Page 70 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

WE AGNOSTICS 49
ing 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 and life as we see
it, there is an All Powerful, Guiding, Creative Intelli-
gence, right there our perverse streak comes to the
surface and we laboriously set out to convince our-
selves it isn’t so. We read wordy books and indulge
in windy arguments, thinking we believe this universe
needs no God to explain it. Were our contentions
true, it would follow that life originated out of noth-
ing, means nothing, and proceeds nowhere.
Instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agents,
spearheads of God’s ever advancing 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 all. Rather vain of
us, wasn’t it?
We, who 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 logi-
cal idea of what life is all about. Actually, we used to
have no reasonable conception whatever. We used to
amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual be-
liefs 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 sought
ourselves.