Be Excellent To Each Other

The correct answer to that is always "No Entry".

I'm an Astronomer (for another month at least).

I loathe astrology. It's a hideous method of degrading the achievements of humanity whilst simultaneously managing to belittle the lives of people. And thats just when it's being read for 'fun' in magazines.

When it's being used to influnence the president of the USA or even worse when Burma's military government to this day is controlled by astrology to the extent that they uprooted the entire army at 4am and moved it all to live in the jungle because their astrologers told them too, then it manages to promote itself from 'annoying bit of nonsense' to 'genuine threat to human life'.

If an astrologer tells someone that surrounding himself with the number nine would make him live till 90 you might say that is harmless and fine. But when thats the leader of Burma and he withdraws the nations currancy and replaces it with one where all the notes either have a 9 in them or add up to 9 (like a $45 note) it beomes a little more serious.

Especially when 1000's die of starvation because it caused the economy to completely collapse.

And yeah, sure thats not Our astrology that would never happen here. But thats not the point. Both British and Burmese Astrology encourages and promotes a blinkered world view and wooly thinking which at best leads to people making important life changing decisions without truly thinking the decision through, and at worst destroys fucking countries and the journey from one extreme to the other is facilitated by the people who just find it 'fun'.

Edit: Ooh Sorry, this is quite a rant! But it's nothing personal or anything , I'm just not going to pretend that Astrology, Tarot and the like is anything other than a brain drain on the scienitific, spiritual, humane and ethical possibilities of mankind just because people I know and like, like them.

This is just what happens when I stop doing my blog for a while so don't take it as a rant at you, just one at the world in general.

I agree with everything Skeptobot just said. Superstition of any form is a weakens the human race.

Please also add the following: Homeopathy, Faith Healing, Reikki, New Age crystals and shit like that.

Reikki is quite scary stuff.

Agreement.

Just reading Blind Faith by Ben Elton at the moment - scary vision of what we could end up like - more chance of it happening than 1984 which makes it even more frightening.

It's a fucking rip off designed to get money off stupid people to 'teach' them it and then get money off stupider people who believe in it.

It's a poor man's Scientology.

Only a Leo would say that.

Genuine Friday guffaw from me. Award yourself a suitable number of bananas please.

The actual practice of reiki can have some mild therapeutic benefit for general, mild aches and mild pains, particularly those that are psychosomatic or worsened by stress. It's probably nothing more than deep relaxation, but still. I've tried it (a friend does it, see, and offered for free) once, when I was having a very unpleasant pain in my foot that made it difficult to walk. It helped a great deal. As I say, quite possibly just because it helped me to relax to a degree I wouldn't normally have (if there hadn't been someone standing there, I'd have probably just fallen asleep instead), and in some cases I'm sure the placebo effect can be cited (not mine - seriously, I didn't think it'd do any good, I'd been limping for a week), but as a treatment it's not entirely without merit. 'course, I wouldn't accept it in lieu of properly researched and proven medical treatment, and neither should anyone.

The beliefs and talk of energy and healing powers and assorted hippy tokens are another matter, mind.

I don't believe in astrology. I'm a Sagittarius and we're sceptical.

Its all a load of bs I'm pretty sure, but I do like reading the star signs in the Metro.

LAst week, it was extremely predictive of my employment prospectives (in that the very same day I got the call about interviews etc).

SO, while I'm sure its all coincidental non descript crap that if you really want to, you can fit to any aspect of your life, it is harmless fun.

Anyone who it harms is dumb and deserves that harm.

Validation for the weak. Do these people genuinely think that Fate/the Gods/the stars give a flying shit about some housewife in Croydon?

This always gets me when people say there's "someone looking out for them" or somesuch. What, so, some divine being decided to spend its time helping you paint your shed or avoid stubbing your toe or win a tenner, and not, for example, helping some poor disease-ridden villager in the Congo protect his kids from the paramilitaries? You're really that important?

Hmm, much as I like that Bad Astronomy site it strikes me as utterly pointless for a NASA scientist to be debunking astrology. Anyone who cares about things like facts or evidence probably realised it was all guff when they were about six years old and anyone who believes in astrology isn't going to give a toss what any scientist has to say.

The way I see it is that astrology is just a very obvious example of something everyone does, even the most rational of people aren't "truth computers" living their lives making every single decision by carefully balancing facts and evidence. Most of us weigh personal experience far more heavily than facts even if we know they are correct. We know that it is statistically very safe to fly in an airliner, however even the most logical of people would probably be immensely nervous flying again if they had ever survived a crash. If a relationship ends particularly badly then we might be overly wary going into the next one. Similarly someone who once read an eerily accurate prediction based on astrology is going to look at them more carefully even if they know on one level that it's probably bollocks.

I guess I'm just saying that it's alright to point and laugh at people for having silly beliefs but a bit of careful and honest introspection should reveal that we all do, it's only a matter of the extent.

The difference with astrology, though, is that millions of con artists make a lot of money out of lying about those silly beliefs.

Well so does pretty much every marketing person who ever lived.

Marketing is emphasising a truth. Conning someone is an out and out lie.

Who better than a NASA scientist to debunk astrology? At the extremes, people will already have made up their minds one way or another, but what about the middle ground occupied by those who could be convinced? Astrology is everywhere. Debunking articles from people who really know what they're talking about are few. Education is the enemy of superstition...

Including the people of Burma?

Have you read the links I offered on astrology? You'd like it a lot less if you could see through it.

Nothing wrong with doing it as a hobby. There is a problem when people are relying on it to make important decisions about their lives and the lives of others.

And Richard Dawkins wept.

Yes, sometimes, but astrology makes scientific claims. This necessitates scientific validation, something on which it fails miserably. With the greatest respect, I just can't understand why you'd celebrate wilful ignorance in this way. Where's the fun in being conned?

Nice place, Shrewsbury, btw. I used to live in Ludlow.

Ah, so Shin is in Shrewsbury. That explains a lot. A team from Shrewsbury went on Scrapheap Challenge. Out of habit, they built a Wicker Man.

Nice to see you back Mr Osborne. *doffs cap*

What really gets me going is people rejecting surgery for cancer to follow homepathic or other alternative medicines, who of course end up dead not long after. I've always been in favour of pursuing the sellers for at least manslaughter under those circumstances.

It's my mission in life to eradicate all astrologists from this town. Shin just doesn't realise it yet.

Indeed, Mr HappyCopse. "You have cancer? Here, have some water which may or may not have been within spitting distance of a molecule of [miracle remedy x] at some point. Oh. You died. Well, it wasn't the medicine's fault."

Cunts.

And the fact that this shit is now being peddled through the NHS really, really makes my blood boil.

I can't believe Patrick Moore got a knighthood for it. It's encouraging the whole stupid business.

Yeah, but he's ace, so I could forgive him anything.

The great thing about homeopathy is, the less curative left in the medicine, the better it works. Right now I'm drinking tapwater to cure my ills.

Cheats are serious business.
(Wow! That's the coolest double meaning I've ever unintentionally written!)


Leos are awesome because (mostly) we're born in the summer holidays which means we don't have to have an awful, half-baked 'school day' birthday.

I can't believe that anyone actually believes in the nonsense to be honest.

It actually boggles my mind that there's anyone with an ounce of sense that ever reads that guff, much less spends money on it, I can't understand why these people allow themselves to be conned so openly.

Astrology and any kind of spiritual foretelling or contacting of the deceased is always so general and sweeping that it applies to everyone. I'm pretty sure that most people here could learn to cold read and pass themselves off as an astrologer reading charts or a tarot card/crystal ball/palm reader.

You know who's best at cold reading? Derren Brown - he's really very skilled at it - and what does he tell us of Astrology, tarot and the like? He says it is boll*cks.

Why, thank you, but I haven't been away for any great length of time - I'm simply a light poster here.

Why yes, I do say it is boll*cks.

Thanks for having my back, Mimi.

It's called "humouring someone"

Ah, contacting the deceased, ghosts and that kind of thing is another kettle of fish. I'm not sure where I stand on that one.

But Patrick Moore's an astronomer, not an astrologer. He's on record as saying astrology is bunk.

Remind her that it works both ways next time you decide to down the brown instead of sinking the pink.

Does it really matter all that much what order you eat French Fancies?

(Yes it does. Pink > brown > yellow.)

The sheer illogicality of that should tip off even the meanest intelligence, even absent any actual "facts".

Just because you think something, doesn't mean it is right.