh, that's great. You know why? Because then I'll be in pain and I'll make you drink more. Okay? And they're like, oh my God, you're insane. I'm Like, yeah. Right? Because untreated alcoholics without God in their life are insane. so here I was I went to this place that I had gone before sober many times because my friends were there and that's how it was I was a young man and all my like the problem wasn't the bar the problem was my drinking you see and there were plenty of nights that I'd been there before and if I well you know I don't really feel good I'll goodnight and I'm out the door because that's how it is that's what it was right so everybody knew who I was everyone It was like Cheers. It was kind of that kind of place, and that's why I was comfortable there. My friends were there. It wasn't about stealing vicarious pleasure. Ooh, I wish I could do some of that because I didn't want some of it. So here's where I was at. The bartender knew what I was up to. So I walked in maybe 2 o'clock in the afternoon when nobody else was around. He knew what i was up too, and he did his job. I sat down and he said, so what can I get you? Budweiser? Heineken? I said give me a second and I closed my eyes and I prayed I prayed now I've talked about this many times already but I have a very personal relationship with my God so this was the prayer and I'll never forget it I had my eyes closed and I said alright MFR it's down to me and you I want to drink you want me to drink you tell me to drank you don't want me drink you tell not to drink it's up to you. I want a drink. Right? And in that time, he'd come back and he was standing in front of me and he says, what can I get you? And I opened my eyes and said, I have a Coke. Just like that. I have the Coke. He gave me the Coke I had the Coke and I left. I said, I'll see you later. And from that point forward, I never doubted God ever again. Never. Because there was no human power that was stopping me from drinking. Not me. Not all my friends. Not anybody in AA? Nobody. My defense came from my higher power. And thank God I had this program instilled in me when I first got here. Because if I didn't, if I was a don't drink and go to meetings guy, I would have drank one before that. Because you don't understand. You would drink if you had my life too. Right? That's a powerful lesson there. Okay? I wanted God. I needed God God showed up and kicked alcohol's butt I didn't I was weak I'm totally weak lack of power was certainly my dilemma at that point I needed the power by which I could live my life and it showed up right it's powerful right there now I don't suggest anybody who's not in fit spiritual condition to be hanging out in bars. You know, because that'd kind of be like you know, juggling knives when you're drunk. You know? Oh, I think I got the one in the middle! It's not going to work out well for you most of the time. For me it was miraculous. It was miraculous That's a miraculous story because the alcoholic wanted to drink and God came along and said no, you're not going through again again in my life. I was quite cognizant of that one. So now, everyone was screwed. I was like, no, no. You got the wrong, you probably did the wrong person. You know, like, I'm a little more eloquent now. Back then, I was just a bull. I'll be talking about that now! You know? For all the emotional appeal, you know? So that was, that was the thing, right? The God idea works. My idea didn't. My idea was going to get me drunk. best thinking got me there right so he goes on to say the Wright brothers almost childish faith that they could build a machine which would fly was the mainspring of their accomplishment it's kind of like my faith it was childish like who prays like that not mature people without that nothing could have happened without what without faith nothing could have without faith nothing could that we agnostics and atheists were sticking to the idea that self-sufficiency would solve our problem. Okay, so you just defined atheism. Self-sufficient. You're self- sufficient. Okay. Good. Maybe. When others showed us that, quote, God's sufficiency unquote worked with them, we began to feel like those who insisted the rights would never fly. Some of you may be sitting out there right now after that powerful God story and think, like, well, the problem is I'm going to be sitting in a bar making up the argument right now. I wonder if you went to a meeting. You probably didn't call a sponsor. Oh, no, I called my sponsor. I'm the owner of the bar! And he said, let me know how it works out. And I was like, oh, wow. Nobody's going to stop me. Nobody. God did, right? Logic is great stuff. We liked it. We still like it. It is not by chance that 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 agnostically 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 you why we think our present faith is reasonable why we think it's 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 in the air and said, well you don't know now here it is, right? check this out this is it this is the second step right here when we became alcoholic when we become alcoholic Crushed by a self-imposed crisis We could not postpone or evade We had to fearlessly face the proposition That God is everything Or else he is nothing God either is Or he isn't What was our choice to be? There's no third choice there None whatsoever So now, where am I? I'm stuck at that dilemma again, right? I can't postpone it or evave it I can't put it off. It's right there in front of me. I need to make a decision. I have to. It is right here. I can not go away. Right? I cannot evade it, which means I am locked in. That the only way is that I am going to have to make a position. I cannot go backwards. I can NOT go laterally up or down. I got to go forward. That is it. So now what do I need? Now I am screwed. Now I have a proposition. That is what a proposition is. It Is a yes or no. Right? When you propose to somebody that maybe isn't an option, you hope yes is the answer. Right? But no could be the answer So now we have to fearlessly face it. Okay, fear again. Well, we're stuck with fear. What do you mean fearlessly? I'm full of fear. How am I going to fearously face that? Okay, well, I could either F everything and run or I could face everything and recover. Right? And what's fear anyway? It's false evidence appearing real. It's this false evidence that I have that at one time in my life, alcohol was my solution. Well, that's some false evidence because it never really was my Solution. I only thought it was. So now that it appeared real, so that is that I can create this universe. No, no, it's my Slusion. I would have never slept with her if I wasn't drinking. When the reality could have been maybe I could have slept with him more if I was a drinker. Right? so now I got this proposition and it's laid out for me hey guess what God is everything he is everything but what's my choice he's nothing he doesn't exist I don't have anything to say no man up woman up adult up that's it, that's your choice what's your chance to be now here, check this out don't get us a little like we get it, we get because here, arrived at this point right, we were squarely confronted with the question of faith faith, we're squarely confronted with it,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 had brought lustre to tired eyes and fresh courage to flagging spirits. Isn't that wonderful? Friendly hands 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. This 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. Now, let me take that one step further for you in my experience. I was abjectely faithful to The God of Alcohol. Oh boy, I prayed alcohol. I protected alcohol.I worshipped alcohol. l had rituals around alcohol.l called it The Nectar of the gods. I was objectively faithful to that. But it didn't work. Now what? Now what, right? Then he says, we found two. We had been worshippers. I just described mine. What a state of mental boost was this used to bring on. Had we not variously worshipped people? No, none of us, right? Sentiments, things, money, ourselves. And then with a better motive, had we not worshipfully beheld the sunset, the sea, or a flower? Who of us have not loved something or somebody? How much do these feelings, these loves, these worships, have to do with pure reason? Little or nothing, we saw at 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. Now what? Imagine life without faith. Were it left, but pure, were nothing left but pure reason, it wouldn't be life. But we believed in life. Of course we did. We could not prove it in the sense that we could prove a straight line as the shortest distance between two points. Yep, there it is. Could we still say the whole thing was nothing but a mass of electrons created out of nothing, meaning nothing? whirling on to a destiny of nothingness? Four words, of course we couldn't. The electrons themselves seem more intelligent than men, at least so the chemist said, so there he is again calling us stupid for not believing. Hence, we saw that reason isn't everything. Neither is reason as most of us use it entirely dependable. Though it emanate from our best minds. What about people who prove man could never fly? I mean, we have phones on our wrists now. I just can't imagine, like, the person... You know, it's 2013. In 2013, I can't imagine the person who's 100, right? Who was born in 1913. Oh my God, what they've seen in their life. Right? Two world wars. A depression. A rocket going through the moon. The 60s. The 50s. But, um, the 80s, 90s, the millennium, computers, you know, going from sharing a radio, you know to watching a movie on our phone. I mean like, my God, what a mind blower that is, right? That's how powerful man it is. Shut up. Yet we had been seeing another kind of flight. a spiritual liberation from this world. People who rose above their problems. Right? They said God made those things possible. And we only smile. We have seen spiritual release. But we like to tell ourselves it wasn't true. It's not true. How can he be spiritual? He's poor. Look at the car he drives. Look at how he lives in his clothes. How can you be spiritual if I've been sober 20 years get there then we'll talk actually we were fooling ourselves now Bill is about to be so kind to us, to let us off the hook here to let US know how far we have to search for God isn't that wonderful check this out actually we were fooled for deep down in every man, woman and child is the fundamental 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 wow when 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 have 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. I talked about that a long time ago on page 25, man. God is with us all the time. He lives in our hearts, finding answers in the heart. Faith, finding answer in the hearts. God is within us, deep down inside of us. You've known all your life the difference between right and wrong. I'm not even talking about like when the authority figures tell you what's right and what's wrong and you argue and rebel against that I'm talking just your own thing you know, when you're about to do something that's really screwed up and it's going to hurt somebody else or maybe yourself and that voice says it's not a good idea well, who's that? It's God He's deep down within us so we attach ourselves to God 24 hours a day ah, it's awesome right, the last analysis what's an analysis? it's taking all the facts and sifting through them and pulling them apart looking at it from every different angle and finally coming to a conclusion that that's where God is that's awesome our connection to God is right with us all the time right, and here we can only clear the ground a bit if our testimony helps to sweep away prejudice, enables you to think honestly, encourages you to think diligently within yourself then if you wish you can join us on the broad highway here's a guarantee right here guarantee, guarantee this is alcohol synonymous guarantee that you will not drink he says with this attitude you cannot fail that's a guarantee you find God and you have a certain attitude toward that God, you're not going to fail guarantee wow I would go on to read this story but we can leave that until next week just before how it works so that's it for this week, thanks