Naturalistic Paganism

This is a the fifth in a five-part miniseries about the intersection of Paganism and science by Trellia.  This article first appeared at Trellia’s Mirror Book.

“The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”

– Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

Simply put, the second law of thermodynamics states that whenever energy is transformed from one form to another form, entropy (disorder) increases and energy decreases. Read More

This is a the fourth in a five-part miniseries about the intersection of Paganism and science by Trellia.  This article first appeared at Trellia’s Mirror Book.

The other day, a friend and I found an article about how tiny arachnids live on our faces. If you have a fear of spiders this is probably a rather unpleasant truth to deal with. But I try to see it another way… Read More

This is a the third in a five-part miniseries about the intersection of Paganism and science by Trellia.  This article first appeared at Trellia’s Mirror Book.

One thing I’ve really come to respect about Paganism, and particularly Wicca, is that rather than attempting to teach rules and ethics, it teaches wisdom. There’s really only one moral “rule” in Wicca, which is the Rede, “An it harm none do what ye will” — in other words, do what you like as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone or anything. Which is a fairly liberal code in itself, but even then, some Wiccans do not follow it; to quote Pirates of the Caribbean, they might see it as “more of a guideline than a code.” Read More

This is a the second in a five-part miniseries about the intersection of Paganism and science by Trellia.  This article first appeared at Trellia’s Mirror Book.

The Four Elements are, by definition, fundamental to many forms of Paganism, and particularly Wicca. In the modern world however, I find it difficult to reconcile the four classical elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water with the 100 or so scientific elements — how can I refer to the four elements that make up our world when I know that the reality is far more complex? Read More

This is a the first in a five-part miniseries about the intersection of Paganism and science by Trellia.  This article first appeared at Trellia’s Mirror Book.

In today’s world, we tend to think in terms of “science verses religion,” as if they are antagonistic and opposite from each other. But back in the day, this wasn’t really the case; there are plenty of historical examples where science and religion met eye-to-eye, from Christian monks who made and recorded important scientific discoveries, to scientific principles described in the Quran, to the numerous scientists and mathematicians who were also members of the Freemasons, a society in which belief in a Supreme Being is more or less mandatory. Whereas nowadays, many people seem to think that one cannot hold religion to be true if one also holds science to be true. How can one know that the Moon is a vast, lifeless lump of rock orbiting the Earth, and also believe it is the embodiment of a goddess? Read More