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Young people are flocking to astrology

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Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#581

Post by jncfhnb »

sacado2 wrote: post #493
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me there is an a huge difference. I can accept religions, which are adding axioms that aren't falsifiable, and that are usually taught to a person when he is a child. And religions had their roles in shaping society for good. I can accept conspiracy theories and disbelieving the known consensus. I just can't accept a person who, in the age where we know exactly how planets move and what they are, decided to believ…

Yet religions have a vision of the workings of planets (and the solar system in general) that is much further removed from reality than astrology. Yes, you could say it's a metaphor, a symbolic vision or something else rather than something to be taken literally in religion, but the same could be said of astrology.

That is the bar of discussion though. If you literally believe the aspects of religion that are obviously, observably false, then that doesn’t bode well.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#582

Post by gambiting »

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #488
varjag wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it's more of a personal background issue. Do you really have objection with planets effects on personality but at the same time feel turning water into wine is plausible in the slightest? To a raised atheist all religions are not far removed from belief in Santa Claus. But to someone with religious people in the family cutting them off may come not as natural as of strangers with astrology brain.

Magicians can do what looks like turning water into wine easily. Is that seriously your biggest issue with religion? If there's anything to be really skeptical about its that a person resurrected from the dead, rest of the miracles are pretty mundane in modern standards. And the way I understand their epistemology, they know it happened because people saw him both dying and living afterwards, so it boils down to whet…

>> they know it happened because people saw him both dying and living afterwards, so it boils down to whether you believe their accounts.

I come from a religious background, born and raised catholic, and even in our indoctrinating upbringing it was made clear that the new testament isn't eyewitness testimony. It's a written story of something someone said. Given the age of the material this is the best we're going to get, obviously, but it's not quite as clear cut as it might seem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament

" They were written between approximately 70 and 100 AD, and were the end-products of a long process of development; all are anonymous, and almost certainly none are the work of eyewitnesses."

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#583

Post by fatfingerd »

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #488
varjag wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it's more of a personal background issue. Do you really have objection with planets effects on personality but at the same time feel turning water into wine is plausible in the slightest? To a raised atheist all religions are not far removed from belief in Santa Claus. But to someone with religious people in the family cutting them off may come not as natural as of strangers with astrology brain.

Magicians can do what looks like turning water into wine easily. Is that seriously your biggest issue with religion? If there's anything to be really skeptical about its that a person resurrected from the dead, rest of the miracles are pretty mundane in modern standards. And the way I understand their epistemology, they know it happened because people saw him both dying and living afterwards, so it boils down to whet…

I like to think that most adults understand the difference between a trick that appears to verse actually turning water into wine and wouldn't worship a magician as the son of God if they saw the trick directly.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#584

Post by ajmurmann »

varjag wrote: post #533
taylorius wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least the world's great religions have a track record of acting as a code of conduct that helps to build and grow societies and nations. Astrology - not so much.

Let me put it this way, their track record is mixed on that.

It seems many improvements to our world view and value system had to be pushed through against the pushback of religion. IMO the value of religion is to have a forcing function to enforce consensus around certain norms without renegotiating them every generation which is hard since it exceeds the capacity and willingness of much of society.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#585

Post by albert_e »

oxfordmale wrote: post #196
albert_e wrote: post #182

I like to think of Astrology (the way ancient India / subcontinent attempted it) as the largest and most ambitious big data analytics project. Whether they provided real results or just an illusion of it is up for debate. But some "actionable insights" were surely delivered :) Keeping records of many independent variables (time and place of birth, positions of "planets" at the time of birth, and their movement againt…

The only independent variable is the date and time of birth. The position of planets and their movements are highly correlated to this variable and won't provide any additional information. And yes, there has been plenty of research on the impact of the birth month, and the time of birth within given day, on a person's development through life.

> The only independent variable is the date and time of birth.

Minor nuance. Just sharing this for awareness, not endorsing its validity:

When indian astrologers plot a "star chart" / "kundli" / "raasi chakram" of a person -- it is quite literally a snapshot or plot of all major "planets" against the constellations.

And this snapshot depends rather precisely on the PLACE of birth as well. (not just the time)

The latitude and longitude of the place of birth are starting input variables. There are almanacs and pretty detailed tables of star positions by date and hour, published for use by practitioners, that are used to lookup. The sunrise, sunset times for that place obviously differ by lat/long. And similarly since the "positions" of planets are measured not in absolute terms but against the backdrop of constellations -- so the place of birth also determines for example whether Mars is in Constellation A or whether Jupiter is on the cusp of Constellation B & C.

For example you can skim through this book's pages -- that show lat/long and timezone info for places worldwide:

https://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/ascendant-astrol...

These tables go quite deep into accounting for drift of lunar year versus solar year, apparent retrograde motion of planets, precession of axes and correcting for them, etc.

The attempt to gather so much data and attempt to do a correlation analysis / modelling on that is fairly ambitious and worthy of acknowledgement IMO.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#586

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

achenet wrote: post #309
mavhc wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organised Religion is good for people, because it keeps them from believing even crazier ideas, and still tells you to see a doctor when you're sick Most of the people who go to Organised Religion don't really believe in God, they're just in it for the tea and biscuits, ie it's a social club. If you really believed in God and Heaven you'd become a monk or nun, logically you'd spend your finite life maximising your ch…

and with organised religion you get the crusades and the inquisition. Current day catholicism is pretty nice, because we've had a good 300+ years of post-englightenment/rationalism in society to balance out the violent intolerance religion zealots can dish out. agree that religious/spiritual groups can be good for social ties. To be fair, playing badmington every tuesday night is also good for social ties, and less l…

> You know, given the choice between ISIS and antivaxxers, I think I'll take the anitvaxxers.

Say Christian nationalism rose to it's post-reconstruction prominence. Where would you put it?

> agree that religious/spiritual groups can be good for social ties.

Further: Religious humanitarian projects aren't insignificant and it's not like they're competing with non-religious aid. If aiding religions disappeared, nothing would fill the vacuum - because the vacuum is far from filled now.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#587

Post by BobbyJo »

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #303
nprateem wrote: post #66

I had an argument with a girl the other day who was adamant she wanted to know my star sign. I said "you tell me" and after 10 guesses I finally told her. She then went on to tell me what I must like etc - most of which was complete bollocks obviously. I told her her beliefs were akin to racism. Just because of when I was born she thought it was acceptable not to bother to treat me as an individual but as automatical…

Speaking of stereotypes, if anyone takes astrology seriously, I automatically assume they are not intelligent, irrational, and I find it impossible to take them seriously. I consider them beyond reason so I don't even try. If a person's logic and epistemology lead to him believing in astrology, it shows a deeper problem and I don't hope to have an intelligent discussion with them any more than I expect to have an int…

I am personally ok with someone believing in astrology provided they are aware that it is hooey. It's fine to want some magic in the world, and to choose to believe in something that is obvious nonsense for the fun of it.

I personally choose to believe in UFOs, remote viewing, ghosts, and all manner of omen, just because it makes the world feel a little more mysterious in my every day life.

Yes, there is plenty of rational magic in physics and materialism, but none that I can encounter on a dark camping trip, or staying in a spooky house.

Nonsense can be fun!

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#588

Post by executesorder66 »

nmilo wrote: post #458
nprateem wrote: post #66

I had an argument with a girl the other day who was adamant she wanted to know my star sign. I said "you tell me" and after 10 guesses I finally told her. She then went on to tell me what I must like etc - most of which was complete bollocks obviously. I told her her beliefs were akin to racism. Just because of when I was born she thought it was acceptable not to bother to treat me as an individual but as automatical…

There comes times that you need to put your own principles aside for the good of yourself and for the other person, and forget trying to be "correct" all the time. Life gets a lot better when you realize that you probably can't, and shouldn't, try to change people's minds.

> shouldn't, try to change people's minds.

Yeah the abolition of slavery was a mistake. We shouldn't have tried to change people's minds about that.

We also should never have changed people's minds about smoking not being bad.

Just let people believe what they want to believe. Live and let live. Fully agree with you.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#589

Post by harimau777 »

worrycue wrote: post #221
seer wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the saying goes, “all models are wrong, some models are useful” While the astrology “model” is obviously wrong, it must have been useful to someone at sometime for it to have gained such a popularity. Like the “flat earth model” is actually extremely useful if you don’t intend (can’t) travel significant distances - gives you a coordinate system, maps and ways to predict where you’re going to be tomorrow if you tra…

> As the saying goes, “all models are wrong, some models are useful” While the astrology “model” is obviously wrong, it must have been useful to someone at sometime for it to have gained such a popularity. Not much of a model IMHO. You just give ultra general predictions for every sign such that everyone will go “that’s true” or “that actually happened” no matter who they are - unless they are really weird.

The value might not be in the ability of the model to correctly classify people but in it's ability to generate discussions about the classification.

"I'm a Gemini which fits because I am X but unlike most Gemini I like Y" tells you X and Y about someone.

Saying "Gemini and Aeries shouldn't date because of..." isn't necessarily a conversation about whether any given individuals should date. It may instead actually be a conversation about whether people who conform to certain sets of traits should date.

Re: Young people are flocking to astrology

#590

Post by jncfhnb »

harimau777 wrote: post #575

I have a pet theory that things like astrology, tarot, the I Ching, Myers Briggs, etc. are valuable (and therefore stick around) not because they have a supernatural or scientific ability to make correct predictions, but because they provide a useful framework for discussing topics. So for example, even if tarot doesn't give you supernatural insight, the discussion it generates with the card reader may allow you to r…

It’s a good point but it’s not equal.

Myers Briggs is nice a framework. You can just look at the axes of personality and use them to structure a claim about where you land. The test is not the important bit. I think many people have not considered the dimensions of personality that it proposes.

Astrology not so much. You can’t describe yourself as a linear combination of different signs or at least, you’re not meant to and borrowing from traits that are not your supposed sign is antithetical to the whole premise

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