Joe and Charlie Big Book Study – “We Agnostics” – Joe W.

Thank God for Chapter 4. Let's look at just a little bit of it, just before we go to lunch.
You know, Dr. Jung told Roland that ideas, emotions, and attitudes, that's what we're going to be looking at now.
Ideas, emotions, and attitudes, which are the guiding force of the lives of these people, are suddenly cast to one side.
And certainly the ideas, emotions, and attitudes that I had toward God were that of a seven or eight year old boy.
I couldn't accept it then, I couldn't accept it later, and I couldn't accept it when I got here, and I can't accept it today.
Because I need new ideas, and emotions, and attitudes about this.
New information is what I'm trying to say.
This chapter, we agnostic. Just the word agnostic means something to me.
Gnostic means knowledge. You put the ag in front of it, it means without.
Those are us who are without knowledge, and that was me.
And the knowledge that I did have was not good.
And Bill had the same experiences that we did.
When Debbie presented him with a solution, he was aghast at that solution.
Some of us are aghast.
Some of us are aghast at that solution also.
And Bill said that whenever they talked to me, of a God personal to me, he said,
my mind became irritated and snapped shut against such theories.
And certainly that's the way that I did.
Later on in the book it says to us that when the spiritual malady is overcome,
we straighten out mentally and physically.
The spiritual malady.
The understanding of God of my understanding.
When that is straightened out, we straighten out mentally and physically.
And this chapter here, we agnostic, is an attempt to do that.
And as Father Bill Wilson, some of you know Father Bill, said to us many, many times, and I love it.
He said that this chapter is not put here to teach me that there's any particular type of religion or type of God.
He said this chapter is simply put here so that I might read, and question, and wonder.
And get some ideas, emotions, and attitudes, new ones.
And open up my mind to a point that God might prove to me there's a God.
Now with that understanding of this chapter, it makes more sense to me.
And becomes extremely valuable in my life.
In the preceding chapters, you have learned something of alcoholism.
We hope we've made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic.
If when you honestly want to, you can find that you cannot quit entirely.
Because of the obsession.
Or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take.
Because of the allergy.
You are probably alcoholic.
God, isn't that simple?
Isn't that simple?
You see how people like to expand on things?
They took the two questions out of the big book.
And some years later, they made a little pamphlet that had ten questions in it.
And that wasn't enough.
They made another one that had twenty questions in it.
Hell, I think we're up to forty-four today, aren't we?
Thank God Bill, or Abby, didn't have the forty-four questions with him when he walked into Bill's kitchen.
He just said, Bill, has alcohol been bothering your reputation?
Hadn't had a reputation in years.
Then he said, Bill, has alcohol been interfering with your sex life?
Because anything like I was, he hadn't had any of that in a long time either.
There's a statement in the forty-four questions that says, do you drink alone?
Well, think about it.
If I'm buying, yes.
And if you're buying, no.
We had an old friend that used to live in Tyler, Texas.
His name was Wine-O-Joe.
I've always felt sorry for everybody in AA that didn't get to meet Wine-O-Joe.
He was a real character.
He's dead now.
But Wine-O-Joe had made up his own list to ask yourself to see if you're alcoholic.
And the first question on his list was, has the roof of your mouth ever been sunburned?
Well, I'll drink it.
He said, if it has, you're probably alcoholic.
I think the second question was, have you ever been arrested for drunk driving from the back seat of somebody else's car?
The third one I love was, have you ever been arrested for public drunk while in jail?
He had a real list of them.
We only need these two.
I use them all the time.
People come to me today and they say, Charlie, you think I might be alcoholic?
I say, I have no idea.
Let me ask you a couple of questions.
Have you been able to quit drinking entirely, left on your own resources?
If they're a real alcoholic, they've got to say no.
And then I say, do you have any control over the amount you take after you've once started drinking?
If they're a real alcoholic, they've got to say no.
And then I say, well, you're probably an alcoholic.
And that's about as simple as you can make it.
Now, if that be the case, you're an alcoholic.
You may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.
You know, we are very unique people.
We number amongst a few people in the world today who suffer from a two-fold illness
that can only be overcome by a spiritual experience.
We also number amongst a few people in the world today who have a terminal illness
that we can come out of it in better shape than we were when we went into it
if we can have this spiritual experience.
We are unique people.
Now, to one who feels he's an atheist or agnostic, such an experience seems impossible.
But to continue as he is means disaster, especially if he's an alcoholic of the hopeless variety.
To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis
are not always easy alternatives to face.
But it isn't so difficult.
About half of 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's going to be that way with you.
But cheer up.
Something like half of us thought we were atheists or agnostics,
and our experience shows that you need not be disconcerted.
And I had to stop right here.
And see, what is my belief as far as this God thing is concerned?
And today we find there's only one of three ways that you can believe as far as God is concerned.
One way is to be an atheist.
Now, an atheist says there is no God.
Therefore, they have no power greater than human power to turn to.
The atheist would have to stand on their own two feet, run their own show.
And I said, Charlie, are you an atheist?
I said, no.
I've always believed in some kind of God, so I'm not an atheist.
I said, well, then maybe you're an agnostic.
So I had to go to the dictionary and look that word up.
And like Joe said, the word agnostic means without knowledge.
An agnostic believes that there is a God.
But since we've never tried to use God's power in our life,
we've run our own show, stood on our own two feet.
We've never received God's power, so we don't know that God exists.
We believe in some kind of God, but we don't really know whether that's true or not.
And I think that's what most of us are when we get here.
Most of us get here with some belief in a God.
But we have never turned to that God.
We've been running our own show and standing on our own two feet and doing our own thing.
Even though we believed in God, we acted as if we did not believe in them.
An agnostic is one without knowledge of God, just belief.
Now, if you're an atheist or an agnostic,
then the question becomes, how do you become a true believer in God?
A true believer is one that knows that God exists.
Don't believe it, knows it.
A true believer is one who has experienced God's power in their life.
And God has given them whatever they need to have a successful life.
I don't think any of us get here as a true believer.
Because if we knew God and experienced God's power,
then we wouldn't have to come to AA to solve our problem.
Most of us come here as agnostics.
Now, whether we be atheists or not,
if we are agnostics, the question becomes,
how do you get from that stage to the stage of one who is a true believer
and can receive God's power in our life?
Page 45, first paragraph.
Lack of power, that was our dilemma.
You know, if we weren't powerless, we wouldn't be here, would we?
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 a power greater than yourself,
which will solve your problem.
It doesn't say which will enable you to solve it,
or which will help you solve it.
It says the main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself,
and then that power will solve the problem.
And I find, interestingly enough, from page 45 on in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous,
we don't talk about alcohol anymore.
We're through with that.
We talk about one thing and one thing only.
If you are powerless, whether you be atheist or agnostic,
if you are powerless, how do you find the power?
And if you can find the power, then the power will solve the problem.
Okay, we're going to go to page 46 in the chapter We Agnostics.
And the book says that,
Yes, we of agnostic temperament have had these thoughts and experiences.
Let us make haste to reassure you.
We found 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 that 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 and effect the contact with Him.
You know, my sponsor at that time, George,
saw that I had a real problem with his idea about God,
and he asked me about it.
And I said, Yes, I am.
I'm having a hard time trying to understand.
And he said, Well, I've noticed that.
He said, Why don't you do something that helped him and maybe would help me?
He said, Why don't you go home tonight
and write down on a piece of paper what you would like God to be?
Laying aside all that stuff you think that you know,
and just write down on a piece of paper what you would like God to be.
And so I went home that night and I wrote down some things,
and I'm not going to tell you what it is.
It's up to you.
And I wrote down some things I wanted God to be,
and I showed them to George,
and he looked at them and he said, Well, that's good, Joe.
So you can begin with that.
See, I didn't know you could do that.
And down in the South, you'll go to hell for making up your own God.
True.
And you had to believe as they believed.
You had to have faith in what they had faith in.
If you didn't, you was going to go to hell.
But George gave me permission, and I needed that permission,
to sit down and to say, I would like God to be these things.
And he said, That's good.
You can start with that and you can begin with that.
And so that's exactly what I did.
For it says, Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God.
Our own conception, however inadequate,
was that we had the permission to make the approach and effect of contact with Him.
Now here's where we can cast aside the first old idea.
The old idea that I had was that you had to believe as they believed.
And they had me convinced that if you didn't believe as they believed,
there's no way that you're going to get anything good when it comes to God.
So I was real pleased to find out that I can cast aside that old idea,
and then I can have my own conception of God.
And like we said yesterday or last night,
I find that I've never had any problem with my own conception of anything.
And you let me start believing in God the way I want to.
Then I've got an entirely different idea.
An old idea cast aside, replaced with a new idea.
It begins right here.
And the book says, As soon as we have admitted the possible existence of a creative intelligence,
a spirit of the universe to underline the totality of things,
we begin to be possessed of a new sense of power,
power and direction, provided we took other simple steps.
We've found that God does not make too hard of terms with those who seek him.
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.
See, all I had to quit doing was saying, No, there's not, no,
and start seeking, start saying, Yes, maybe.
And I started seeking.
I said, George, you mean I need to find God?
I said, George, God's not lost.
Didn't take me long to figure out who was lost, but I mean.
He said, Is this like the book says?
It's in the seeking, it's not in the finding.
All I had to do was seek.
And that's all this book is asking me to do,
and this chapter is asking me to seek with an open mind and to wonder and to think.
And eventually God will disclose himself to me.
And that's exactly what's happened.
I was told as a kid growing up
that the way to God was a very narrow path,
that if you strayed off either side of it,
you were going to get in a hell of a shape.
I was taught that God was very, very exclusive,
that only those that believed as they believed
would be able to make any contact with God.
Those were old ideas.
Now, my book says we found that God does not make too hard terms
with those who seek him.
To us, the realm of the Spirit,
the realm of the Spirit is broad, roomy, all-inclusive,
never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek.
Old ideas cast aside, replaced with some new ideas,
beginning to find this power greater than human power
by changing of the old ideas to new ideas.
Page 47.
So when therefore we speak to you of God,
we mean your own conception of God.
This applies too to 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.
Prejudice is nothing more than old ideas.
Do not let any old ideas you may have against spiritual terms
deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you.
You see, at the start, this was all that we needed
to commence spiritual growth,
to affect our first conscious relation with God
as we understood him.
And then afterward, we found ourselves accepting many things
which then seemed entirely unnecessary.
Which then seemed entirely out of reach.
But that was growth.
But if we wished to grow, we had to begin somewhere.
So we used our own conception, however limited it was.
And that was a beginning for me.
I needed a beginning place.
And that's where I started.
Now we need to ask ourselves but one short question.
Do I now believe
the agnostic has always believed in some kind of God
or am I even willing to believe
the atheist can become willing to believe
that there's some kind of God
that there's a power greater than myself?
And as soon as a man can say that he does believe
the agnostic
or is willing to believe
the atheist
we in fact assure him that he's on his way.
It has been repeatedly proven among us
that upon this simple cornerstone
a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built.
And again, the asterisks,
please be sure to read Appendix 2 on spiritual experience.
Again, they want to make real sure
that we understand what they mean by those terms.
He says it's been repeatedly proven among us
that upon this simple cornerstone
a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built.
Asterisk, bottom of the page,
referring to the spiritual experience.
So the wonderfully effective spiritual structure we're building
is the spiritual experience or the spiritual awakening.
And he said the cornerstone of that is to believe
or to be willing to believe
that there's a power greater than human power.
We referred to that once before.
The foundation of that structure was step one,
which is willingness.
Now then he tells us the cornerstone of that structure,
step two, believing.
So we've already put two stones in place
if we can say we're willing
and yes, we believe
or we are willing to believe
either one of the two.
And he said that was great news for us
for we had assumed we could not make use of it
the spiritual principles
unless we accepted many things on faith
which seemed difficult to believe.
And there has always been one of my great problems
with this God thing.
Faith indicates surety.
Faith indicates knowledge.
Faith indicates after the fact information.
And one of my problems has always been
the minister would say,
son, all you've got to do is have faith
and everything will be alright.
Well, I never could have faith
because I had no knowledge of God.
I didn't know for sure that God would do anything for me.
The best I can possibly do is to start with belief.
And there's a big difference between belief and faith.
Believe me, there is.
A good example of that,
let's say I moved into this area here
and three or four months later
I've got a problem with my automobile.
I don't know a good mechanic anywhere in this area.
But we'll say that you've lived here for a long time.
And I assume you'll know somebody
so I come to you and I say,
can you recommend a good mechanic for me?
And you say, well, sure.
Take your car over there to John.
He'll do you a good job
and he'll charge you a reasonable price.
Well, I don't know whether that's true or not.
The best I can do with that information
is if I believe it's strong enough,
I'll take my car over there to John.
And sure enough, he does a good job.
He charges me a reasonable price.
When I leave there, I know that he will do that.
When I went there, I believed that he would do that.
Now six months from now, I have trouble with my car again.
I don't ask you or anybody else where to take it.
I take it right back to John.
This time I took it on faith,
took it on knowledge.
You can't start with faith.
You can only start with belief.
And that's all we have to do.
We either have to believe
or we become willing to believe
that there's a power greater than we are
and we're on the road to spiritual recovery.
We don't have to know anything.
Thank God Step 2 says we came to believe
that a power greater than ourselves
could restore us to sanity.
It didn't say we came to know.
It didn't say we had faith in that.
We just came to believe.
And I came to believe based upon what I've read in the book
and what you told me
that there's a power greater than I am
can restore me to sanity.
I didn't know that.
I just believed that.
Now if I know that the beginning of this thing,
the finding of the power is just to believe
or be willing to believe,
then the next thing I'm going to have to know
is what procedure am I going to follow
in order to find that power.
Let's go over to page 51 for just a moment.
First paragraph.
It says,
This world of ours has made more material progress
in the last century
than all the millenniums which went before.
Almost everyone knows the reasons.
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 the material,
men's minds were federated by superstition,
tradition, and all sorts of fixed ideas.
And I used to wonder why it is
that we today have cellular phones and TVs
and automobiles and airplanes.
Why those people a hundred years or two hundred years ago
or five hundred years ago
didn't have or admit those things.
I thought we were just smarter than they were.
But come to find out,
they had the same intellect that we did.
Intellect means the capacity to learn.
They had the same capacity to learn as we do.
But the only one thing that kept them
in those dark ages, so to speak,
it was superstition, tradition,
and all sorts of fixed ideas.
That's why I say I need an open mind more today
than I ever needed an open mind.
And I think we as a society have done that.
Right here in the northeast corner of the United States
some 225 years ago or so,
people came over here for religious freedom.
They wanted to practice a religion
as they saw, as they understood it.
And as long as you agree basically with their religion
and you practice your religion somewhat like they did,
you were okay.
But if you had any thoughts or ideas that were different
and you expressed those thoughts and ideas openly
and they didn't agree with what they had
and what they agreed with,
they would burn you at the stake as a witch.
Right here in America they did that.
So if you had any ideas like that,
you certainly didn't express them,
you kept them to yourself.
So superstition, tradition, and all sorts of fixed ideas
kept people from growing.
And I think we as a country have gotten over that today.
Our minds are open to many, many things.
He said some of the contemporaries of Columbus
thought of round earth preposterous.
Now I think Columbus is one of the greatest examples
of what you can do based upon belief
if you're willing to change your belief.
Some 500 years ago,
most of what they called the civilized world
was situated around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea,
the western shores of Europe.
They had found a place called the East Indies.
And in the East Indies you could get gold, silk, and spices,
lots of goody-goodies.
But it took literally years to get to the East Indies.
So they were trying to find a new trade route to the East Indies.
And somebody said,
is there any possibility that we could sail a ship there?
And they said, well, no, dummy.
Don't you know you can only sail to the northeast end of the Mediterranean Sea?
And then you have to go by land,
camelback, horseback, footback,
however they traveled.
And that took literally years to do.
And they said, well, what would happen if we sailed any other direction?
And they said, well, idiot,
don't you know if you sail out there,
you're going to sail off the edge of this sucker?
You see, everybody in those days thought the world was flat.
And they assumed if you sailed out there,
you would sail off the edge of it.
Now I don't know why they believed that.
I assume some people sailed out there, didn't come back.
And they thought they had sailed off the edge of it.
Now Joe said the other day,
wouldn't it be great if the world was flat?
We could take all this environmental junk,
just take it out there and go
and push her overboard and be done with it.
Now here comes Columbus.
And we believe that Columbus had to be an alcoholic.
Because if you're going to believe differently than the world and everybody in it,
and you're going to stand there and express that belief,
you're going to have to be tougher than hell to do it.
Because many times if you express a belief difference
than whatever everybody else believes,
they would burn you at the stake or hang you from a tree
or cut your head off or something.
And Columbus was tough enough and bullheaded enough
to be able to stand there.
And he said, I believe that the world is round.
I do not believe it's flat.
Then he made one of the most drunk statements the world has ever heard.
He said,
I believe we can get east by sailing west.
Now if that isn't drunk thinking, I don't know what is.
Many of his mannerisms indicated he's alcoholic.
When he left, he didn't know where he was going.
When he got there, he didn't know where he was.
When he got back, he didn't even know where he had been.
But what really made him an alcoholic
is a woman financed the whole trip for him.
She did that twice.
Columbus followed a little formula.
You want to write down these key words in this formula.
He followed a little formula that the world has always known.
That if you want to change anything at all,
there are certain things that have to take place.
And the first thing you have to do in order to change anything
is to be willing to do so.
Circumstances are what make us willing.
Trying to find the new trade route to the East Indies
is what made him willing to change.
The second thing you have to do to change anything
is to believe you can do so.
You know, he said, I believe that the world is round.
It's not flat.
I believe you can get east by sailing west.
But his belief didn't do him any good either.
Because he's still standing on the shore of the ocean
the day he expressed that belief.
Some days, weeks, months, years later, he did the third thing.
He made a decision.
He said, by golly, I'm going to go find out
whether this thing is round or flat.
Can you really get east by sailing west?
But his decision didn't do him any good either.
Because he's still standing on the shore of the ocean
the day he expressed that decision.
Some days, weeks, months, years later,
he did the next thing you have to do.
He started taking action.
And the first thing he did, he went to the King of Portugal
to get the money.
But the King of Portugal, being a very astute businessman,
said, there's no way I'm going to let you have this money.
Because you'll sail out there and sail right off the edge of this sucker
and I'll lose it all.
That's why he ended up with the Queen of Spain.
Sweet talked her out of the money
on the promise that he would bring back gold, silk, spices,
and the goody-goodies of life.
She gave him the money.
He bought three ships.
He put provisions in those three ships.
He put crew members in those three ships.
And they began to go east by sailing west.
Sailing west day after day after day.
Now we don't know for sure.
But we have a suspicion that on that first trip
he hired a special sailor,
put him on the bow of the lead ship at night with a lantern,
whispered in his ear,
said, I believe this thing is round.
But if you see the edge of this damn thing,
you holler so we can get turned around in time.
Now after having sailing straight west for several days,
they got results.
They found land on the other side,
which was the result of the action that they had taken.
Now we know that he thought it was the East Indies.
It wasn't.
It was the West Indies.
But he had proven to himself the world is not flat.
It is round.
You will not sail off the edge of it.
Turned right around and came right back to Europe.
Went right back to the Queen of Spain.
And she said, Columbus, where's the gold, silk and spices
you promised you would bring me?
And he said, sweetheart, I'm sorry,
but I didn't find any.
But he said, tell you what I'll do.
If you refinance me, I'll go back.
Trust me, honey, please.
And this time I'll find it.
And she refinanced him.
And he got some more ships, more provisions,
more crew members.
They began to go east by sailing west
with one big difference.
The second trip,
he didn't hire the special sailor.
Put him on the bow of the lead ship at night.
This time he went back on faith.
He went back on knowledge.
The first time he went back on belief.
You can't start with faith.
The only thing you can do is start with belief,
make the decision,
take the action,
get the results,
and then you'll have faith.
Now I would love to sit here and tell you today,
and the decision we'll do,
it's no good unless we take the action.
And that's 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.
As the result of the action,
then we will get results too.
Having had a spiritual awakening
as the result of these steps,
we now have faith,
we now have knowledge,
we no longer believe.
You see, I don't believe today
that God will restore me to sanity.
I know that He will
because He has done so.
Now those of us who have been restored to sanity
and we have the faith,
then we can go back and help the next newcomer
come to believe.
They can make a decision
and we can take them by the hand
and walk with them through the action steps.
Then they will get results,
they'll have a spiritual awakening,
and then they'll know,
and then they can go help the next newcomer
come to believe.
There's only one thing you and I can't do for the newcomer.
We cannot make them willing.
That's a job they have to work on themselves.
Now how does an alcoholic become willing to change?
Very simple.
Drinking lots of whiskey.
I hear people come to AA and they say,
I've been working on Step 1 for 3 years in AA.
And I say, no you haven't.
You don't work on Step 1 in AA.
You work on Step 1 out there.
And when you've drunk enough of that whiskey,
you just can't stand it any longer.
Then you become willing to change.
Then we can begin to help you
by helping you come to believe,
decide, act, and have a spiritual awakening.
Same formula that the world has always used
to change the status of anything.
Now if I know I need the power,
and if I know the beginning of the finding of the power
is just to believe,
if I know the procedure to follow to find the power,
then I only need to know one more thing.
Where am I going to find that power?
And I think we get here just as confused
about where God is
as we were ever confused about anything else.
As a kid growing up,
somewhere I got a picture in my mind.
Now I don't know whether I dreamed it or saw it,
but in my mind when I was thinking about God,
he was a tall elderly gentleman,
stood on a cloud up in the sky,
long flowing white robes on,
long white hair,
golden halo around his head,
and sun rays shooting out of that halo,
and a big stick in his right hand.
Now I don't know whether I saw that or whether I dreamed it,
but one of the reasons I thought God was there
is because every time the minister talked about God,
he always pointed up there.
So I knew he had to be up there somewhere.
But then what really confused me,
I noticed every time the minister wanted to talk to God,
he always looked down here.
He points up.
Hell, no wonder we get confused as kids
about where God is.
And I looked and I looked and I looked and I looked,
and I never could find God
because I never did know where he was.
And it took the big book Alcoholics Anonymous
to tell me just exactly
where I'm going to find him.
Page 55.
You know, many years ago I was working for,
not working, but I was involved in a halfway house in Tulsa
and I was heavily involved
and there was this young man there
who had asked me to be his sponsor.
And he said, well, what do you think I ought to do?
I said, well, it would probably be a good idea
if you had a job, you know,
to start somewhere here.
And he said, well, easy for you to say.
I don't have any car
and I can't get back and forth with no money.
Can't even ride the bus.
And I said, well, I'll take you around
and help you find a job.
And if you find a job, I'll take you around.
If you find a job, I'll take you back and forth
so you can get a couple of paychecks
and then you can buy a car
or do whatever you need to do.
He said, fine.
So I'm taking him back and forth to work.
And one morning he told me a story
that really helped me a lot.
And he said, and this is the way the story goes.
He said there was three wise men of the East, he said,
and they took from man the crown of life,
the thing that would make us the happiest,
and took it away from him.
And they said, well, now we took it away from him,
what are we going to do with it?
He said, well, one of the guys said,
I'll tell you what we'll do.
We'll take it to the highest, highest crevice
on the face of the earth
and the highest, highest mountain
and we'll hide it up there
and he'll never be able to find it.
The other two said, yeah, but you know how they are.
They'll hunt and they'll search
and they'll eventually find it.
The third one said, I'll tell you what,
we'll take it to the deepest, deepest crevice
of the deepest ocean and hide it there
and they'll never think about looking for it there.
He said, yeah, but you know how they are.
They'll hunt and they'll search
and they'll eventually find it.
The third one said, I'll tell you what we'll do.
We'll hide it within himself
and he'll never think about looking for it there.
Page 55.
First paragraph,
optimizing it
He said, actually, we were fooling ourselves.
For deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God.
It may be obscured by calamity, by worship of other things,
but in some form or other it is there.
For faith in a power greater than ourselves,
a miraculous demonstration of the power in human lives,
are facts as old as man himself.
We finally saw that faith in some kind of a God was a 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.
And the last analysis is only there that he may be found.
It was so with us.
So we can only clear the ground a bit.
If our testimony helps sweep away 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.
Now with this attitude, you cannot fail.
The consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you.
A God of your own understanding is sure to come to you with an open mind.
You know, it seems as though all human beings are born
with some basic knowledge deep down inside themselves,
probably lying at a subconscious level.
And that basic knowledge seems to be able to tell us
what we should do and what we shouldn't do.
It seems to be able to tell us how we should live and how we shouldn't live.
And I'm sure a lot of people would like to refer to that
as just plain old common sense.
I think others might want to call it innate intelligence.
Some might want to call it the conscience.
And others might want to call it the soul.
And I don't think it really makes any difference what we call it,
as long as we recognize the fact that it's there.
And if you're anything like I am, as far back as I can remember,
I've always been aware of that knowledge.
There used to be times
I would be getting ready to do something,
and some voice somewhere from within inside me would say,
Charlie, I don't believe you ought to be doing this.
And I wouldn't pay a bit of attention to it.
I'd go right ahead and do it, and I'd just get in one hell of a mess.
And that same little voice would say,
See, I told you not to do it in the first place.
Now if that's true, and if that's God,
then what that means to me today,
if God dwells within me,
then I've got my own personal God.
I don't worry anymore about whether He's the God of the Baptist Church or not.
I don't worry whether He's the God of the Catholic Church,
the Hebrew religion, or anybody else's God.
If He dwells within me, then He's my own personal God,
and He and I can come together in very simple, very understandable terms.
This is one of the greatest pieces of information
that I have ever learned,
is that I can have my own God,
and He dwells within me,
and my knowledge comes from Him,
and through Him, I'll be able to find that power.
Now then, am I ready to make a decision?
You betcha.
When He was the God of justice, when He was hellfire and brimstone,
I wasn't ready to make that decision.
But throughout this chapter, my concept of God has changed entirely,
and I'm beginning to believe He just might be
a kind and a loving God,
and just maybe He'll start doing some good things for me,
not hellfire and brimstone,
and now I'm ready to make a decision.
And I don't think it's by accident
that the very next chapter is entitled,
How It Works.