Originally posted by prometheus
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So...sure! I'd be happy to answer any questions you have or discuss anything about the subject.
I guess I should explain my background (both the science part and the pagan part...)
My undergrad is in biology, with an emphasis on EEB (ecology, evolution, and behavior) and conservation biology (I also have a minor in history and anthropology) and I have a masters in environmental science with a focus in environmental and natural resource management, I also just started a graduate certificate (which will probably become a 2nd MS) in ecological restoration. Currently however, I work in the field of industrial hygiene (occupational hygiene for anyone reading this in the UK/Australia) and environmental health (I work for the man). Once my kids get through college, my plan is to take a sabbatical and get my doctorate in UNF's interdisciplinary ecology program...but until then, I get paid too much to be a doctoral candidate (or to go into academia)!! I'm interested in restoration and reconciliation ecology (specifically in the area of watershed management) and the interplay between social and cultural attitudes, conservation behaviors, and environmental health.
I've been Pagan for about 25 years now, longer than I've been a scientist, but shorter than the amount of time that I've loved science in general and various fields of biology in particular. I think I became both because I've been in love with the ocean (and books) for as long as I can remember (my first interest in science occurred two summers before my first interest in Paganism, both by way of books--the former, a biography of Eugenia Clark, an ichthyologist who studied sharks, and the latter, a children's book called The Egypt Game, which inspired my friends and I to start our own version)...after all, if Christians are "people of the Book," Pagans are "people of the whole freaking Library." I was raised though, in the United Church of Christ, which is one of the most liberal and progressive of the Christianities and (unlike many ex-Christian Pagans) I lack a lot of the uber-conservative baggage that those traditions tend to leave behind for people to deal with. I think this is important, because the UCC's (not to be confused with the Church of Christ) overall theological stance is generally compatible with most relevant scientific theory. Unlike many Christians, I was taught that the Bible is often allegorical, rather than literal, and that infallible in intent does not always mean unerring in fact--a book written by man inspired by God, rather that God's own hand must be constantly reinterpreted through the lens of a moral arc bending towards justice. I was raised with the understanding that humans evolved from a common ancestor with chimpanzees and that we are one branch among many in the long and storied history of our planet and with the concept of the Big Bang (my dad loves physics and astronomy). As a Pagan, I started out (where most Pagans at the time probably started, in the days before internet availability) with solitary Wicca via Scott Cunningham and Raymond Buckland, decorated with some inspiration from Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon regarding other traditions, Sprial Dance by Starhawk, and every book the public library had on mythology and other religious traditions and psychology and the occult. I graduated to initiatory Wicca in a lineaged Gardnerian (with some influence from Alexandrian, Druidry, and Egyptian paganism) coven, and then (after joining the military) to a multi-tradition eclectic group practice and a private Wiccan-lite/pan-Pagan mixed with some Druidry.
Today I practice combination of bioregional witchcraft and an eclectic Paganism that combines PIE-derived (proto-Indo-European) traditions and deities and concepts with modern conceptualizations regarding the Earth and humanity. I look at faith from a three-part perspective: praxis (what you do/how you act), doxis (what you believe/how you grok the universe), and gnosis (what you know/what can be "proven")--when it comes to praxis, I'm polytheistic; when it comes to gnosis, I'm agnostic; and when it comes to doxa, I'm a pantheist. I also look at religion as a cultural adaptation subject to cultural evolution that arose (with the other traits that make us human, and somehow different from most other types of animals) as a result of one or more biological adaptations and was essential in our development as a species that could work together in extremely large cooperative groups that are seldom-to-never found elsewhere in nature in such a manner.
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