Honestly, we could make a case that witch-hunting and persecutions were pro-science.
Witches and "cunning folk" are people who use metaphysical, occult means of spirituality to influence people and the environment. Witchcraft does not appear, to the dispassionate observer, to be scientific, evidence-based, or empirical at all.
Christendom was in the business of supporting many liberal arts and sciences, in terms of architecture, literacy, mathematics, chemistry/alchemy, exploration, R&D and building of war materiels and sea vessels.
It was the witches who were meddling and using occult means, such as divination, augury, psychological manipulation, and treachery to achieve their ends. It was witchcraft that was chaotic and working against orderly scientific inquiries about the natural world.
The witches were typically working clandestinely, stereotypically in a little hut in the woods, in the shadows. The scientists of Christendom were founding and running universities, seminaries, hospitals, and other institutional centers of learning. They were highly organized and orderly endeavors, and witchcraft threatened the natural and political order of things, which seems to be what science represents, even to the present day.
According to Christian science/theology and worldview witchcraft simple was impossible and belief in it was heretical for most of the middle ages. Witch burnings didn’t become widespread until the early modern period
Necromancy and divination are practices depicted in the Old Testament. Everyone knows they are real, and dangerous.
The fact of practicing occultism or magic is that it may work by summoning/manipulating evil forces. That it may work by messing with things beyond human control and authority.
The Abrahamic religions uniformly forbid superstitions, occultism, witchcraft and all kinds of magic, not because they "are impossible" but because they're uncontrollable and dangerous, for anyone, anytime.
Witches and "cunning folk" are people who use metaphysical, occult means of spirituality to influence people and the environment. Witchcraft does not appear, to the dispassionate observer, to be scientific, evidence-based, or empirical at all.
Christendom was in the business of supporting many liberal arts and sciences, in terms of architecture, literacy, mathematics, chemistry/alchemy, exploration, R&D and building of war materiels and sea vessels.
It was the witches who were meddling and using occult means, such as divination, augury, psychological manipulation, and treachery to achieve their ends. It was witchcraft that was chaotic and working against orderly scientific inquiries about the natural world.
The witches were typically working clandestinely, stereotypically in a little hut in the woods, in the shadows. The scientists of Christendom were founding and running universities, seminaries, hospitals, and other institutional centers of learning. They were highly organized and orderly endeavors, and witchcraft threatened the natural and political order of things, which seems to be what science represents, even to the present day.