What do you think of astrology?

@Zetherin,

Quote:

You're just arguing for the sake of arguing, and being brash for the sake of being brash.

Chumly - are you a fire sign?

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@aidan,

that is how people become wrapped up in various belief systems; as they etablish a pattern of behaviour, it soon turns into a habit that they feel they cannot give up at any cost, and the behaviour and the belief that goes with and makes sense of it perpetuate each other. thats how beliefs form vicious, fixed patterns of behaviour that people seemingly cannot get out of.

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@existential potential,

I agree with that theory.

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@Zetherin,

Zetherin wrote:

It really doesn't appear as if you even want to discuss the matter civilly. You're just arguing for the sake of arguing, and being brash for the sake of being brash. I explained what I meant, and it is clear that I misunderstood what you meant. There's no need to take this any further.

I have been most civil in fact, however your apparent desire to remain ignorant is your burden to bear not mine. As discussed Wiki is likely your friend.

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@Zetherin,

Zetherin wrote:

It really doesn't appear as if you even want to discuss the matter civilly. You're just arguing for the sake of arguing, and being brash for the sake of being brash. I explained what I meant, and it is clear that I misunderstood what you meant. There's no need to take this any further.

Nooo, he's being hilarious as per his posts.

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@Chumly,

I would guess Chumly is a confrontational Aries - or possibly a stubborn bull Taurus.

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@aidan,

...and then people caught up in this process of belief and behaviour become dependent upon it, because its no longer just a "belief", its their "entire life", and so if it were taken away, then their lives would become meaningless to them.

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@existential potential,

I don't know if I'd go that far.

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@aidan,

what do you mean?

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@existential potential,

I don't know if I believe that any one belief is anyone's ENTIRE life - aside from those who descend into fanaticism and obsession with a belief.

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It was a pleasure chatting with you all, no ill will towards any and all!

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@aidan,

I think that for some people, there are certain basic beliefs, such as belief in God, which they depend on for the meaning in their lives. if that or any similarly important belief someone held was shown to be false, then that would have a serious affect on their lives, so they avoid the possibility that their fundamental beliefs could be shaken.

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@existential potential,

I understand what you're saying. I have a friend who built these elaborate fantasies, he had a mental illness...and at first I felt that it was my duty to disabuse him of these weird notions and let him know that I knew what he was saying wasn't true, and then one day I thought about it and I realized that these fantasies were his coping mechanisms and if I stripped him of them, he might be unable to cope with the bare reality, and the understanding that the elaborate facade he'd created was gone.

But I think people like that are the exception rather than the rule. I think most people have more and other diverse aspects of their lives that will help them continue to function when one or another 'delusion' is stripped away.
At least I hope so.

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@existential potential,

Quote:

does anyone else on here think that astrology is a valid subject?

Not really, because it doesn't seem plausible that an astral body's position in space-time would likely effect one's life uniquely. But I'll not go so far as to emphatically say it isn't true. Mainly because the longer I've lived life the more things that I took as absolutes have not held up under scrutiny from perspectives different than the one I assumed.

There is a considerable amount of material on astrology. Way more than I care to sift through. And since I'm unwilling to fully investigate the subject I can't validate it, nor can I legitimate invalidate it. I have peeked at the material though and found some things that bothered me. One there are several schools of thought that give different meaning to same astrological event. And two I didn't find any statistical validation that proved an astrological event corresponded to a certain personality attribute.

Another perspective (other than materialistic humanistic determinism)can be used when thinking about astrology, and that is the belief that astral bodies are only physical manifestation of spiritual beings. In this theory the beings operate in more of a quantum metaphysical way. These beings live outside our time-space boundary and so are not limited as we are. Since the beings are supposed to be sentient it is possible that they could take interest in certain people at certain times dependent upon some cycle. That cycle may even correspond to astrological cycles.

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@aidan,

aidan wrote:

I think most people have more and other diverse aspects of their lives that will help them continue to function when one or another 'delusion' is stripped away. At least I hope so.

Hope way but it's certainly not true; some examples of common beliefs with plenty of delusional aspects:
- good
- evil
- religion
- morality
- ethics
- fairness
- equality
- love
- hate
- art
- humanitarianism
- humor
- transcendence
- spirituality

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@Jebediah,

I would not make the judgment that their clients have less serious problems. Therapists are constrained from saying to clients that they should end their relationships with their significant others but astrologers can and do say that so and so is bad for you, so and so is a liar. They often frame it with the warning, this is your choice.

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@Zetherin,

Why do you fear for those women? Granted, I haven't seen any of them in years and I believe that one has died. Two of them were neighbors of mine (at different times) and I knew their children (one was my baby sitter) and their husbands and had been in their homes. They were happy women with happy families who appeared very middle class.

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@Linkat,

Quote:

You can have degrees up the ying yang and still have no common sense.

That is true but I have never known an unhappy astrologer. Nor did I ever know one who took unnecessary risks or who was unpleasant to people.

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Pronounce wrote:

There is a considerable amount of material on astrology. Way more than I care to sift through. And since I'm unwilling to fully investigate the subject I can't validate it, nor can I legitimate invalidate it. I have peeked at the material though and found some things that bothered me. One there are several schools of thought that give different meaning to same astrological event. And two I didn't find any statistical validation that proved an astrological event corresponded to a certain personality attribute.

It is widely considered that practices of astrology are superstitious, so you can feel comfortable asserting that astrology is nonsense. Remember also that it is the astrologist's responsibility to provide evidence for their beliefs; the burden of proof rests on them, since they are the ones making claims which deviate from conventional knowledge. In other words, you don't have to go digging to invalidate their claims - it's not your responsibility anymore than it's your responsibility to invalidate the existence of a being named Captain Crunch.

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

Why do you fear for those women? Granted, I haven't seen any of them in years and I believe that one has died. Two of them were neighbors of mine (at different times) and I knew their children (one was my baby sitter) and their husbands and had been in their homes. They were happy women with happy families who appeared very middle class.

Because I fear for anyone who sincerely believes in that sort of nonsense.

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What do you think of astrology?

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