Are Wiccians being intellectually & historically dishonest?

[astro]

Per this article it claims Wiccans refuse to acknowledge that lots of their core claims about their beliefs are conflated nonsense. Does the author have a point?

Witches’ Brew at Winter Solstice
How Wiccans do themselves in.

If, as linguists say, a language is just a dialect with an army, then a religion is just a madman’s fantasy that has failed to die out. Religions gain legitimacy by lasting, and by that measure Wicca is well on its way to being mainstream. Now 50 years old, the earth-centered faith (also known as paganism or witchcraft) has thousands of adherents and many more occasional dabblers in the United States and Europe. Dozens of new Wicca books are published every year. There are dozens of Wicca conferences and retreats. And solstice celebrations are now seen as normal in the United States—and in freethinking Unitarian churches, practically required.

But Wiccan teachings are for the most part a stew of demonstrably false historical claims. There’s no better time to examine this penchant for dissembling than at winter solstice on Dec. 21, which Wiccans say has been their holiday for thousands of years. For it’s just such unfounded claims to old age and continuous tradition that may keep Wicca from growing to be truly old.

[friedo]

No less so than any other religion.

[Evil_Captor]

Why should the Wiccans be held to a higher standard than the Christian, Moslems, Jews and other Great Sky Fairy types?

[Ethilrist]

The Wiccans I have known who seemed like reasonable people all acknowledged that it was all made up fairly reasonably. The Wiccans who seemed like unreasonable people all claimed that it had been passed down from mother to daughter since the dawn of time.

[Revtim]

Yeah, but we need less of that crap, not more. Maybe there’s chance of nipping Wicca in the bud.

[Anne_Neville]

Why should Wiccans be required to take everything their religion says literally, when the rest of us aren’t? I’m Jewish, and I don’t believe that the history presented in the Bible is literally true. In fact, we had a drash (sermon) at our synagogue one Shabbat this fall on how the story of Noah couldn’t possibly be literally true, and that those who insist that it must be are missing the point of the Torah.

Since there are Jews who do just fine not believing that the Torah is literally true, finding the Ark of the Covenant and carbon-dating the tablets, as the author mentions in the article, isn’t going to destroy Judaism. So why should disproof of some historical claims made by Wiccans destroy Wicca?

[WhyNot]

No, the majority of Wiccans are not being intellectually and historically dishonest, as the author you linked writes in his final paragraph:

There’s evidence that many Wiccans may be wising up. Starhawk has backed off her boldest assertions and now concedes that some part of her original historical matrix may not be true. The debatable notion that Hanukkah is also based on solstice celebrations has been floated but has not caught on, even among diehard Goddess worshippers. Both Starhawk and Carol Christ, another prominent Goddess evangelizer, told me they had no reason to believe the Hanukkah theory. Chastened by the attacks on their bad historiography, Wiccans are growing more likely to say that their faith is based on a love of Wiccan practices, rather than on particular historical claims. It’s a heartening development when religious belief isn’t dependent on the latest archaeological findings. Wiccans might no longer have to sacrifice intellectual rigor to get their spiritual sustenance.

Did you not read it all the way through, or are you here to rabble-rouse?

[even_sven]

From what I know, Wiccans are very upfront about the metaphorical qualities of their religion. Wicca is all about providing a set of useful metaphors to help you organize life, understand yourself, and make the stuff you want to happen happen- not through magic, but through figuring out what you truly want and focusing your will. All of the gods and rituals and dancing in the forest is a random front end…kind of a UI for the soul.

There are flakes and wack jobs in every religion, and no doubt Wicca attracts a bit more than it’s fair share. I’ve always been attracted to a lot of the ideas behind it. I think that religion can be useful, with or without a existing higher power. But I won’t get involved because I don’t want to be associated with the wak jobs.