Coven astrologers...share your observations

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[LyricFox]

This picture pretty well sums up my feelings about the whole Creationism/ID vs Evolution argument.

http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-we-will-keep-white-house-and-take.html

I have a really hard time taking it seriously...

[RandallS]

If you know something about hard science, which you seem to, given your astronomy background, then you know that you can't write off another system of investigation as "hogwash" until you have designed some of your own experiments and observed the results, and until you have reviewed the journals and other significant publications and pointed out major design flaws, overlooked alternative conclusions, etc.

Or read papers from people who have done just that. You build on the works of others and try hard not to waste time and energy repeating them. Nor do you have to normally counter every little argument -- usually a hypothesis will stand or fall based on a handful of critical experiments.

This would take an incredible amount of time to do for astrology, given the number of historical and contemporary sources available.  Only after you've done all this, and come up with a credible counter argument, do you get the right to dismiss an entire line of inquiry as "hogwash". 

Nor do you have to come up with some type of counter-argument.  If a hypothesis to explain X says "I can accelerate this rock to twice the speed of light," all you have to do is show it cannot be done to disprove the hypothesis, you don't have to come up with some type of alternative hypothesis to explain X first.

[RandallS]

You need to think about the examples you use to prove your point.  Creationism is a theory.  It is taught for political reasons, but it SHOULD be taught as a competing theory.

Neither Creationism for its Intelligent Design offspring is a scientific theory. A theory in science is not the same thing as a theory in everyday non-science class speech. There isn't any evidence for either the form of creationist hypothesis. And pointing out supposed problems in the theory of evolution (some pointed out by SC/ID supporters are actual problems, but most are not) does not lead any support to Special Creation or Intelligent Design.  To support those positions, they need to find actual evidence showing the hand of this creator at work.

Evolution depends upon the spontaneous materialization of DNA and RNA - this is a big gap that a lot of scientists take issue with.

Evolution does no such thing. Also, despite what the fundies try to tell you, all the Theory of Evolution says about a creator or creators is that none are necessary for life. They don't say "no super being from beyond every interfered."  Evolution is only a problem for religions that insist that their religion's creation myth literally happened 100% as written.

Sure, you can, and we do it all the time. But you also have to give a fair hearing to what you disagree with.

Only if others have not already done so.

I guess my curiosity is:  Why are people who are open to the Tarot so hostile to astrology?  No divination system has an empirical foundation. So why do some divination systems enjoy greater respect from the magical community than others?

Tarot cards (like most methods of divination) are simply a method for gaining insight, there are no claims that the cards somehow determine or influence people and events. Astrology, on the other hand, has very distant objects supposedly influencing or even controlling events/people on Earth. People are going to be more skeptical of the greater claims that have been made (over and over) for astrology.

[Elisabette]

The way I think of it, the planets don't actually cause anything, but the pattern of their movement happens to reflect certain patterns of human behavior.  It's an acausal connection.  To simplify Jung's synchronicity theory (hypothesis?  ) beyond all recognition:  "Coincidences happen."

That's fairly close to my take on astrology as well: that movement of planets and celetial objects are just timekeeping devices for cycles that have a different cause, or no cause. I place more value on natal charts as identifiers of personality patterns (I know someone has already said that, but I can't recall who right now) than I do on astology as a divinatory tool. (Though I do worry a bit when the newspaper horoscopes are telling everyone to stay in bed.   )

Betty  

[sashapablo]

Whether it should or shouldn't be, it's my understanding that in certain places (in the U.S - I have no idea about anywhere else...)it IS taught as such - I'm hoping someone will tell me if I'm wrong?

Education in the US is very, very local. So you can have some schools that teach creationism, some that teach evolution, some that teach both, some that place them in their proper context (science, philosophy, religion, etc.) and some that prefer to avoid the debate entirely (the latter was how my school approached it). So you can have different schools in the same city that approach the topic in different ways.

I'm thinking you already know this, but from your original wording I wasn't sure if you meant certain places, such as the US, or certain places in the US. Very different, so I thought I would clarify just in case 

Sasha

[sashapablo]

Actually Creationism is more of a hypothesis.  The term 'theory' is best reserved for those hypothesis that have been proved repeatedly over time.  But anyway: Why should Creationism be taught as a *science* when there is no evidence to suggest that life on Earth was created?

Creationism (and it's sneakier cousin, intelligent design) doesn't even qualify as a hypothesis; a hypothesis must be a *testable* statement. Since there's no way for it to be proven true or false, it's not science, even if it's true.

Sasha

[MelanieS]

That's fairly close to my take on astrology as well: that movement of planets and celetial objects are just timekeeping devices for cycles that have a different cause, or no cause. I place more value on natal charts as identifiers of personality patterns (I know someone has already said that, but I can't recall who right now) than I do on astology as a divinatory tool. (Though I do worry a bit when the newspaper horoscopes are telling everyone to stay in bed.    )

Betty 

This is my pretty much my take on astrology too. I place some value on it as providing insight into an individual and how that individual may relate to others and the world at large. As long as we are including more than just sun signs and going for the whole chart. As far as a predictive tool, I can't really say as I just haven't used it that way.

I would be just as skeptical of an astrologer telling me X is for sure going to happen because the planets say so as I would be of a tarot reader (or any other type of reader) telling me X is for sure going to happen because the cards (or whatever) says so. I consider any art of prediction  just that - an art. It very may well provide an indication of what is *likely* to happen but it isn't a guarantee. There are too many other factors at play.

Melanie

[Marilyn (ABSENTMINDED)]

I guess my curiosity is:  Why are people who are open to the Tarot so hostile to astrology?  No divination system has an empirical foundation. So why do some divination systems enjoy greater respect from the magical community than others?

In a lot of cases I don't think it's hostility so much as simple rejection.  Astrology is often presented as an unalterable description of how things ARE.  Most people who are not deterministic in their outlook will reject prescriptive systems like astrology and numerology while still being open to other things.

Tarot is built on ifs.  If you follow the course you've laid out, this will happen, but if you change this, then this also changes.  It is a short-term guide and the longer-term predictions it makes are based on patterns that can be consciously changed.  The farther away the prediction from the querents area of power, the less likely there is anything that will change it, but the querent can still take measures to minimize or maximize the personal effects.

In short, tarot is a system that includes and allows for personal will and individuality.  Astrology, from what I've understood you to say in these discussions, not so much.

Absent

[Sine Silvering]

If you know something about hard science, which you seem to, given your astronomy background, then you know that you can't write off another system of investigation as "hogwash" until you have designed some of your own experiments and observed the results, and until you have reviewed the journals and other significant publications and pointed out major design flaws, overlooked alternative conclusions, etc.  This would take an incredible amount of time to do for astrology, given the number of historical and contemporary sources available.  Only after you've done all this, and come up with a credible counter argument, do you get the right to dismiss an entire line of inquiry as "hogwash". 

Sure I can.  And I don't have to do my  own experiments; actual scientists do that.  I read about them.

Modern western astrology is based on astronomical observations four thousand years old... which means they're not accurate, anymore; precession, etc.    Plus, there's no evidence that stars light years away from our little solar system have any measurable or detectable effect at all on human personality or behavior.  We can't even prove that the moon has such effects!

That being said, all that is irrelevant.  Astrology is just like tarot or crystal balls or scrying mirrors:  it's a way to distract your conscious mind from the task at hand so your subconscious can get on with the business at hand:  analyzing the input that the conscious mind can't perceive and coming up with answers that straight-line analytical thinking can't find.

Astrology doesn't work for me.  Tarot does.  Scrying mirrors don't; neither do crystal balls.

I just get impatient with people who think that the stars are telling them anything.  It's not the stars talking.

[Sine Silvering]

You need to think about the examples you use to prove your point.  Creationism is a theory.  It is taught for political reasons, but it SHOULD be taught as a competing theory.  Evolution is also a theory.  Most people believe in it.  But evolution has some significant gaps and flaws - it is far from a perfect theory.  Evolution depends upon the spontaneous materialization of DNA and RNA - this is a big gap that a lot of scientists take issue with.  If creationism doesn't work, evolution may not "work" either.

Nope.  Evolution is a scientific theory:  it posits an explanation for how the world works and it can be tested scientifically, and has been for over a century, and the theory has been tweaked to fit test results.

Creationism isn't science because it is not testable.  Creationism is "And God said, 'Let there be light!' and there was light..."  That's not science.  It's religion, specifically Judaism and Christianity and as such as no place in the public schools unless they teach the creation stories of every other religion on the continent, each getting equal time.
 

[Marilyn (ABSENTMINDED)]

Astrology is just like tarot or crystal balls or scrying mirrors:  it's a way to distract your conscious mind from the task at hand so your subconscious can get on with the business at hand:  analyzing the input that the conscious mind can't perceive and coming up with answers that straight-line analytical thinking can't find.

I can accept that for tarot and crystal scrying and pendulums, it makes a perfectly workable rationale for me.  I generally place astrology outside of this group however because it posits a causal connection.  People often excuse certain behaviours by saying 'Well, I'm a cap-sag cusp (excuse my ignorance, please.  I don't even know if that's possible) as if that fact puts their behaviour or attitude beyond their control and you must therefore accept whatever they've done because of it.

It comes across to me as a prescriptive system.  The other methods are descriptive and situational, which to me feels inherently more useful in a practical sense.  I've never heard anyone say 'I'm abrupt and rude because my key card is X, get used to it.'.  Tarot is a more fluid way of looking at situations and time.

I wonder if there is a division between 'hard' and 'soft' divination, prescriptive and descriptive, causal and observational, etc.  If there is, I'm pretty squarely on the 'soft' side.

Absent

[Sine Silvering]

I can accept that for tarot and crystal scrying and pendulums, it makes a perfectly workable rationale for me.  I generally place astrology outside of this group however because it posits a causal connection.  People often excuse certain behaviours by saying 'Well, I'm a cap-sag cusp (excuse my ignorance, please.  I don't even know if that's possible) as if that fact puts their behaviour or attitude beyond their control and you must therefore accept whatever they've done because of it.

It comes across to me as a prescriptive system.  The other methods are descriptive and situational, which to me feels inherently more useful in a practical sense.  I've never heard anyone say 'I'm abrupt and rude because my key card is X, get used to it.'.  Tarot is a more fluid way of looking at situations and time.

I wonder if there is a division between 'hard' and 'soft' divination, prescriptive and descriptive, causal and observational, etc.  If there is, I'm pretty squarely on the 'soft' side.

Absent

LOL  If you can describe it that way, there probably is. 

[Darkhawk]

People often excuse certain behaviours by saying 'Well, I'm a cap-sag cusp (excuse my ignorance, please.  I don't even know if that's possible) as if that fact puts their behaviour or attitude beyond their control and you must therefore accept whatever they've done because of it.

I tend to parse this as pretty much the same as, "Oh, I was carried away in the moment" or "I'm just a jealous kind of person" or "That was the bipolar disorder talking" or any other declaration of a trait as an excuse for behaviour, which some people will attempt to use as a 'get out of consequences free' card.

Even if astrology is an accurate way of describing the tendencies that a person has to deal with, that doesn't make that sort of thing legitimate.  A full reading of my natal chart indicates that I'm terrible with money, for example (chosen because it's accurate): if I spent all the household funds, I can't just blow it off with, "Well, with a Jupiter in Gemini, Neptune in the second house, the Moon in Saggitarius, and only one planet in an earth sign and one in the Houses of Wealth, what do you expect?"  (The 'bad with money' thing is all over my chart; I've been poking at the system lately.)

Even if this is a useful descriptor of who/how I am for some reason other than coincidence, it means nothing more than, "Okay, I have these tendencies.  It is not reasonable of me to expect to spend vast amounts of money on tchotchkes."  And then I need to figure out how to do the work to deal with it responsibly.  I only just got my first independent credit card, for example.  (I have had a joint one with my husband, but he handles making sure the magic money gets paid off.)  I have a weekly allowance of money-I-can-spend-random-places.  And so on.

Basically, the, "Oh, I'm a such-and-such cusp, that gets me off this behaviour" is attempting to put forth an excuse that will get one off being lazy.  "I'm a whiny bastard, you'll just have to deal with it" is exactly the same, without the attempt to appeal to authority.

[Thorn]

Basically, the, "Oh, I'm a such-and-such cusp, that gets me off this behaviour" is attempting to put forth an excuse that will get one off being lazy.  "I'm a whiny bastard, you'll just have to deal with it" is exactly the same, without the attempt to appeal to authority.

Exactly.  While your natal chart can show you the challenges you'll face in life, it doesn't give you an excuse not to deal with them.

In face, it could be argued that you have less of an excuse for bad behavior than the "whiny bastard" guy, because at least you've been forewarned.

[Phoibos]

Exactly.  While your natal chart can show you the challenges you'll face in life, it doesn't give you an excuse not to deal with them.

In face, it could be argued that you have less of an excuse for bad behavior than the "whiny bastard" guy, because at least you've been forewarned.

Thank you, Thorn.  That is what many people just don't get about astrology.  They seem to think that the planetary positions *cause* behaviors, and excuse them.  This isn't true.  The planetary positions are indicators of conditions that seem to predispose the person to certain tendencies and behaviors, which the person must take responsibility for overcoming (if they are negative) or making best use of (if positive).

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