Science and Religion - A Wiccan Perspective
Way back in the day (namely called the “dark ages”) religious leaders feared the rise of science, believing it would lure people away from their faith. That struggle still goes on in various places (Kansas the most well-known) and the question is often asked of religous scientists how they reconcile their faith with their scientific training.
I won’t answer for any other religion, but I don’t see any conflict between Wicca and science. I am currently a chemistry major, and have been taught about molecules, atoms, protons, electrons, nuetrons and chemical bonds. This is all taught as scientific fact, but here’s the catch: no one has been able to see an electron. No one has seen an individual atom. No one has seen an individual molecule, not even a large biochain.
The irony here is chemistry is a science, while magick is often labelled “superstition.” We are taught to believe that molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles exist and behave a certain way. Not much different from Wicca: we are taught that the energies and spells exist and work in a certain way. We can’t see the energies and forces that work in our lives, yet we are certain they are there and they follow certain behaviors.
There are things science can’t explain yet. That doesn’t invalidate science … we simply say we don’t have the technology or theories to explain those things yet. There are things Wicca can’t explain (Kyle has brought up Hitler in the comments of this post) but just as for science, perhaps we just don’t have the ability to explain yet. That doesn’t invalidate Wicca any more than it would invalidate science.
Ultimately, it’s called “belief” and “faith” for a reason. If you prefer to believe in electrons rather than the gods that is certainly your choice and you are free to make it. I just don’t think anyone who believes in electrons can rightfully criticize someone who believes in deity, as some are wont to do. A couple other scientific Wiccans who blog are TheWiccanScientist and Witches and Scientists.
Posted on April 24th, 2008 by Darwin
Filed under: philosophy
I agree completely that science and belief are totally compatible. I’d even go further to say that, the more we learn about science, the more we can realize how awesome creation really is.
Honestly, no religion can explain everything. There are mysteries in life, the solutions to which the Divine seems to have completely obscured from us. But the explanation that we essentially “have to take what we dish out” is so clearly false, not just in extreme examples such as Hitler, but in everyday life. Babies suffer and die without ever having the chance to deserve that suffering. Charity workers are killed while offering comfort and aid. Horrible people ascend to positions of wealth and power.
But the Law/Rule of Threes/Returns is so often repeated, taught and believed as moral truth, as the only rule that need guide human conduct, then it has to be able to withstand questioning. After all, in science, a law is disproved by one exception. The minute someone drops a bowling ball and it flies up in the air in the absence of some other force, the law of gravity has to be scrapped. If the rule is that every object with mass contains a force that attracts it to other masses, all we have to do is find one mass without this trait to disprove the law.
We can’t (and I suspect never will be able to) disprove the belief that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. We can’t disprove the belief that bad people have a rough time with their reincarnation. However, unless the Rule of Threes/Returns incorporates some sort of post-death facet, all we need do is look around to see that it doesn’t hold water. If it doesn’t hold water as a “law” in this life, I fail to understand why it’s favored and taught in place of a post-death reward/punishment belief such as those found in Christianity/Judaism/Islam/Hinduism/etc.
Ugh, it’s late. Did that make any sense at all? Thoughts/ideas?
Heya:
Thanx for the shout-out to my blog. You have a cool blog.
The law of three presents some interesting problems for those of a scientific bend. Sort of seems a violation of Newton’s laws, as well as thermodynamic laws. But I think it was Starhawk who explained it best: you get your bad karma via a physical route, but you also pay a psychological price, and also a spiritual price. Hence, you get it back 3x.
‘Why is there suffering?’ type questions seem more a problem for the Abrahamic monotheists, than they do for polytheists. If you buy into a big daddy paternalistic guy sitting up in heaven in judgment of everything, then you sorta have to blame him for the bad stuff that happens. But our polytheistic Gods and Goddesses let us think for ourselves and be responsible for our own actions. And when bad stuff happens to good people, it’s really has something to do with the random nature of the universe, not something anyone did wrong, or some error in religious dogma.
best,
Gene
I still don’t see it. To dust off an old chestnut, I’ll return to Hitler (it’s just a well-known and striking example, I really don’t like the guy much, trust me).
He deteriorated physically, but his body never suffered the way his victims’ bodies did. He deteriorated psychologically, but I doubt that his dementia, even as it progressed in his final months, came close to equaling the psychological damage that he inflicted on any one of millions. And spiritually… I can’t understand how one spirit could possibly receive adequate punishment for deeds of that cruelty, at least not in this life. Again, you have to incorporate reincarnation or a “hell” of some kind in order to make the spiritual punishment fit the crime, and if you’re doing that anyway why do you need the Law of Three? I was familiar with Starhawk’s argument, and considered bringing it up the other day, but I doubted it would get anyone on either side of the aisle any closer to a good answer.
I can assure you that belief in a “big-daddy paternalistic guy sitting up in heaven” does not make one incapable of thinking for himself/herself. Read my other posts and see if any thought went into them. I’d wager that even those who disagree would give me some kudos for making legitimate arguments rather than just saying “you’re going to hell” or “you don’t take responsibility for your actions.” Further, I’ve at least tried to remain respectful of others throughout.
It is always irritating when I hear that Abrahamic monotheists don’t take responsibility for their actions, while polytheists do. That must be in a Cliff’s Notes somewhere, because I see it repeated a lot. The major monotheistic religions incorporate the idea of an eternal reward that is earned by the righteous and an eternal punishment that is earned by the wicked. Under these systems, it is the decisions of an individual, made with free will, that determine that individual’s ultimate fate. If that isn’t responsibility for actions, I don’t know what is.
It’s with the polytheists that I see the greatest problem with personal responsibility. The waters are muddied because I’m sure that most polytheists, such as those I’ve been discussing these matters with, are good people and choose to do right. Their conduct and thoughts are pure, but it is the reasoning (such as the Law of Three) behind them that I challenge.
Unfortunately, far too often I encounter another Cliff’s Notes concept from polytheists which ducks all personal responsibility. A polytheist will do something terrible and shrug it off and say that it’s ok, because they needed to learn something. That is a concept that the Law of Three and the Rede are head and shoulders above, but it seems to be at least on equal footing with them and eventually (/sadly) may become the predominant way of approaching morality in the greater polytheistic community.
I’ll be at the beach for the next two days, free of cell phones, internet and television (and you’ll be free of me). Hope everyone has a good weekend; I’ll say hi to my dolphins for you.
Kyle, enjoy the beach
Just stay clear of jellyfish and sharks so you can come back to the conversation. I am enjoying your thought-provoking comments, and will be tackling this again after finals are finally done.
I’ve only seen one jellyfish in about ten years of going to the beaches around here. Stingrays are much more common, but I don’t mind them. Three baby blacktip sharks swam past me yesterday, but (knock on wood) I’ve never seen a shark larger than two feet at the beach. Fishing is a different story…
It’s strange, a shark is possibly the only creature on earth where a baby is no cuter than an adult. It looks exactly like a shark, only smaller, and it has the same cold, dead eyes that stare right into you.
A large pod of dolphins came out today. They were acting kind of weird. They hung out in the same place for a long time like they were fishing, but were just kind of lazily swimming around. Maybe they found a school of really slow, really stupid fish to eat?
You wouldn’t think that it’s possible, but dolphin babies do somehow manage to be cuter than the adults.
I’m glad you don’t mind me here. I enjoy… well, I hate to say theological discussions because I’m no theologian, but discussions of this nature. Well, that is to say that I enjoy them as long as they stay civil. Atheists seem to be the worst offenders there, with their “Santa Claus and Easter Bunny” remarks.
Wow you have a long finals week… I guess I’d want a lot of time too if I had to study all of that science stuff. Chemicals and wee beasties are all Greek to me.
Hi Kyle:
To loosly quote the pagan martyr Hypatia of Alexandria, “It’s better to think and have been wrong, than never to have thought in the first place”. I’m sure there’s things we disagree on, Kyle, but it’s clear these topics are very important to you. It’s good to think about these issues.
Some people like the dialectic approach in discussing things. But choosing divisive or controversial examples in this process often just leads to argument. So, I wish Hitler was not the starting point on a spiritual discussion. However, is it really up to us to figure out if that monster got his just desserts? It’s great to be concerned with justice, whether it be experience here or in some afterlife. All I can say is that Beltane is one of the high holy days of Wicca and other NeoPagan belief systems. It is a day when we celebrate and honor the life of this earth. On April 30th, the day before Beltane, Hitler took some cyanide capsules and blew his brains out.
You say that there are pagans who act irresponsibly. OK, let’s turn this around: Why not just act any way you damn please, and receive your punishment in heaven? I sure have seen some outrageously bad behavior exhibited by Xtains of the fundamentalist set, then go begging to God to ask for forgiveness. So, it’s ok to act like a sh*t, as God will give me a pass if I pray hard enough? As long as I believe the right things, God is going to forgive me! Exactly who is acting irresponsibly here? IMHO, in the long run, a person’s spiritual beliefs have little to do with how they ultimately come-out as a person and how they treat others. I’ve met Xtians, Pagans, and Atheists, who are great people, and sadly, the opposite is also true.
take care,
Gene
While I understand what you’re getting at with the Hypatia quote, a wrong thought is often worse than no thought at all. “I think we can ride out the hurricane; I think I’m sober enough to drive; I think there are WMDs in Iraq…” Wrong thoughts often lead to disaster, and you would have been better off just doing what someone knowledgeable told you to do.
I use examples such as Hitler because any kind of purported god/deity and their rules governing morality should be equipped to deal with situations like that. If Hitler finds a loophole, then why can’t everyone?
As this is a quasi-science-related post, I’ll use computer science as an example. As many of you may know, when a computer programmer tests a program that they’ve just written, they test it with the intention of making it fail. Every time it fails, they repair the coding that caused the failure. That way, when the program reaches the end user, it performs flawlessly
no matter what the user does to it. Of course, Microsoft is not divine and Word still sometimes breaks when users input something out of the ordinary, like text, but if you can make a “Universal Morality Program” crash by inputting a Hitler, then its Programmer needs to take it back for revisions.
Gene, why is it that every time your posts turn to Christianity, you put your hatred out there for the world to see? As if by cursing, ridiculing our “big daddy paternalistic guy,” and misspelling “Christian,” you’ll hasten Christianity’s journey to “the dustbin,” as you put it. Which one of the polytheistic moral codes encourages, or even allows, the belittling of others’ beliefs?
You over-simplify the concept of forgiveness. Yes, God’s capacity to forgive is infinite, but you’re not going to put one over on God by doing evil with the intention of saying “sorry” later. If you can see the insincerity in that case, I’m pretty sure that God can too.
Heh,
In the examples you start out with, you are confusing ‘thinking” and “thoughts” for self-delusion, rationalizing, and propaganda. Should I be surprised?
Then you say:
“…you would have been better off just doing what someone knowledgeable told you to do.” Uh, sorta like many people did when they were told by “knowlegeable” people that there were WMD in Iraq?
You just can’t resist bringing up Hitler, can you?
I don’t know what has given you the idea that I hate anybody. Of course, I have a bone to pick with people trying to crush the teaching of evolution in the schools, shove religion down people’s throats, and such. I fear there’s people in this country trying to bring about a Dominionist society. That’s not really fair to discus here, as it’s not the theme of this blog–and it’s one reason why I created my blog. But if taking on such people makes me a hater in your eyes, so be it. Also, please don’t misquote me. I never said, ‘I wish to “hasten Christianity’s journey to “the dustbin.’ Hey, some of my best friends are Xtains (heh!)
If there’s something you take issue with over at my blog, please feel welcome to post a comment there.
best,
Gene
“
Exhibit A.
I do apologize to Darwin for the nastiness that has come here because of me. I may only be a lightning rod, but I still share part of the blame.
Here’s a happy story to help lighten the mood. I fish in a bay on the Gulf that, at low tide, gets very shallow. At an extremely low tide, it barely has enough water to float a boat. One time, at such a low tide, my prop got stuck in the mud and the engine died. While I was trying to get unstuck, three dolphins and a little three-foot baby dolphin came over and started swimming around the boat. They stayed until I managed to get the engine started, and then escorted me back to the boat launch, two on each side, and when I reached the channel they blew out their blowholes at me and peeled off. I’d be interested in seeing some new science about dolphins’ interest in aiding “sailors” like me. Truly magical creatures, and I’m very fortunate to have the opportunity to interact with them.