Page 72 - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

WE AGNOSTICS 51
fused 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.
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 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 the 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 invention was almost unknown. In the realm of
the material, men’s minds were fettered by supersti-
tion, 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.
We asked ourselves this: Are not some of us just as
biased and unreasonable about the realm of the spirit
as were the ancients about 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. 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 man could never fly? Had not
people said God had reserved this privilege to the