UpperbucksAAguy

I had always believed in a Power greater than myself. I had often pondered these things. I was not an atheist. Few people really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that this universe originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere. My intellectual heroes, the chemists, the astronomers, even the evolutionists, suggested vast laws and forces at work. Despite contrary indications, I had little doubt that a mighty purpose and rhythm underlay all. How could there be so much of precise and immutable law, and no intelligence? I simply had to believe in a Spirit of the Universe, who knew neither time nor limitations. But that was as far as I had gone.
With ministers, and the world’s religions, I parted right there. (BB page 10)

Why was Bill willing to believe in Science with only minimal proof?

Why did his mind close to the God idea posed by religion?

I read in Bill's story that he is simply making a comparison based on his own experience, interpreted completely by him. Scientific progress was seen all around him. Turn a light switch on and the room lights up. He did not need to know anymore.

"The wars which had been fought, the burnings and chicanery that religious dispute had facilitated, made me sick. I honestly doubted whether, on balance, the religions of mankind had done any good." (BB page 11)

Based on what Bill had experienced, he felt safe in disregarding anything religious folks had to offer.

Bill needed a new experience- In walks Ebby....

Reading the rest of the first 164 we see the result in Bill's changed heart. His past had now become his greatest tool in reaching millions of alcoholics.

"We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it." (BB page 83)

Boleo

Bill got a lot of his anti-religion ideas from his grandfather who was closer to Pantheism than Christianity.

Tommyh

maybe we can best answer these questions by first answering them ourselves?

1-Why was Bill willing to believe in Science with only minimal proof?

2-Why did his mind close to the God idea posed by religion?

I take a shot at number 2

I saw no tangible results when I was young.I was looking in the wrong place.I looked at material and had no knowledge of spiritual things.Drinking gave me a better effect than Church or Praying then.I was also ashamed of some of the things I had done and I asked forgiveness and felt it had not been given me and I stayed ashamed,and as a result I felt if there was really a God,he didn`t love me.I was a reject.My doubt and my conception of God grew worst and worst as I grew older and drank more,and drinking made my mind more twisted than ever.In AA,I learned like Bill W did that I could set aside all that stuff and start over from scratch and I did and it worked.
That concept freed me from the old ideas I had held onto all my life and started setting me free.

The 12 steps did offer me a way to find that spiritual relief - forgiveness
they also gave me a way of life that helped me encounter that Great Reality on a daily basis.

I believe, in a certain kind of way,we are not that different.We all had our reasons and many of us was just like Bill in our unbelief.
But in the end we are all just like Bill,
we came
we came too
we came to believe

awuh1

From Bill's story (also page 10)
Speaking of the talk with Ebby is says
"He talked for hours. Childhood memories rose before me. I could almost hear the sound of the preacher's voice as I sat, on still Sundays, way over there on the hillside; there was that proffered temperance pledge I never signed; my grandfather's good natured contempt of some church folk and their doings; his insistence that the spheres really had their music; but his denial of the preacher's right to tell him how he must listen; his fearlessness as he spoke of these things just before he died".

Here is a section of a talk Bill gave at Pearl Harbor in June of 1945. Also speaking of the same conversation with Ebby he says,
"Even so, I was irritated, because he had struck a blow at my pet philosophy of self-sufficiency, and was talking about dependence upon some power greater than myself. "Ah yes," I thought, as I went on drinking, "yes it’s this preacher stuff. Yes, I remember, up in the old home town where my grandfather raised me, how the deacon, who was so good, treated Ed MacDonald, the local drunk - as dirt under his feet; and more than that, the old son of a gun short weighted my good old grandfather in his grocery store. If that’s religion, I don’t want any of it." Such were my prejudices. But the whole point of this was that my friend had got onto my level. He had penetrated my prejudices, although he had not swept them all away."

Keep in mind that this grandfather raised Bill (from about age 11(?) after his father abandoned the family and his mother went to medical school), so he had a good deal of influence on Bill.

Tommyh

ty
that might be why Bill used the word prejudice so much in chapter 4