astrology C or D

What chicks dig astrology? who are they? Maybe they were just humouring you?

i'm no good at explaining myself today, i feel.

"You may have difficulty expressing yourself, but persevere and you will be understood"

Surely Mark S should be a virgo.

well no actually i'm pretty dumb myself. i get really disturbed when people who would otherwise be smarter than me fall for it. Especially the ones who say "the astrology columns in the newspaper are bullshit but real astrology is really scientific because its uses lots of maths". BTW i've heard at least 4 people say the same thing about psychology, another false science. No i've changed my mind those people aren't smarter than me, they're just stupid. i don't care how much they know about French philosophers. Stupid stupid stupid. i guess my indignation is to do with it being an insult to my belief system, the same way fundy Xtians get upset when you tell them god doesn't exist - of course my belief system is more dominant so i'm not confronted with it every day.

oh by the way when i posted oh yeah "chicks dig it" i was quoting Dan but the sarcasm probably didn't come through the keyboard and out into the interweb. sorry.

Thanks for yr pomo explanation, Mark. I agree that scientists have acted badly and have helped caused problems such as this, but its also the fault of non-scientists who have neglected to learn (or deliberately forgotten) the basics of the scientific process so they can no longer be actively critical and instead just throw the whole thing out. And neither astrology nor IQ theory are sciences so you can't compare them as sciences.

Over time I have become convinced that there's something to it, based on patterns of similarity I have found between people with the same signs, my ability to guess other people's signs correctly more often than I think chance would allow (though this has not been systematically recorded, and my grasp on statistics is less than stellar), my deeper investigation of my own birth chart, and a disturbingly accurate prediction that was given to me about the course my life would take up to about now by someone whose wife did a progressed chart for me (something I never wanted from them, incidentally). The latter could be explaiend by my having somehow made this prediction come true but believe me, I had far more invested in keeping it from coming true than in "proving" an astrological prediction. Even now I retain some skepticism about astrology.

It doesn't fit in particularly well with the more naturalistic approach to the world that I prefer. Of course, even if there is something to astrology, the explanation could be purely physical, but it's all a bit odd.

i later called my mother & she says, "oh yes i remember that, R would call your father every day for advice... 'is NOW a good hour astrologically to call?? & what should i SAY?'" which i suppose is a healthy mix between codependency and astrological faith... but anyway, eventually R married A and she has turned out to be the most annoying woman ever created, though the couple is deleriously happy still, 15 odd years later. my dad always hated A to no end, but claimed he had known that too from her chart & eventually told R that astrologically he&A were incompatible & he stopped bringing her along on his visits.

so i'd like to think there's something to it. perhaps many people have such a negative view of astrology because lots of folks just read their newspaper horoscopes and think that's all there is to it, when they're obviously extraordinarily general etc - they have to be applicable to 1/12 of the population!

then again, maybe it IS total crap. which depresses me in a way.

(there was an article in the ny times a few weeks ago about how gwb is always crying at public ceremonies (his inauguration, his thanksgiving heroic voyage, etc) and i mentioned it to my mother & she says, "well OF COURSE! he's a CANCER!")

ACTUAL TRUE ZODIAC
AS OF 2000 AD

1. ARIES = APRIL 19 - MAY 13
2. TAURUS = MAY 14 - JUNE 19
3. GEMINI = JUNE 20 - JULY 20
4. CANCER = JULY 21 - AUG 9
5. LEO = AUGUST 10 - SEPTEMBER 15
6. VIRGO = SEPTEMBER 16 - OCTOBER 30
7. LIBRA = OCTOBER 31 - NOVEMBER 22
8. SCORPIO = NOVEMBER 23 - NOVEMBER 29
9. OPHIUCHUS = NOVEMBER 30 - DECEMBER 17
10. SAGITTARIUS = DECEMBER 18 - JANUARY 18
11. CAPRICORN = JANUARY 19 - FEBRUARY 15
12. AQUARIUS = FEBRUARY 16 - MARCH 11
13. PISCES = MARCH 12 - APRIL 18

That, and of course the nonsense promotes irrational pseudoscience.

Shouldn't you be called Dale the Tilted?

Cross-post

Two ppl may have the same sun-sign, be born in the same place etc. but be completely different. There are hundreds of other (rather esoteric) factors to take into account.

crosspost

(xpost)

i was initially replying to nick's post about seeing similarities in people who were born at the same time of year

I don't really have much of an opinion on astrology, but as one of the ancient historians on the board, I'll point out that people have been criticizing astrology for as long as we have written records of it, across the board, and its reputation is essentially entirely unchanged: there have always been people, including very intelligent and/or very educated people, who have believed in it; there have always been people who didn't.

If its efficacy could be proven, presumably it would have been by now.

I've bitten off several unfair responses, but to sum up, pyramids are proof of triangles.

Either way, don't expect to be taken seriously.

There is nothing so vain as self-proclaimed art.

That's no problem. I don't take your understanding of Egyptian astrology and how the constuctors of the pyramids utilised in their work at all seriously. Astology, incidentally, is only 1/3 abot 'prediction'. What you don't clearly understand is that i'm not saying that we should believe in ancient or modern astrology because of the existence of the pyramids, but if we do not want to drown in our own arrogance wh should at least acknowledge that that's how THEY DID IT. IT WORKED FOR THEM. it's more impressive than many things we have dotting the landscape/pointing at other nations' halls of govenment today.

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/363_Transp/Orthodoxy/Yosef.GIF

And Dale, those aren't "Babylonian" dates, but "Sidereal" ones based on the Zodiac that's alternate to the Tropical (read Ptolemaic, read "Western") one..no one ancient culture had a monopoly on recognizing the precession of the equinoxes, hello!! And how that influences the shift of the constellations...now as to which civilization discovered this first it will remain a matter of contention, but according to the Vedas there is an explicit mention of the Vernal Equinox being in the lunar constellation of Pushya/Tishya (the second division of the solar constellation Cancer), and considering how now it's (still - not Aquarius YET, the hippies were 400 years off) in Pisces, that means that Vedicists (whoever they were!) had to be at least somewhat knowledgable of these celestial rotations at around 6,000 years+ prior to Christ. Whoever really recognized the precession first anyway doesn't really matter, since before the early Xian era when Ptolemy standardized the Tropical Zodiacall ( or almost all? not sure about the Mayans since they used a calendar based on Venus, and the Chinese use/d an annual "zodiac" if you want to call it that, so it's inapplicable) civilizations used the Sidereal system. And Sam is wrong - the current Tropical system/dates are about 2000 years off, not 1000; if you pick up the newspaper and it tells you that "the Sun enters Capricorn today since it's Decemver 23rd," that would have been accurate according to the Sidereal Zodiac - meaning the actual constellations in the actual sky - roughly around 280 AD, but it still IS accurate right now if you're splitting the heavens up according to the symbolic, Ptolemaic Tropical one. And simply because there are two ways to split the skies - or two widely used ways, i should say, as that doesn't even include Chinese/Meso-American systems - that doesn't come close to "disproving" anything, but then how can one discuss all that when it's a matter of philosophical, and not astronomical, grounds being debated upon which you may not be fully informed ? Too much of an alternate paradigm, so why waste words? It's been so collectively ingrained now to accept the material alone at the cost of the (metaphysical or) spiritual, that it;s beyond second nature: it's the way we operate, without even giving recourse to the contrary, for the fear of ridicule (or insanity!). =)

And just to add, can i assert here that PERSONALITY ANALYSIS has NOTHING to do with 75% of what's commonly practiced as "astrology" in some parts of the world, which is all about prognostication of certain karmic events ? Funny, but only after the end of the 19th century did psychology-obsessed westerners begin to incorporate such cumbersome "what-are-you-like" profiles into horoscopes, when even a few centuries earlier such emphases on character would have been imaginable; I can only blame Freud's latent impact on this, as well as Blavatsky's (and her followers') explicit one, since in the frenzied attempt to legitimize a newly-fraudulent age-old tradition, countless authors began to incorporate heaps of a newly-legitimate (and yet ultimately also "pseudo"?!) science into their texts, shifting the focus away from prognostication towards psychobabble. A proper jyotishi (Indian astrologer) does not care what your personality is like, since it's transient, an ephermeral matter - the ego doesn't even exist dude (in an ultimate sense)!! "You" are not "a Taurus," your ascendant may have have been in that sign at birth, but it has little to do with the ultimate you!! It's ironic that some of these writers were pilfering wholesale from eastern doctrine to create their new psychological model (while rejecting the Zodiac that the east used), and yet also shameful for rejecting the previous influences of their own excellent western astrologers from ages prior, such as the 17th century Morin, who was quite methodical in his use of domesticities, rulerships, exaltations, et al. They constructed such complex and beautiful and elaborate and intricate systems of analysis that have NOTHING, NOT A THING to do with traditional practice and basics (planets in signs in houses) but everything to do with "integration" and "actualization" and "core development" oh my, oh my goodness shouldn't i have used the word "invented" instead of constructed? Saddening as the psychological theory-biting remains, some of them wri/ote compellingly...Grant Lewi and Robert Hand and Liz Greene and Alan Leo (and even Linda, dear Linda Goodman! RIP), I love you; I hate you, I really, really hate you. So much right now - and forever - but I feel oh so alone...

Sheeeeeot if nothing else this thread can at least inspire me to finish Kate and Julia's charts - and then I should have them testimonialize my unprofessional styleee on here hahaha negatively. There is just such a civilizational (meaning cultural and religious and..) - and zodiacal! - cleft here that whatever I say will rotate over heads... (even though sometimes i still do sun signs, for "fun" - because U NO eye dont hate it)

PS - Supposedly Mr Kepler (who was obsessed with hearing the "music of the spheres" - coming from the planets! and was joined in his astrological interest and practice by other hoary and hairy "fathers" of science like Hipparchus, Copernicus, Regiomontanus, Tycho Brahe, Gassendi, et al - and other cool mysterious peeps like Pythagoras of course) was one of the only western astrologers to get really into harmonics and harmonic charts - the amshas or divisional sub-charts (up to 64) in each horoscope created by sub-dividing the different degree positions - so plz, plz don't bash him. He was awesome

My beef's with those who are still attached the thing like it's fact.

*maybe not

"Girolamo, i think i've discovered something vainer than self-proclaimed art"

crosspost

Go ahead and show me plz exactly when in Indian history did the medieval jyotishis disgaree with the ancients, or where all the "dissenters" were against...the sage Parashara? Varaharmihira? Who ??

Tep you're also wrong with such statements like this -> "If its efficacy could be proven, presumably it would have been by now. " which are made with this grand underlying assumption that astrologers in every culture were sitting around obsessed with trying to PROVE their subject to restore its validity..for whom? If you are an expert at history, you should know that Jyotish (literally the "science -of light" in Sanskrit - yes science! - and light 'cuz it deals with the 7 planetary rays/corresponding to the days of the week) was a vedanga or a "limb of the Veda" - one of the 6. It was very much a part of the religion, then and now, as all religious events AND mundane events were times using it, ( as harmony was idealized, and alignment with the stars above was important for more than just thesake of "ritual")..I just want to know, who exactly was dissenting against astrology in classic Indian cvilization?

Oops, so okay you can pooh-pooh and dismiss my post if you want, but I just want you to show me your irrefutable proof that everything i've said is just complete bullshit. Or maybe you're just complaining against the need to be so damned sensitive..about heaven-forbid, another PC contingent: those who shockingly claim astrology as their religion!!! Just like the homosexuals! Damn DOUBLE-JACKPOT baby...

My beef's with those who are still attached the thing like it's fact.

First of all, beef is a sin. Secondly, what do you mean by "still" ? When were "we" supposed to have abandoned it? 1857? Oh cause right, with all the imperialistic triumph you can easily now say that "we" were supposed to forsake our non-Western beliefs and accept the Proper, Accepted, Official View of the World and How it Operates, unless we wanted to be seen as silly "irrational!!!" sun-(and cow!) worshippers, eh?

As it is I'm an agnostic skeptic but I'm not the lecturing kind.

why is it that it's acceptable to say this about astrology, but if it were aimed toward christianity, or any major religion really, it would be considered closeminded or at least terribly un-PC?

i mean, would you say the same thing about christianity? given all the different branches of both, it seems like a reasonable parallel to me.

http://www.jacquesbergier.org/images/ezdanitoff.gif

Vic, I think the many views that Xians hold are just silly, and ditto for astrologists. I'm not gonna lie and say I don't, and I don't see why it would bother you to have someone think that. I'm sure I have some beliefs that you would think are daff, as well.
WTF does this have to do with homosexuality? They don't have beliefs, besides the belief that some guys are hot and that doesn't seem silly to me. Nice try at tying that in though.

Are you calling me old?????

I see nothing wrong in being un-PC. I do see something wrong in arrogance with respect to such huge issues. But neither's a hanging offence.

x-post Girolamo

But your "why is it acceptable to diss this when everything else is protected" argument is falling flat and just plain taking up too much space considering the "IS GOD REAL OR NOT, DAMMIT?" thread over yonder.

But if a scientist could prove it, I guarantee you the results would be published, because if such a thing were conclusively provable, it would be Nobel-Prize winning, career-making material. As it is, though, I repeat, the ship has left the port. So the idea that scientists are sitting around backing each other up on ideas that "the science community wants you to believe" is pretty antithetical to the reality of it.

being PC all the time is probably a huge dud. but i think it is somewhat wise to at least be a little hesitant to dismiss as absurd things that many people believe in, especially if you're not that informed about the thing in question and/or its popularity is strongest in a country/culture very unlike your own...

Isn't it?

crosspost Girolamo

crosspst oops

(it's hard to keep up here!)

(i know you're being conveniant, but i just needed to say it)

Go ahead and believe whatever you want - but it doesn't change the fact that big expensive projects like the Hubble Space Telescope (which is run by, among others, people that I work with) were funded, built, repaired, and used due to the reliability, predicability, and, most notably, predictability and accountability of science and scientists. I've never seen an astrologer admit to great error either in the content of their prognostications or the processes by which they come to such bearings. That alone is what separates dogma from science - the admission of fallibility.

I don't blab about it to everyone. I rarely ask people their signs, unless I have a strong hunch about what their sign is. Unless I know them rather well, I wouldn't normally say thing likes, "You are doing that just because you are a [whatever]."

I'm leaving this thread. I need to do something with my life, at least for the rest of the evening.

Hold on, who's side are you on?

Oops, I have NO problem with you at all for having different beliefs than me, or thinking of mine as daffy, but that post I was responding to, in it your *tone* seemed to be complaining against having to (annoyingly?) be respectful of oh-yet-another-group, so I wasn't clear where you stood. And you have to remember that it's your own past history - however misunderstood - on here that has garnered you a rep for being a bit insouciant or nonchalant about that kind of thing

Tep, I'm not trying to say that you shouldn't diss astrology because "other things are protected," I was simply following up on that statement of yours, and want to emphasize the civilizational differences here. And I sure as hell am avoiding that God thread, for good reason.

Giro, regarding "direct bearings" - here is what one of my gurus, Chakrapani Ullal - has to say about this confusion...[notice that you may be bringing your pre-formed misconceptions about astrology to the table here]:

It is a popular misconception that astrology would suggest that the planets “cause” events to happen. One could compare this relationship of the influence of the planets on mankind to that of a thermometer and body temperature. The thermometer only indicates, but does not itself bring about the fever, just as the planets indicate, but do not cause events to happen. Rather, they indicate the challenges one has to face during life’s pilgrimage due to causes generated by the individuals past actions.

You are causing the event in your life to happen yourself, not distat planets - but now you have to be careful with that definition of "you" - and how it differentiates from the cosmos? What about the "you" when you're dreaming, or in a dream-less sleep? Don't forget that either.

Really, G, I don't really care what materialstic "scientists" of du jour think in these matters, thank you very much - sorry that line of thinking is totally irrelevant to me. Western science will continue to remain 11 million paces behind Truth ((or Reality)) until it at least solves the problem of defining consciousness, thank you very much. If I had gone back in time to 1803, and attempted to tell the Enlightenment-endeared "scientists" of the day that there are actually invisible rays floating all around that could one day be detected by an instrument called a "radio," they would have locked me up and called me "mad." Now if I tell scientists today that at night I see and hear other sorts of weird things, well since we've "progressed'"so much they would.....oh wait i guess ..hm, no, I guess they would do the same, but use the "schizophrenic" instead. Damn it!!!

Those funny scientists, always behind the times...but that proves they believe in the linearity of Time !! Progress! advancement! Like a straight line, higher and higher...better and better...someone has to link to that gargantuan Aquarian thread I started in February since I kept going on about this there!

You're obviously not on any of the same astrology mailing lists as I. Since when did you get it in your head that We Astrologers and Necromancers Have Assumed the Divine Right of Infallibility?? On the contrary, everyone is very mindful of their karmic account - and you better be!

And I like the way you say "dogma." It's sexy.

And I'm willing to go further - it ends there

- Vaclav Havel

But with my last post let it not be misconstrued that I mean to say that various spiritual phenomena do not have physical (hearing, seeing, feeling) components - it's just a very individualistic thing. There can be no standardization, not at all.

So of course, "madness" ensues. But this is all going way beyond the scoope of this thread.

x-post w/ Oops..I don't hate "science," just have a different defiition of it. Again see that old thread: what modern western science has evolved (or devolved) into is so much in reaction to the religiousity that preceded it..in the West. In the East, WHEN was religion divorced from Science - it was all wisdom, vidya....knowledge is knowledge, either its accurate or not. But right now the West is in a state of schizophrenic cleavage, between what Bible says and what Scientist says - why do you assume it was always like this, with, say the Veda or the Book of the Dead, ?

How can definitions of Science be universal when civilizations have developed differently? Obv the civilization in control likes to presume they are correct - at the time

you have to rememeber Oops, you are drawing assumptions on assumptions here - assumptions of what i believe, and yet also your own assumptions of those beliefs which you may have never questioned in the past , but just accepted because they were handed down to you by the authorities of the day...

just like the medieval Xians. whom the Scientists seem to have replaced

Vic, you believe that stars and other celestial things have a direct influence on the paths that people follow, right? If so, I really don't need to know any specifics, as I am suspicious of anything that claims to know why things happen. (science is concerned with the how, religion the why??)

Excellent tautology there. What the hell it means, I await elucidation.

Why must we sacrifice the intuition for intellect's sake, why cannot both co-exist in harmony in our approaches to the world? Well i kow you'll answer "why" ("observable...facts..."etc) but really, think about the radical pendulum shifting in Western civ 300 years ago, first.

And what if I'm totally defining "consciousness" - and being, and ego, and a view of Time (which is as a river, but in a circle, continuously, NOT possessing linearity) totally different from the outset?

Never these two shall meet. And thats fine with me. I'm just scared of Geeta coming in here and punching my brains out (but then I'd go in a dream state and...!

Actually, yes.
What ARE these 'fundamental truths' and why should scientists come around to realizing them? Again, it seems like you're criticizing science for doing what it's suppose to do, which is not speculate and not fill in gaps in knowledge with something---anything---just so the gap is filled.

2) There are plenty of areas that science openly excludes from its mandate. Science, as stated above, works well within the "how" of the physical world. But "why" (outside of the "why"s resultant from the "how"s) is left rather extraneous. Under the current operating paradigm, if you can't offer up physical evidence for or against something, there is no way to lay claim to it as physical fact. Obviously there are things to which this does not apply - but the fact of the matter remains that if you're going to enter into areas within the mandate of the current paradigm, please at least be of a passing familiarity with the actual scientific knowledge before you go on hitting at this straw dummy of "science".

And this here is just dealing with dreams, and does not mention the innumerable out of body and astral, and spiritual experiences, "common" people, Oprah guests, mystics, saints and shamans from all cultures have been experiencing from prehistoric times. So we like to define "science" as being that which we can measure, or explain, in this state of waking consciousness, rationally and experientially, with only these few simple dimensions using our physical senses, but leave everything else, all other incidents of the shifting of consciousness, that pose a threat to our current world-view, to the realm of madness, since religious fervor (or its corrollary, irreligious wickeness ie, ppl who should be burned at the stake) is now out of vogue. We define "science" to suit our needs best in the materialistic sense and keep our fears about the Unknown at bay - if it is perhaps evoking a change in our consciousness, of which we assume THIS waking state to be the real and/or ultimate, we call it unreality, illness, or fabrication.

Human beings (well initially only those of european descent from the last few hundred years - but now after they've won the world, we can say everyone) like to believe that they are in control of things, especially their own lives and what they see around them. If we see it, our senses alert us to it, hey we can measure it; if we can measure it, it's under our control. There are fixed laws - we know what they are, we know what is happening here is Real and what happens afterwards Does Not Matter since (we must have FAITH here!!!) that No One CAN Know (and you MUST BELIEVE that, unless someone dare think you're ...irrational and/or religious!!). This delusion of control, of being able to manipulate things...hm, isn' t it these underlying conceits which are also at the basis of those fascinating folklore which is birthed from this acceptable science... what we call "science fiction" ?

The Time Machine! A staple of such stories, a perfect example of an imaginary instrument of control that the scientific man wishes to use to his advantage...think of how neat that would be, to go back and forth thru past and future - as if on an airplane!

[What I wanted to post to that Time/Clark thread from a few months ago but refrained from doing so] ->The reason why it "hasn't been invented yet" - nay, why it can't be "invented" or magically "created" as if all it required was an automobile's spare parts etc, is that if one were to really have a "time machine," then couldn't he or she continually keep cheating Death, escaping its jaws whenever "the time" was arriving? We don't consider that since it's not a part of the way of thinking; death is supposed to be irrelevant.

But then even those old time astrologers didn't know all the secrets to Immortality...that was more the province of Alchemy, a sillier pseudoscience!! (esp if u take it literally)

I want science to be something i can trust. I think its being unscrupulous with us all. Yes yes that may not be its job, as you seem to indicate - well what's it there for then. And no, i do not require science to fit MY conception of things, as you are no doubt smugly thinking, but here it is: i think you are devoid of imagination. I think there are any number of paths science could go down. I REFUSE to accept that there is only ONE ROUTE it could take/could have taken, and this is what we've got. But the maths! you will say - well, as i don't have the chops for the maths, i can't venture there. ALL I KNOW, at the end of it, is that i am not alone in wondering about the possibility of a 'new paradigm', and that makes me realize that THERE IS an argument against, and a good one. Sorry, but this boat isn't even full yet, let alone ready to sail.

Modern science is one of the greatest achievements of human thought, a fact in itself that makes me suspect there there's more out there than rational 'us'. But for me, it's not greater than Shakespeare's sonnets. I know which one of these reminds me i'm human, and which one has greater truth.

crosspost to Girolamo!

Or else we wouldn't be thinking about this so much, would we ? And maybe trying to reconcile it with our lives the way we're experiencing them.

As for imagination, I leave that to my head space and my filmic ventures. You can recreate your perception, but you can not recreate the physical characteristics of it. (Perception is everything.)

You see Providence. I see Possibility.

Why do those three words coming from a scientist scare the shit out of me?

Your last post is i would say pretty balanced. And not an unfair assessment of the differences between us.
What you say about paradigms also seems fair enough, perhaps it will take a person of genius to discover a new one that will alter the course of science. From what little i know, some alternative ones have been discovered/set ot, and been rejected by the 'scientific community' (for perfectly good reasons, i'm sure) up to now.

1. ARIES = APRIL 19 - MAY 13
2. TAURUS = MAY 14 - JUNE 19
3. GEMINI = JUNE 20 - JULY 20
4. CANCER = JULY 21 - AUG 9
5. LEO = AUGUST 10 - SEPTEMBER 15
6. VIRGO = SEPTEMBER 16 - OCTOBER 30
7. LIBRA = OCTOBER 31 - NOVEMBER 22
8. SCORPIO = NOVEMBER 23 - NOVEMBER 29
9. OPHIUCHUS = NOVEMBER 30 - DECEMBER 17
10. SAGITTARIUS = DECEMBER 18 - JANUARY 18
11. CAPRICORN = JANUARY 19 - FEBRUARY 15
12. AQUARIUS = FEBRUARY 16 - MARCH 11
13. PISCES = MARCH 12 - APRIL 18

http://dvdmedia.ign.com/dvd/image/xray3.jpg
"Oh no, now I have to start all over."

That, and of course the nonsense promotes irrational pseudoscience.

Oh, like the idea of "protoplasm?"

otm, you don't have to believe in it literally for it to work.

http://www.barrycolyer.com/images/HoHoKus.gif

Your 'sign' only refers to the 30 degree segment of sky which the sun happened to move through at the moment you were born. Tropical astrology segments the sky into twelve equal 'signs' of thirty degrees each. the tropical zodiac always begins and ends with the spring Equinox, the moment that day and night are equal in length coincides with the moment that the sun moves into Aries. So that segment of sky you see the sun in on the Equinox will always be zero degrees Aries.

So, being an Aries only means that you were born after the Equinox but before the sun moved into the segment of sky known as Taurus. The sun may have passed through the constellation of Pisces at the moment you were born, but as i said, the constellations have nothing to do with western astrology, aside from the naming convention that is.

I have great respect for Hindu everything, but I could never get with the literal idea that planets actually effect us very much. The sun, yes, I could see that. Seasons effect our emotions quite a lot. And I'm a hell of a lot more Aries than I would be a Pisces! While reading the horoscope in the paper is more than likely a waste of time or worse, it seems entirely possible that being born at certain times could have an effect on you and your parents and your environment. I, for one, have found that certain people of certain signs are shockingly similar to the point where I make mental notes, "that dude has to be a Cancer" or "that chick is a gemini" and I find out eventually that I'm right. I'm NOT the sort of person that discusses astrology out loud or asks people their sign or even their birthday, so please don't make assumptions about me the way I do about other people. ;)

I don't believe in it one whit BUT I have found many people accept "I'm a gemini" as an understandable, acceptable blanket explanation for all my idiosyncrasies and tics. It's the easiest way to explain away!

I don't put any real stock in this shit but I do kinda dig it when shit written with some degree of specificity (not "you are passionate," say) ends up hitting hard.

one of my best friends is an astrologer and takes the charts and the houses quite seriously (he's even done a correspondence course on it), but has never put it down to an exact fact or science, treating it more like an aspect of psychology/self help rather than something that should be taken as gospel.

It's weird, astrology seems to be a kind of logical blind spot in many otherwise perfectly rational people. I can't see how anyone could think it was anything other than pure nonsense.

A number of people have told me I'm a very atypical Scorpio like I was doing something wrong or was some kind of fascinating case study. It pisses me off.

I do think what time of year a person is born affects their upbringing and relationships; one reason yr average Leos seem to socially dominate is because they're the oldest kids in the school year, for example. OTOH my grandfather was an astrologer disguised as an extremely practical, golfing-mad Swedish-American.

I do think what time of year a person is born affects their upbringing and relationships

I agree it does have an affect. It's only one small influence amongst thousands though.

shit written with some degree of specificity

A psychic astrological spiritual tarot tea-leaf personality reading just for YOU

PS I am a typical libran.

Suzy, that might be true. I was born late in the year and identified and befriended the class one year behind me.

ledge do u follow charts that shit is uncanny dogg

There is simply no way to take anyone who believes in astrology seriously. No way at all. Total deal breaker. I am an Astrolocist I guess.

There's a great Penn & Teller 'Bullshit' episode on Astrology that just skewers it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AyTbLqSBfI

Patrick Moore's an astrologer and he seems pretty together.

the only thing worse than people who believe in astrology is people who give a shit whether anybody else believes in astrology imo

meanwhile, here's a picture of some storks

http://www.birdfinders.co.uk/images/white-stork-2-spain-2006.jpg

the babies are all Geminis, except the one on the left who hatched a day late and is a Presbyterian

http://www.birdforum.net/opus/images/thumb/b/b1/Great_Egret.jpg/550px-Great_Egret.jpg

This Egret couldn't give a toss about astrologomy, but he is a trained Raiki healer

Dead Grebe

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ZRzXX0ToUcU/SUHlB5YEE_I/AAAAAAAAADQ/OQc3z-zxrfs/s400/Oil-soaked+dead+grebe-small.jpg

he only thing worse than people who believe in astrology is people who give a shit whether anybody else believes in astrology imo

― Steven Tyler the Creator (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, May 14, 2011 12:47 PM (50 seconds ago)

I think it's worse not to care that ripping off the gullible and dull-minded and advising them what choices to make in major life decisions is a huge industry that is built on fraud.

http://www.pinmill.me.uk/kookaburra.jpg

Would you buy a used car from these kookaburras?

omg those kookaburras

Noodle vague, I've seen this tack on ILX a lot, the posting of random pics in threads that irritate. What's the history behind it?

thirdalternative I think people are independent actors who all have the same information available to them so they should do whatever makes them feel good as long as it doesn't hurt others, which is exactly what people who choose to believe astrology are doing, but please do continue blowing minds on your mission of truth

Astrology can hurt others, people often make major life decisions (career, marriage, location, finance) based on it, decisions that affect others around them. Think about Nancy Reagan advising Ronald based on things her astrologer told her.

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Birds/NewZealand/RareBirdsOnTiritiriMatangi/TakaheChick.jpg

When u prove astrology is made up on your hilarious wingnut TV show, u make baby Takahe very sad

Astrology can hurt others, people often make major life decisions (career, marriage, location, finance) based on it, decisions that affect others around them. Think about Nancy Reagan advising Ronald based on things her astrologer told her.

― thirdalternative, Saturday, May 14, 2011 6:05 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

Your husband was an ex-hollywood actor and then the President of the United States. Tell me, Nancy, where did it all go wrong?

i reconnected w/an ex on facebook and apparently she's an astrologer now, even published a book on the subject. my feelings re:astrology are pretty much like aerosmith's but there is something funny & disquieting about my old gf, don't remember her as new agey. first reaction was "what an odd career change for a journalist" but upon reflection...

How did I never know about the takahe before today? What a perfect bird!

If you're cool with astrology you may as well be cool with faith healers like Benny Hinn as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg

Noodle you are kind of a dick.

I don't even think astrology is fun. Tarot cards can be good spooky fun, especially on a rainy night in a dark room with a bottle of wine.

at last somebody who understands me

Noodle you are like the reigning member of the ILX thought police.

Astrology is the best bcz if I do something that doesn't make any sense I can say, "I'm a gemini" *shrug* –– for some reason everyone accepts this. Either because A) they think 'shit this girl is crazy she believes in astrology I won't try to reason with her' or B) ppl think believe in astrology apparently think geminis have a license to be sillypantses. As long as I don't have to explain my actions, I'm happy either way. Thx astrology.

Hah!

Try it, you will change your mind about astrology. Penn & Teller will never penn or tell you this kind of useful tip.

ok. this is about the third thread in as many days where you've been dropping the "people who believe in stuff that isn't real are soooooo stupid, not like me" challops. i don't get why. do you think people on this board are going to debate with you as to the merits of astrology or evangelical christianity or whatever? because those kind of debates clog up quite enough of the internet and i don't see them adding much to the sum total of human enlightenment. are you hoping to convert somebody to your point of view? do you wanna think about what exactly we mean by belief and the extent to which it impinges on the things people do in their day to day lives? cos this kind of "dumb people are dumb" grandstanding is Bush League imo. and i wd rather look at pictures of beautiful birds than encourage ILX to turn into another tawdry "brights vs sheeple" pie fight

now i'll go back to being a dick, if that's okay

http://www.discoverislay.com/images/islay_wildlife/birds/islay_birds_linnet.jpg

noodle & his birds otm

there is actually shit worth giving a shit about but whether people enjoy imagining that their destinies are written in the stars is 100% not one of them

3rdAlt otm on astrology
NV otm on 3rdAlt
Every 1's a winner baby

the Torah says it's forbidden to prognosticate the future or to read signs. that didn't stop King Saul from raising the dead tho! (he got told he'd get owned tho after he did it). also ancient Israelites it turns out were astrologizing all the time for example:

http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/1648876-L.jpg

so much badass astrological stuff tho. search out this guy's diss: http://www.smoe.org/arcana/diss.html which is a decent survey. also this guy who was one of my advisors in undergrad and does incredibly cool work in Zodiac in antiquities:

http://www.bookreviews.org/PublicImages/7493.jpg

In modernity, Aryah Kaplan is this neat guy who writes a bunch about Zodiac/Astrological type stuff. He died in his forties but his material is really popular (especially in the Kabbalah Center AND charedi community so you know he's doing something right). My friend knows all the Italian renaissance stuff and what's good and what's not. Anyway, I say search all that out. Lots of interesting weird esoterica.

hey abbott! you will probably really like the pukeko too:

http://www.totarabank.com/pukeko.jpg

abbott -- half the ppl in my family are geminis including me, my brother, my sister, and upcoming baby! gemini-convention!

Sweet birds itt.

"This Egret couldn't give a toss about astrologomy, but he is a trained Raiki healer

― wanking on the moon (Noodle Vague), Saturday, May 14, 2011 12:51 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink"

There's the girl who I sometimes wind up hanging out with because she's friends with a friend and she's a Reiki healer. A couple months ago she started telling this story about how her boss's energy had been "all wrong" and how she'd made her lie down so she could heal her and blah blah blah. I could only stand about 10 mins of this before looking at my friend and nearly cracking up. I had to pretend to need the bathroom. Then I felt bad for being so cynical about shit like this but it's such BS and she's exceptionally annoying in general but especially when talking about this stuff.

Although I do like Abbott's take on this but I'm always on the lookout for stuff I can use to explain away my shitty behavior.

oh man i spelt Reiki wrong, my chakras must be out of alignment or something

u need healin stat

yeah also i am hot just like an oven

Noodle, this stuff isn't harmless, that's the point.

u've convinced me thirdalternative. i'll never pay someone to tell me my fortune again unless i'm bored again and i think it'll be fun oh wait do you think that's why most ppl do it?

can you start a thread about how RealDolls tm aren't healthy surrogates for real relationships?

the entire advertising industry to thread

sometimes i see ads that make claims that aren't true and i wish someone could teach me to be more skeptical so i didn't spend so much money on 3in1dishwashingcuttingcleaningironing-exercise machines :'(

It's a floor wax AND a dessert topping.

cosmetics manufacturers make an awful lot of money out of people's insecurities

Have you no sympathy for poor Winona Ryder in Reality Bites? Her phone bill!

xp

Astrology is seductive because, looking at the basic theory, it actually makes good sense, once you grasp that everything in the universe is connected. Stars and planets are so big and such a huge part of the universe that of course they must be connected to our lives, right?

The fly in the ointment is that, once you get past the basic theory down to any of the details of astrology it runs off the rails immediately. Whatever part of it seems to be true is so vague that it could be duplicated by informed guesswork. And whatever is specific and concrete about its predictions (very little, btw) can easily be proved to be no better than random chance.

As thirdalternative points out, when people start making life-altering decisions based on the more specific advice of astrologers, the results can be ugly.

In my experience, amateur astrologers are simply convinced of the truth of astrology, and rarely do much actual harm, mainly because they have only a minimal belief in their own powers of interpretation. Astrologers who claim to know the future with great certainty and who make use of astrology to acquire power over the lives of others are out-and-out con artists and should be treated as such.

However, attempts have been made to ban astrology in the past have failed miserably. The Roman emperors tried to ban it because astrologers were constantly being consulted by rich and powerful people, not simply about their own lives, but specifically about the emperor's future, which struck them as very dangerous, because it gave courage to their potential rivals. It just confirmed the belief of the general populace in astrology and drove it underground.

So, all you can really do is point out its ridiculous errors and let nature take its course. It won't die out any more than the drug war has eliminated drug use.

are you saying I can't tell if somebody's a total sex bomb based on what month they were born? shit.

Thank you aimless, for responding in a reasonable manner and for not posting a pic of a bird (thus bumping the thread you don't like anyway, what's the point, noodle?).

Another baffling aspect of it: ok, I'm wrong to call people who believe in it stupid, as there are people who are otherwise intelligent who buy into it. Just like a number of people who seem otherwise reasonable will suddenly talk about a "shift in consciousnss" (whatever the fuck that is) in 2012. The mind boggles.

I think of my otherwise grandfather, an engineer and seemingly above-average smart if remote and grouchy guy, who we found out after his death had sent 50K to Rev. Schuller's Crystal Cathedral over his lifetime. So I'm like, Schuller bilked my grandfather, damn.

Sorry, I'm baked.

Someone actually once tried to explain astrology to me in terms of science, like how your planet actually affects your psychology. What about Chinese astrology, like goat or chicken? How can everyone born in a certain year have the same personality?

I think I speak for thirdalternative & myself when I say that Chinese astrology is 100% accurate - the only astrology we're specifically against is Vedic astrology

omg the pukeko

Also Mordy, the Viceroy is a gemini – once again, if someone was like "why aren't you hanging w/your husband?" I could say, "Two geminis, you know! I need me time!" And they would either say "..." or "lol it's like there's four of you."

Either way it kept me from having to talk about my relationship (yucko!).

tbh I don't really know anything about geminis except the #2.
I can tell you the best birthday party I ever went to was "year of the occult" themed and everyone wore lil nametags with their primary star sign. It turned into a battle between signs at leg wrestling (not saying who from 2001-2007 decided leg wrestling was the thing to do at every party). So I also know form this party that geminis are the best at leg wrestling. That's just private knowledge I get to carry in my heart. Also in my legs. Thanks, the stars!

are you saying I can't tell if somebody's a total sex bomb based on what month they were born? shit.

actually it's if they were born between Oct. 23rd and Nov. 21st ...iirc?

Abbbottt makes some very good points. btw, I am a scorpio, so plz do not reveal my incredible sex-bomberness to any unauthorized personel.

Cancer and my name is Redd.

Is there any potential astrological explanation for the great ilx beef from approximately October 12th through let's say the 21st?

syzygy

According to astrologyzone.com:
A lot of challenging developments were coming up as a result of the full moon of September 29. As you enter October, this monster of a moon - one of the most difficult I have seen in three years - is still full of energy.

Is there any potential astrological explanation for the great ilx beef from approximately October 12th through let's say the 21st?

Saturn transiting into Scorpio imho.

i've wondered if the monthly (pisces, cancer, etc...) and yearly (year of dragon, rat, etc...) astrologies ever fight for astrological supremacy or if they've settled on some armistice long ago.

Surely you have to calculate using the age of ilx? Do you count from ILM or the branching of ILE, though?

i would like to meet at least one other homosexual who thinks that astrology is embarrassing bullshit, please

*shrug* "it's fun to think about" THERE'S NOTHING TO THINK ABOUT

i'd be more willing to play along if someone was into like yu-gi-oh cards or something ffs

I have been reading some renaissance history and I think it should be noticed that the widespread belief in the predictive powers of astrology proved to be very valuable to various rulers on countless occasions. Of course, its main use was to discover what kind of advice your enemy (who consulted astrologers) was getting, so you could predict his behavior. An even better secondary use was to bribe the astrologer to give your enemy the kind of advice that would manipulate him into acting the way you preferred. Very handy when hatching plots.

mark s's defense from 2001 is interesting:

astrology's 12-fold categorisation, complete with variants, is a richer, more useful portrait of human behaviour than IQ theory's; the debunker's blanket obsession with the movement of the stars — which is irrelevant, except in tha it provides a helpfully detailed and supervast abstract map-shape of potential movement on which to project — is an admission of the difficulty faced, once the crit begins to focus on people not things.
― mark s, Tuesday, October 23, 2001 12:00 AM (13 years ago)

girls at parties who talk about astrology >>>>>>>>>> boys at parties who talk about being "skeptics" >>>>>>>>>>>>> professional astrologers >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> penn + teller

I read a book on how to do your chart last year, and the writer took great pains to defend astrology as a "science". I must admit - astrologers are good, colorful writers. Their descriptions of personalities are sympathetic and rich.

I don't agree with it but I had fun doing my chart. I did lived ones' and dogs' charts too. One of my dog's charts was really accurate.