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?

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.