What do you think of astrology?

@Chumly,

No. I was pointing out that I happened to know several women, including two as neighbors (different neighborhoods) who specifically trained to be therapists who all found the practice of therapy frustrating.

Each of these women, who I encountered over a 20+ year period, turned away from their training because they did not feel it was doing what they thought it should do. The woman with the doctorate taught at the University of Michigan and abandoned a top of the heap academic career.

So, you might say that some methods suit some people while some suit others.

BTW, the newspaper astrology column has nothing to do with the sort of work a consulting astrologer would perform.

While the Myers-Briggs may be in eclipse (pun intended) now, not too long ago, it was a used as a tool in job counseling, team building and marriage counseling. It turns out that the test was "made up." Well, aren't all tests made up by someone?

My point here is that during the 1990s, business was using the Myers-Briggs personality type testing extensively. It was thought to be scientific.

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@Zetherin,

Do you recognize that your statement that astrology is nonsense is a belief?

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

Do you recognize that your statement that astrology is nonsense is a belief?

What has that to do with anything?

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@Zetherin,

If you say their beliefs are hogwash, that is just another belief. A belief will be hogwash to someone.

Why did you have to ask what it had to do with anything? I would think that should have been obvious.

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

If you say their beliefs are hogwash, that is just another belief. A belief will be hogwash to someone.

Why did you have to ask what it had to do with anything? I would think that should have been obvious.

You're not under the impression that every belief holds the same weight, are you? You're aware that some beliefs are justified while others are not, and that some beliefs are true while others are false, right?

I sure hope you're not another subjectivist.

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@Zetherin,

No. Please do not put words in my mouth. I have no idea how you might have deduced that from anything I wrote.

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

No. Please do not put words in my mouth. I have no idea how you might have deduced that from anything I wrote.

First, asking you non-rhetorical questions is not putting words in your mouth. I didn't say that is what you meant, I asked if that is what you meant. So, no, I did not put words in your mouth.

Second, you ought to have an idea why I suspected as I did. You said:

plainoldme wrote:

If you say their beliefs are hogwash, that is just another belief

That is often the sort of thing that subjectivists say since they believe that there is nothing objectively true or false; that which is true or false is determined by what people believe, they think.

Third, I am weary as to why you just wanted to point out (unjustifiably, as I noted) that I was putting words in your mouth, but then didn't make any effort to clarify what it is you did mean if what I suspected was not the case.

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@existential potential,

I think astrology, like numerology, palm reading, communicating with the dead and tarot cards are vehicles for the empathic and insightful to get inside the heads of others for good or bad reasons. All are open to interpretation by the user and I believe the best practitioners unconsciously filter the 'objective' information the stars, bones, cards or palm lines tell them and brew it up with 'subjective' information they get from the subject from body language, facial expression, speech, reaction and their own innate knowledge of the human condition.

I'm not at all surprised that the list of practising astrologers contained qualified psychologists and counsellers.

But it's not science. The 'objective' data will not lead everyone to the same conclusion.

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@Zetherin,

Zetherin wrote:

Here's part of my actual horoscope for today: "There are opportunities around that you should grab hold of."

Well of ******* course there are opportunities today, just as there will be every day, for almost every body. But if dear horoscope was referring to specific opportunities I should take note of today, I sure wish it would have told me which ones! Of course, they never do.

The sad part is, there are some dumb people out there that eat this stuff up. It's really disheartening. You know, that they exist.

I don't belive in those daily horoscopes or weekly ..or any kind of such thing, often written by cheap ass hoaxes. So, as I said, don't put words in my mouth.

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@HexHammer,

When the **** did I say you believe in that? How did I put words in your mouth?

Quote me.

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@Zetherin,

Zetherin wrote:

HexHammer wrote:

existential potential wrote:

that is what it seems to me also, but he seems to self-assured, I think he reads too many crap books...he's into the whole "2012" thing as well, its so frustrating, and its not as if he's stupid, he's a perceptive guy, he's just become entangled in this ****.

Spare me please.

I suggest you spare yourself from that nonsense, if in fact you do believe in that nonsense.

Here you clearly state that I belive in those daily/weekly horoscopes, which I do not.

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@Zetherin,

Zetherin wrote:

When the **** did I say you believe in that? How did I put words in your mouth?

Quote me.

Besides, back in PF.com you acted cool and calm, you lost that.

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@plainoldme,

That may be true, but it still doesn't mean they have any common sense. Many completely insane people are extremely happy and are pleasant to others.

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@plainoldme,

The pay is also probably better than being a therapists - they may have more common sense as a result and taking you all for a ride. I'd be happy too - getting paid to spew nonsense - and you could make people really happy to boot by telling them just enough vague crap that they leave happy, and satisfied (just like astrology - if you are vague enough it can be true in every situation).

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@hingehead,

I do think there is some legimacy in these things - there are some people who can read others easily - more of the case of being extremely observant of things that most of us either are to busy or don't care to notice. Many people are very intuitive so this would fall naturally for them.

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@Linkat,

Well, I would never say that astrologers lack common sense, in part, because I have known too many. There was a young woman I worked with at a book store back in the early 70s who had an associate's degree in accounting and who was studying to become an astrologer. She left the store to move back to her parents' house following her father's triple by-pass.

She was gone about a week and her absence was felt. The hard-boiled woman who was the manager of the second branch (a bookstore for a large state university run by the most incompetent men you could possibly encounter) remarked that she had a positive effect on everyone and that people were nicer to each other for having known her. Frankly, the hard-boiled woman and the astrologer were the only management people with common sense. They kept the store afloat, unlike the CEO, a committed Great Lakes sailor who wore an eyepatch, like a pirate or Brenda Starr's mystery man.

I visited her at her parents' home. She and her mother were exhausted from caring for their post-operative patient.

I never quite realized what good characters these people would make for a novel, particularly if you add in the buyer for English books (perhaps, for all humanities), an African man who was a practicing Muslim who was more American than the students who worked under him and who did nothing but read the Wall Street Journal all day.

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Consider that most people who have been "therapy junkies" discover that any therapist, no matter what his or her training was (and the list of examples I have given for therapists-turned-astrologers is only a partial illustration) generally can help a patient through one crisis. REturning to the same therapist for another and different crisis generally doesn't work.

I suggest that a good astrologist like a good therapist is a tool that one can use in a crisis, whether that crisis is the loss of a job, a cheating spouse or the death of a parent.

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@existential potential,

existential potential wrote:

the only reason I ask this, is because one of my friends is convinced that astrology is valid, and he is really into this ****, and whenever I respond to what he has to say, he always has some kind of answer to my question, to which I might have some kind of response, but he is so wrapped up in all the theory, that it never seems to have any effect on him.

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

No... it's a cutsie thing, a toy, a Ouija board whose only possible benefit is to titillate those coincidences in our mind that might give rise to the feeling of foretelling. To me it has no benefit or reliability whatsoever, past some minor entertainment value or marketing.

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The thread about whether AA is a cult or not just surfaced. So, let's ask another question: Is AA any different than astrology?

After all, both can and have helped people (here, I am talking about people who have gone to an astrologer and had a horoscope cast). However, both have involved people on a rather serious level, becoming addictions themselves . . . although i suspect that AA does this more than astrology.

I am probably as turned off by Scientology as some of you are turned off by astrology. The husband of a friend became a Scientologist. She said that Scientology helped him end an affair he was having. (She discovered the affair when she changed the sheets one day and a gold earring that was not hers fell out.)

So, what is the spread between Scientology and astrology?

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@Zetherin,

isn't a "belief" by defintion something that someones hold to be true in the absence of solid evidence? so to say that a belief is either "true" or "false" isn't exactly correct, right?

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What do you think of astrology?

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