What does Astrology mean?

[gandalftw]

@benkelly33

an interesting question and thanks for asking.

I don't understand why you'd hyperlink to that site though - did anyone else have issue with webcertificates for that hyperlink?

 

 

 

Astrology was the spiritualist contemplation of asterisms, and the assigning of values and superstitions to those asterisms.

C Sagan and D Dennett talk about that at length and far more eloquently than I.

It was useful in the formation of regularized calendars, rudimentary forms of navigation, and the support of Astronomy in the ancient world.

it is still a powerful component of many people's beliefs... and where no-one does any harm, that is their own prerogative.

Astrology did historically lead to some harms; ostensibly, in medieval europe, the middle east and south american civilizations which held Astrological beliefs... see J Campbells' "Hero of a Thousand Faces".

 

Astrology is not to be confused with Astronomy or Astrophysics etc,

which by contrast, are the studies of and navigation by stars and the study of space.

 

 

 

If you were to hypothetically ask me, what do I reflect on Astrology as a means of discerning truth in the universe etc?

I would hypothetically answer with a citation of S Hawking in his "Philosophy is Dead" speech hehe.

it may still be a vehicle of belief, though it is very far from where science is, and what science is.

Astrology ostensibly is sternly limited in its predictive power to accurately model the present, let alone past or futures.

 

Astrology is at best, the chaos theory approach to things. the butterfly effect, and trying to reconcile the vast with the micro.

Macroscale events with the Microcosm, as Deepak Chopra was to have said in "War of the Worldviews".

I believe the reason for the hyperlink is that our brother/sister posted a link to some test or questionnaire that the results of which led him/her to that page.Similar to asking the magic 8 ball a question, shaking it and reading the answer.Perhaps the Iching would be a better idea for one only needs three coins thrown six times to create a hexagram that one can just look up in a book.Everyone loves books that appear to give answers.Do they not?

 

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” - Christopher Hitchens.

Edited March 14, 2017 by gandalftw

[TheMastersSon]

From my limited reading on it, the word astrology is used to describe two (and probably more) different things. What's called astrology today means ambiguous clips in newspapers that apply to everyone who reads them. One day in my parochial grade school our teacher handed out a horoscope to each one of us, and we marvelled at how accurate and insightful they were. Then he had us trade horoscopes, and they were exactly as accurate and insightful.

 

But separate from all this hooey is the original discipline of astrology, which apparently was something more like what's called numerology today, and it's repeatedly referenced even in the Bible. It's been around a very long time and predates even the Moses story in Egypt. IMO if Einstein was correct, and after a century we're still looking for evidence that he wasn't, "the" universe is simply a physical expression of every observation point within in, and that forms the basis for the original discipline of astrology.