Paganism and Science

I got asked once how it could be that a witch could also believe in science. It never really seemed like a conflict to me. After all, Wicca doesn't actually have a Bible (or equivalent) that says how the world was made. So there's no Genesis story to conflict with what we know about planet formation and evolution. Wicca doesn't have the equivalent of Revelation, so there isn't any reason to think that the "end of the world" would be triggered by anything other than a natural catastrophe such as a large asteroid impact or the sun running out of hydrogen. So it's actually pretty easy to reconcile what I know about science with what I know about Wicca.

In Wicca, we believe that the sun, Earth, and moon all play a vital role in the continuation of life. Wicca states that there is an interplay of life-energy between these three objects. In science, we know that the moon is critical for keeping the Earth properly aligned on its axis. We know that the sun provides light, heat, and radiation. We know that the Earth generates in invisible projection of force that allows in light and heat but screens out the majority of the harmful radiation. So Wicca and science are not at odds.

Compare that to Christianity, and you get many conflicts. For example, in the Bible, the Earth is thought to be about 6,000 years old. The Bible cites the sky is a dome, not a spherical envelope. It states that the entire ecology of the planet once fit into a cargo ship. The Bible does not allow for evolution, plate tectonics, orother planets. In fact, the Bible disallows nearly every kind of science. The Bible cites natural disasters as acts of an angry and vengeful God. It is impossible to reconcile Christianity with science.