What Works

Airing our predjudices:

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Putting the Ass back into Astrology, I'll merely note there isn't any evidence showing it has any basis in fact.

We've got enough computer power these days to find out whether there ARE any correlations between the stars and the predictions based upon them. The same can't be said for, say, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, because it moves in "mysterious ways" like many other deities. (Yes, I know, Hitchhiker's Guide re Without faith, God is nothing.)

Astrology, numerology, magnetism's alleged health benefits and the like are different - they can be tested using the scientific method. For that matter, I've made it quite clear to the Supreme Being(s) that any time the Northern Lights spell out "Get your butt down to the Xxxxx church at Hh:Mm on Dd" - I'm there! Especially since the Northern Lights don't make it down my way very often.

(Note: If something works, it works. Just because we don't know why something works, or the reasons someone gives for it working are wrong, doesn't mean it doesn't really work. The Romans used concrete centuries before science discovered WHY concrete hardens. Thing is, I'd like someone to run the study showing evidence of astrology actually working.)

If you believe in something based on the evidence, and are willing to change your mind if new evidence comes along, you're a scientist. If you believe in it because of what someone else said, or your intuition, or faith - it's a religious belief.

Example: Many scientists around the turn of the century treated Newtonian physics as a religion. The more evidence supporting Einsteinian relativity grew, the angrier they got - and the more they refused to listen. Interestingly, Einstein refused to believe in quantum mechanics despite all the supporting evidence - another religious belief. (God does not play dice with the universe.
RepubAnon | Homepage | 06.27.06 - 10:57 pm | #

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I think astrology endures because it ties into the whole human fascination with the night sky. Since early man people have put forth a lot of effort aligning pyramids, creating sophisticated sun/moon clocks, navigation techniques, you name it.

Those stars are hardwired right in the DNA somehow in a way so fundamental that we can easily suspend logic or belief when it comes to their mystery.

Astrology is an attempt to explain something that can't be explained. It offers up an explanation to an incomprehensible universe. It is kind of like playing dice with the universe because there are rules and I think that's the comfort. Like a universal lottery or scratch off ticket.

I tend to agree that God does not play dice with the universe but I wouldn't be surprised if we found out he was playing the part of the Ultimate Pit Boss.
SunWah? | 06.27.06 - 11:44 pm | #

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I have the right to believe what I want, profess my beliefs, and (within the obvious legal limits) live by my beliefs.

Everyone else has the right to call me a fool.

Fair enough?
MellowMonotheist | 06.28.06 - 12:20 am | #

sincere belief in astrology has killed far less people than sincere belief in one's religion, so astrology is morally superior to religion in this agnostic's eyes.
renato | 06.28.06 - 12:40 am |

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We should let WS have the last word on astrology:

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars; as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on.

He didn't have anything much to say about religion either, something which has always been surprising, considering he had something to say about everything else in the universe.

Richard | 06.28.06 - 1:11 am | #

Daily Kos: Science Friday: The Edge of Infinity

D(ark)S(yde): What is Dark Matter?
S(ean)C(arroll): "Dark" is a euphemism -- it means not only that the stuff is completely invisible, but that it isn't anything ever seen in a laboratory here on Earth. Clearly, we'd rather not have to invoke such stuff. Nevertheless, the data have forced us to believe that ordinary matter is only about 5% of the universe; another 25% is "dark matter," and the remaining 70% is "dark energy."

So, per a physicist who has spent a lifetime puzzling at this, we are able to perceive -- unaided -- about 5% of the universe if it is close enough for us to notice. We infer the existence of the the other 95% because that is -- currently -- the only way we can explain what our devices tell us.
Of that 5% that we can perceive with our senses, more than 90% is filtered out by our conscious minds as uninteresting noise. If we paid attention all the time to everything we can sense we could never focus on what is most important -- at the moment -- for our continued existence and well-being.

Still we proclaim ourselves masters of the universe. Knowers of the true path. And free to sneer and poke fun at all rival claimants.

Still we claim dominion.

Thank god for the first amendment.

And the wit to understand that, just because somebody said it, doesn't mean I have to believe it.

--ml


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