Comments on: Science and Magick

By: definitions « …so inclined, so fatal

definitions « …so inclined, so fatal — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 06:22:54 +0000

[…] Then I found these articles: http://evangelicalatheist.com/2005/11/16/science-and-magick/ http://the-goddess.org/blog/2005/11/evangelical-atheist-science-and-magick.html http://www.the-brights.net/ […]

By: Morgaine Swann

Morgaine Swann — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 04:38:03 +0000

Rambozo - So you don’t believe in religion, but you’ll presume to dismiss mine as less legitimate than another? Sorry, but that’s awfully presumptuous. I’m not a surly teen-aged girl. I’m a thoughtful, well-educated adult who has simply reached a different conclusion than you have. Like our fundamentalist bretheren, it would serve you well to remember that you MIGHT be wrong… Any position that claims to have the one and only truth is dangerous. The problem is not religion - the problem is fundamentalism/literalism. That median level of moral and ethical develpment that we should outgrow in our late teens, but which most people never do, is what makes it difficult for us all to get along.

Skinny Dwarf - sorry you came away from Wicce with such an inaccurate picture of the nature of Goddess. The names may vary, but the conscious force they address is quite substantial.

LBBP - You are citing science from 1964. I am citing science from 2004, specifically an article published by two Physicists at the University of Vienna, Drs. Caslav Brukner and Vlatko Vedral. Read more here. I don’t ascribe magickal properties to things which do not exist. I simply know that reality is more complex than our current sciences can measure or define, and I know that the underlying principle of magick- all space is here, all time is now - is true in the realm of quantum mechanics.

I see a marked tendency among posters here to assume that I haven’t done my research. I assure you, there is a basis for every position I take. Are you incapable of imagining that I might have a resource or an experience that you have not encountered? Or that two individuals might examine the same data and reach different conclusions? That there’s something you don’t know? To dismiss my ideas without considering the basis for them is poor science as well as poor manners. We won’t get anywhere if we don’t have a basic respect for each other.

By: Rambozo

Rambozo — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 23:26:52 +0000

I’m not sure how you can even classify Wicca as a religion. It seems to be a wild-card, a “make your own religion” kit for surly teenage girls desperate to avoid conformity at all costs.

If they had some semblance of consistency I could be persuaded to take them more seriously as a coherent, legitimate religion.

By: skinnydwarf

skinnydwarf — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 22:55:47 +0000

Wicca was a “gateway religion” to atheism for me. I think it might have something to do with the fact that Wicca acknowledges that the gods/goddesses your worship are pretty arbitrary (sp?), that they don’t *really* exist, you just pretend they do to worship some sort of universal power that different people worship differently. From there it is a small step to say that the universal power doesn’t exist (in my case this came from my exposure to the writings of Carl Sagan and the philosophy of science), and therefore no gods exist.

By: LBBP

LBBP — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 19:28:41 +0000

I cross posted more of this comment on Morgaine’s site, but since she brought up entanglement and time in her original post I thought it would be appropriate to include it here. I also posted yesterday in response to a comment and post of hers.

The notion that quantum entanglement must have a supernatural aspect because we don’t yet fully understand it, is no different than ancient man worshiping fire because it was not understood, yet offered great power.

Entanglement has properties that appear to test the limits of time, however there are other possibilities and none have been demonstrated as more or less likely than a mutable interpretation of time. Back in 1964 physicist John Bell imagined an experiment with detached pairs of entangled particles, that would be simultaneously measured by experimenters separated by a large distance and predicted the outcome based on three assumptions. First, given a choice of primary aspects “A or B” that the experimenters could choose freely which one to measure. Second, he assumed the experimental results will reflect some real, pre-existing property of the particles and their local environment. And third, that no influence can travel faster than light, so if the measurements take place at virtually the same time, what happens at one end cannot possibly affect what happens at the other.

Bell showed mathematically that, if these seemingly plausible assumptions hold true, then experimentation should support these assertions. However, experimentation has consistently done the opposite. Based on our current understanding of Quantum entanglement, at least one of these assumptions must be wrong. The ramifications are profound to say the least. Assumptions one and two touch on the possibility of determinism and whether we, really do have free will or not, assumption three flies in the face of Einstein and opens up all kinds of Sci-Fi possibilities like faster than light travel. None of them have been eliminated yet.