191–200 of 972 posts
The number of people in my life who have recently taken to astrology and started buying "healing" crystals is frankly disheartening. You try to argue with them they just call you toxic. I suspect it's a social virus.
I carry a silicon crystal in my pocket at all times that gives me some pretty awesome powers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why I think that it is perhaps beneficial to not completely remove religion, but replace it with something that is more aligned to the 21st century. Let's be honest, humans are very flawed and prone to succumb to religious thinking; regardless of how smart/dumb you are. Superstitious thinking can arise from simple day to day observation. So it is much better to fill in the void with something dull like "do go…
Like it or not, the replacement is politics. Atheists have edged out Jews as the most politically active group in the US, even when controlling for education. Because they donate money to politicians at incredible rates, expect more messaging aimed at this group.
The number of people in my life who have recently taken to astrology and started buying "healing" crystals is frankly disheartening. You try to argue with them they just call you toxic. I suspect it's a social virus.
What should be really scary is that people who believe in any kind of magic(celestial bodies governing your life, wizard man in the sky) will believe anything, because trusting something with zero proof is so familiar to them.
>celestial bodies governing your life Celestial bodies are governing your life. >will believe anything, because trusting something with zero proof is so familiar to them This seems utterly ridicolous and false. Especiall since many of those beliefs directly disavow each other.
I think the easy way to look at this is that a certain segment of society will always want to believe in something beyond the observable world with the decline of organised religion amongst Western Europeans, astrology is one way they fill that void if astrology doesn't float your boat, there's always witchcraft and tarot, or crystals and alternative medicine. or if you're less inclined towards new-age horse you can…
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…
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.
Potentially irrelevant, but this sentence really tripped me up: "Like others who ascribe to astrology, she is a firm believer that celestial objects have a direct effect on human life." It's either supposed to be 'subscribe' or there's a whole word missing.
I mean, I firmly believe that at least one celestial object has a direct effect on human life, but I dunno if the sun counts
My girlfriend is in the middle of her PhD program and is very intelligent but she's really into this stuff. She makes comments about it in public and I cringe. But the worst part is that half my female friends and all my gay friends love astrology. It's very weird.
I worked in various "alternative" industries in my youth. One day I was having an informal diner with people that, in another context, could have been business partners. One guy was making a killing with an astrology service by phone. He started with those text message based games, that were popular in the 2000'. Remember? "Send 'love' to this number to know if he loves you". And eventually created a full phone call…
Some form of quick reward system gets invoked in the brain with this apparently. Well still better than looking for tobacco kicks or chocolate instead.
My girlfriend is in the middle of her PhD program and is very intelligent but she's really into this stuff. She makes comments about it in public and I cringe. But the worst part is that half my female friends and all my gay friends love astrology. It's very weird.
My girlfriend is in the middle of her PhD program and is very intelligent but she's really into this stuff. She makes comments about it in public and I cringe. But the worst part is that half my female friends and all my gay friends love astrology. It's very weird.
I worked in various "alternative" industries in my youth. One day I was having an informal diner with people that, in another context, could have been business partners. One guy was making a killing with an astrology service by phone. He started with those text message based games, that were popular in the 2000'. Remember? "Send 'love' to this number to know if he loves you". And eventually created a full phone call…
You're selling a service you know is bullshit and liken to porn. Personally I would not be proud to say I run that business. I would rather that these businesses didn't exist, and so I don't want to contribute to perpetuating them.
Of course there's the "fulfilling the market need" type of answer, but that's basically saying you will do anything for money regardless of morals and ethics.