Charles H Troe

We Are That We Are Charles H Troe

Is it possible to reconcile personal spiritual experience long attributed to belief in and reliance on a higher power, with realization that the laws of nature, especially modern physics, do not accommodate the existence of a god unbound by those laws? The author discusses the Christianity of his youth, a long period of agnosticism, and his spiritual awakening in connection with recovery from alcoholism. A comfortable spiritual home for nearly 40 years then fell to the inescapable realization that a supernatural god cannot exist in our universe. The author reviews the history and substance of the philosophical and scientific building blocks that lead to his understanding and embrace of naturalism. He describes Spiritual Existentialism, a philosophy based on human action defining human essence. Human experience includes phenomena we call spiritual experience that, although real, occur only in and among human beings whose amazing brains and emergent consciousness have enormous capacity for communication and empathy. Life can be every bit, even more, meaningful, fulfilling and wonderful without, as it would be with, the existence of a supernatural god.