Tales From The Travels

I saw how the Florida legislature is debating whether to allow license plates with religious symbols on them. This would be similar to the ones that have college mascots on them. For some reason, its really getting the press coverage. I think a big part is the church/state separation issue.

My take on this is, ’so what?’ We already allow people to put their religious symbols on cars. Then, we allow them to drive their cars on highways paid for with tax dollars. I don’t care for the practice, but I don’t feel my rights are being infringed on. If they want to show their religous affiliation on their license plate, then let them. Especially if it will pull in a few extra tax dollars.

But, I do have one issue with this bill. They are not going to allow just any religious symbols. The only thing allowed will be a Christian plate. Why is it that Christians will be allowed to show their faith, but no one else? What about Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists. And, of course, what about pagans? How can you justify allowing one faith, but not others? This seems to be a state endorsement of Christianity. It is also promoting religious intolerance.

One representative, Rep. Kelly Skidmore, was quoted in a CNN report as saying

…she is a Roman Catholic and goes to Mass on Sundays, but she believes the “I Believe” plate is inappropriate for the government to produce.

“It’s not a road I want to go down. I don’t want to see the Star of David next. I don’t want to see a Torah next. None of that stuff is appropriate to me,” said Skidmore, a Democrat who voted against the plate in committee. “I just believe that.”

In other words, ‘I’m OK with it, but only if its my religion.’ I wonder what Representative Edward Bullard, the bill’s sponsor, would say if someone were demand a license plate with a hex symbol and the words ‘Harm None’ on it.

I have to confess that I get a real reaction if I tell someone that I’m a Wiccan, so you can imagine the reaction to ‘The Wiccan Scientist.’ I think this is mostly due to the misperceptions of what Wicca entails. Wicca is merely a nature-based philosophy rooted in ancient pagan religions. But, that isn’t what most people think it is.

Many people typically think we are Satanists, which is nowhere near the truth. This is something that the opponents to Wicca have been pushing for hundreds of years. This belief is certainly aided by certain aspects of Wicca. Wiccans frequently form covens for the purpose of worship and the pentagram is a common and important symbol in Wiccan rituals. The visage of the male deity is normally depicted as having horns, which opponents to Wicca point to as proof that we are devil-worshippers. In fact, Wiccans don’t even believe in Satan and don’t worship the dark forces of nature. The male deity is believed to embody, and be embodied in, animals (among other things, such as flames) and the horns represent the horns of animals. Of course, this issue is greatly complicated by the fact that there really are devil worshippers and they typically use the pentagram in their rituals. But, just as Wiccans are not devil-worshippers, Satanists are not Wiccans.

Other people think we sit around casting spells ala Harry Potter. Magic is part of Wicca, but the term ‘magic’ is very different in Wiccan usage than in common usage. The everyday use of the word means something supernatural, beyond the realm of science. The Wiccan usage is completely opposite. Magic in this usage means the use of the natural forces, many of which are explained by science and others that science may still be investigating. Acupuncture would be an example of magic under this definition. So would modern herbal medicine. Advertisements fall under the realm of this kind of magic because marketers are using psychology to influence the way people think. For this reason, many times this kind of magic is frequently referred to as magick to distinguish it from the Hollywood version. Practitioners of magic are called witches, whether you’re a male or female. Some Wiccans are witches and some witches are Wiccans, but neither is necessary.

I am not a witch, but under the Wiccan definition of magic I certainly do practice magic. I try my best to influence the way my students think and change their study habits. Some of the methods I use are rather unconventional. And, whenever I do an experiment, I employ the rather mundane laws of physics that I have studied long and hard to understand so that I can use them effectively. We have been studying electric fields this semester and it is interesting to see the students waving wands around in the classroom. If you rub a long rod of non-conducting material with something, such as fur or silk, you will charge it up with static electricity and we can then do experiments with them. This is probably the source of the idea of using a wand in magic. In the old days, the things we are doing would make for a good show and people would pay money to see someone do the experiments we are performing. The difference is that these events are now well-understood and in the past they seemed mysterious because the physics involved wasn’t known. Wicca rejects the idea of the supernatural and so do I. Everything must conform to the laws of nature.

Still, people have problems with this idea. They can be uncomfortable with me being a Wiccan and don’t understand how I can be a Wiccan and a scientist. At the same time, they are comfortable with the idea that a Christian can be a scientist, or a Muslim. And, we all know there are some Jews that have become remarkable scientists. If you point this out the reaction is that Jews value education. This is a true statement, but how does it exclude Wiccans? They think by calling myself the Wiccan Scientist I have crossed over into the realm of the kooks, such as the people that claim there is a giant face on Mars, or the Moon landings were a hoax.

Wicca values education, hard-work, and devotion. It also values nature and our place in the natural world. It is a religion that values peace and tolerance. The interesting thing is that I have essentially been practicing Wicca my whole life. I have always had difficulty with organized religions, even as a child, and have always been drawn to nature and natural philosophy. We lived on a farm when I was born and for six years I was given free reign to run around mostly unsupervised. I was the seventh of nine children and by the time I came along my parents didn’t feel the need to hover over me the way new parents typically do. The die was cast for me from the beginning.

What Wicca has done for me is to put a name to what I’ve always been doing and believed in. It also gives me a chance to expand my beliefs and understanding by interacting with other people that feel and believe the way I do.

So, what I am doing here with my new blog? Simple, I want to share with you the my thoughts on science, nature-based philosophies, and events in the news that fall under those categories. Hopefully, this will lead to some interesting discussions and debates.

I’ve begun a new blog and will be doing most of my blogging through there. The new blog is The Wiccan Scientist at http://thewiccanscientist.blogspot.com. I put a link under my blogroll to the right. (I also added the Astronomy Picture of the Day, one of my favorite sites. I don’t how I missed putting it here for so long.)

I’ve decided that I wanted a blog that was devoted to this idea of melding nature-based philosophies with science. I believe that we must come to grips with this issue if we want to progress for the long-term. There are a great deal of problems in the world and the list is growing. We have the means to fix these problems, but we must devote ourselves to it. A consumerism philosophy will not work going into the future, we have to rethink the way we do business. To that end, I have identified three requirements I believe we need to satisfy:

1) We must learn to live with the planet.

2) We must learn to live with each other.

3) We must educate ourselves to the fullest extent.

This was the topic of my first posting at The Wiccan Scientist and I will follow it up with postings on each of these points.

I’ve received some comments over the last few months that I’ve said some things in this blog that I probably should not have said. I’m sure its true. Now, I’m going to really say something I shouldn’t. I’m going to talk about my religious beliefs. This is something I have steadfastly refused to talk about with anyone, even my wife, when I was married. I always thought my religious beliefs were my personal business and I didn’t want to discuss them. I was not (and am not) interested in trying to convert anyone to my beliefs and experience had shown me that many people would get insulted and angry with me whenever I did discuss them. So, for many years I have just not shared them. But, now I’ve come out and said that I’m going to become a Wiccan, so I decided this would be a good time to explain myself.

Let me begin by saying I am not a pagan. You might ask (and some people do), how can you be a Wiccan and not a pagan? Isn’t paganism a part of Wiccanism? Yes and no. Let me explain.

[NOTE: Let me clarify this point. What do I mean by pagan? I use the word here in the sense of a polytheistic religion, one that believes there are gods and goddesses everywhere and inhabit the stones, the plants and animals, and images. I do not worship images or totems. Neither do I believe that there are multiple gods and goddesses that inhabit the trees and animals. I don't believe in 'holy' places. However, if you use pagan in the sense of a nature-based or earth-based religion, then I am pagan. I believe in one god, but it is a nature-based belief.]

Wicca is the modern day version of ancient pagan religions dating back thousands of years. In the original form, there were two main deities – Mother Earth and Father Sky. There were a number of other deities, depending on when and where you refer to, but these were the principle two.

While I don’t subscribe to this belief, I find it soothingly similar to the yin-yang of Asian philosophies, which I’m strongly attracted to. Men and women are different, but we complement each other. We have fallen into a pattern of conflict between men and women because we are ignoring this. I know several man-hating females and I always see the same pattern – they are trying to butt heads with men head-on and end up hating men when it doesn’t work out. At the same time, women I see that are the most successful seem to understand that they need to bring their strengths as women to the table, while understanding and accepting the strengths men bring. The two complement each other to make a whole – the yin and yang.

Today, many Wiccans are pagans and believe in the Mother and Father. But, an essential part of Wicca is that you may chart your own course. There is no religious figure like Christ, Mohammed, or Buddha in Wicca, so you’re not restricted in how or who you worship. Tolerance is a major part of Wicca. And, intolerance has been the main driving force keeping me from other religions.

When I was a boy in Sunday school, we were told one week that the only way to get to Heaven was by accepting Jesus Christ and worshipping him. If you didn’t, we were told, you were damned to everlasting Hell. I asked about all the people that believed in other religions and was told they would be damned if they didn’t accept Jesus into their hearts. Well, I asked, what about people that have never even heard of Jesus? Damned, I was told. This seemed rather wrong to me. If you never even heard of him, how can you be damned for not accepting him into your soul? What if there is another savior out there that we haven’t heard of yet, are we damned because we don’t know to accept him? I was invited to enjoy the weather outside while the others continued their studies. Seems like that happened to me a lot.

Today, this belief makes me wonder about other planets with intelligent life, for there is surely many such planets. Are they damned because they haven’t heard of Jesus? Does Jesus have to go to every planet with intelligent life and die for their sins? That’s a lot of dieing.

This simply doesn’t make sense to me and even as a kid I couldn’t believe God would do this. Why is it that people in every religion insist that the only way to salvation is to worship their god, their way? That would automatically damn the overwhelming majority of the planet’s people because they can’t all be right. It is more likely that they are all wrong than a single one is correct.

This intolerance is, well it’s intolerable (pretty nifty, huh?). Seriously, I’m dismayed at how religions demand that you not only worship their specific god, but you have to worship the way they tell you to. There is no room for any variation in your personal beliefs.

Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the church door on October 31, 1517 and Christians have been killing each other ever since. Its not enough to follow Christ, you have to follow him the way some group tells you to!

Wicca allows you to follow your own Deity and to do it the way you want. You may join a coven and observe the old ways, or you may be a solitary Wiccan and chart your own path. Either way is ok.

There are other things make me feel Wicca is a good fit for me:

Devil – Wiccans don’t believe in the devil. I never have believed in it. God is supposed to be all powerful, yet there is this entity that He can’t defeat. If the devil is a bad idea, why doesn’t God get rid of it? This is just a way to control people, nothing more. If someone isn’t following the church doctrine, the church leaders could just accuse that person of being lured by Satan. Today, its become the ultimate cop-out. Its not my fault! The devil made me do it! Instead of taking responsibility for our own actions, we have this nifty figure we can always blame.

Interestingly, the standard depiction of the Father god has him with horns. There are two theories about this. One is that this is the source of the belief that Wiccans worship Satan (they don’t!). The other is that this is the origin of the devil having horns depiction. In an attempt to discredit pagan religions, Christian leaders gave Satan horns and made him look like the Father god, who was then guilty by virtue of resemblance (along with anyone worshipping him).

I believe there are only two kinds of sins – ones where we hurt each other and ones where we hurt the Earth. Not liking something doesn’t make it a sin when someone else does it. I don’t like smoking and drugs. But, I’m not going to accuse people that do these things of being sinners. Maybe they made a bad choice, but that’s not the same as a sin.

[NOTE: This may be a bad analogy. 'Do No Harm' means doing no harm to anyone, including yourself. If you are bringing harm to yourself with cigarettes or harmful drugs, that would be sin. A better analogy would be if someone engaged in some unconventional sexual act. If noone is being injured, who am I, or anyone else, to say it is a sin?]

When I first arrived at the academy, I had to attend a new faculty orientation seminar. One of the new faculty said in his introduction that he viewed extra-marital sex to be a sin. I looked at him and told him I had been a baaaad boy! What consenting adults want to do is their business and no one should have the right or power to interfere. I’ve actually had people tell me the only reason to have sex is to make a baby and the only position to use is the missionary one. Anything else is a sin. Hey! If that’s what they want to do, that’s their business. But, they don’t have a right to force their beliefs on me.

Death – Wiccans don’t believe in a heaven and hell. This concept has never made any sense to me. On the scale of eternity, your lifespan isn’t even a blink of the eye. Are you really going to end up with eternal glory or eternal damnation based on what you did during a blink of the eye? I have something of a Jonathan Livingston Seagull philosophy about death – what happens after death depends on how much you learned during your life and you have to keep repeating it until you get the lesson right. This is pretty consistent with the Wicca belief. There are times when this gives me comfort, thinking that death will lead to some new adventure. But, there are times when I feel like I’m doomed to do this one over and over because I’m just not learning the lesson.

Rede – Harm None (Do what you want, as long as you don’t hurt anyone) – This is particularly appealing to me – a ‘you go your way and I’ll go my way’ philosophy. I would much rather have a ‘no fight’ situation than even a ‘won fight’ situation. I’m willing to swallow my pride and walk away from a fight, if I can. However, this is not to be interpreted as meaning I’m a pacifist. I’m not, at all, and I don’t believe in pacifism. If you put me in a situation where I have to defend me and mine, I am quite capable of doing so. But, if we all followed this creed, then there would be no need to defend ourselves from each other.

3-fold way – Wicca says that however you act, it will come back to you three times over. If you do bad things, you will experience three times as much bad stuff. Likewise for good actions. While I haven’t gotten to figuring out it was a factor of three, I do believe that how we act results in what happens to us. This is a simple cause and effect.

Nature – Wicca is very nature-based. I have had a strong affinity to nature since I was a child and find great peace and strength from it. Wiccans believe that man is part of nature. We are allowed to change it, if we need to, but not in a wasteful or harmful manner.

Science based – There is a strong basis of physics, chemistry, botany and astronomy in Wicca. This is very appealing to me as a scientist.

Supernatural – Wiccans reject the supernatural. There are laws of nature and everything must obey them. I have problems with the claim of miracles. A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature and would have far-reaching ramifications. It just doesn’t make sense to me that God would make a rule book and then violate it. Of course, according to the Catholic Church, all saints perform miracles.

Growth – Wicca adjusts and grows with new scientific knowledge. As a scientist, this is very important to me. I am repelled by fundamentalists of other religions that reject scientific advancement, such as in medicine or evolution, simply because it doesn’t agree with their religion. The religion needs to adjust, not the science. Why is it that the oldest religion is the most capable of adjusting and growing?

Teacher/learner – Wicca is a life-long process of learning and teaching. Do I need to say more?

A year and a day – This is how long you are supposed to study Wicca before you become an initiate. When people ask me for advice about buying a telescope I always tell them to get a good pair of binoculars and use them for stargazing for a year. If they are still doing it a year later, that means they are serious enough to invest the money in a telescope. If not, then at least they have a nice pair of binoculars. Wicca is very involved and takes a lot of work. If you are still committed to working at it after a year and a day, it means you’ll stick to it.

Leave a place better than you found it – This has been one of my mottos since I was a teenager. I think I must have learned it in Scouts. It would drive my ex-wife crazy at times. We would stop at roadside rest stops when traveling and I would pick up the garbage. She agreed with me about taking care of our own trash, but she didn’t like me picking up other people’s. I explained to her I just wanted to leave it better than I found it. I think she got it, but just didn’t agree with it. I get a nice feeling of accomplishment whenever I can leave a place better than I found it.

At the same time, there are things I don’t like about Wicca. For instance:

Crystal power – This is utter nonsense.

Astrology – See my comments on crystal power.

Spells – I can acknowledge that certain druidic spells and potions will work in a medicinal manner. Herbal medicine is real. But, come on! Love potions? I don’t think so. But, I sat in church every Sunday as a kid and watched as the priest claimed he was turning the bread and wine into the blood and body of Christ (This is really gross, if you think about it.), so the idea of magick isn’t limited to Wiccans (Magick is the spelling used by Wiccans to separate it from the magic depicted in Hollywood productions and stage magicians.) Even if magick and spells were possible, I would have issues with using it to influence someone without their permission.

So, there you have it. Some of the reasons I don’t subscribe to organized religions and some of the reasons I’m attracted to Wicca. I haven’t actually begun my year and a day yet, but have made the decision and have it planned out. The more I learn, the more comfortable I am.

I have been going through a great soul searching over the last several months that has included examining myself and my psyche. It has been an interesting evolution and I have learned a lot about myself. As a result, I have come to understand myself and my beliefs much more than I ever have before and I have come to the realization that I’m a Wiccan. I think I always have been.

No, I don’t believe in magic and I don’t claim to have any supernatural ability. What I do believe in is to:

- Honor the Divine, understanding It as immanent and transcendent, as well as both multifaceted and as a united, interconnected whole.

- Live life with consideration of others as well as oneself, endeavoring to be of service and to do no harm.

- Celebrate and attune to Nature and Nature’s rhythms understanding this as central to Divine understanding and worship.

- Cultivate virtues, including integrity, honesty, reliability, responsibility, balance, perseverance, empathy, kindness, compassion, knowledge, service, freedom.

- Cultivate balance and moderation, such as balancing intellect and intuition in cognitive processing; work and rest in daily life; time with others and time alone.

- Cultivate good communication and healthy relationships with family, friends, community, and the greater Circle of Life.

These are all Wiccan beliefs.

What is not part of the Wiccan beliefs are Satanism or devil-worship. This is an urban-myth.

I have always been a nature-lover and have routinely communed with nature. It has provided me with a great deal of spiritual relief and strength over the years. I have tried to follow the precepts I’ve listed above, not always with as much success as I would like to have, but I have tried. I have done this simply because I felt it was the proper way to live, now I’m learning that it fits my personal religious philosophy as well.

Now, I’m on a quest to learn more and to get in contact with Wiccans in my area, maybe to find someone who can act as my teacher and introduce me to the community. I’m sure there will be things that I don’t agree with, such as spell casting, but I’ll be ok with those that do believe in them. There are many things I don’t agree with in every religious philosophy I’ve ever examined. The difference is that I was never very comfortable with any of those religions.

I studied philosophy for years. I’ve read Aristotle and Socrates and Plato. I’ve studied Kant. I studied the Bible and the Koran, read up on Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism and seen them all first hand. I’ve worked at becoming familiar with Native American beliefs. I have read poetry, looking for poems that fit my philosophy of life. I’ve read Henry David Thoreau and even the Art of War and several other Asian philosophical texts. This endeavor has been instrumental in my growth and my awakening to the world. But, I never fit into any of those communities. I was a student, not an adherent.

Now, I think, and hope, I’ve found a place to belong.