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This website is being renovated throughout 2008. Pages and the content of pages will continue to change until the end of the year and there may be some inconsistencies and missing links. Please do not quote from or link to specific pages (apart from the home page) without contacting the webmaster first. Starstruck Does astrology describe character? By © Martin Foreman Word Count: 793 words Publication date: November 6, 2005 It’s my birthday at the end of the month. November 29, if you want to send me an e-card. I’m a typical Sagittarian, honest to the point of tactlessness, curious, active, a traveler with a strong sense of humor and a tendency to gamble which I keep firmly under control. I sometimes wonder about astrology. Part of me knows it is bunk and part wonders if there’s something in it. Why do my Libran friends do tend to be indecisive? Why is it always difficult for me to establish a rapport with Scorpions and Capricorns? Chance, luck, coincidence, the skeptic says. But, a skeptic myself, I still have a couple of questions. Let me start by defining astrology as the ability to use the position of the planets and stars to describe an individual’s character and predict their future from their date and place of birth. How accurate is astrology and, if it proves to be accurate, how does it work? What is the relationship between an individual’s date and place of birth, their character and the character’s lifespan and the stars? Start with the easy bit – astrology as a predictor of the future. That’s a no-brainer. It isn’t, it can’t, it doesn’t. There is no evidence whatsoever that anaylzing the movement of the stars relevant to the earth can in any way tell us what will happen to us. There’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. One of my favorite books is Hitler’s Last Year of Power, by Leonardo Blake, published in 1940. It argues that the stars predict that the German dictator’s rule would come to an end within the next twelve months, Unfortunately, it took another five years and millions of lives for that prediction to come true. That’s only one example of many false predictions, and none which are accurate. I know you once read a newspaper where the astrologer told you that you were going to receive a wonderful surprise. I’m not surprised. It happens to all of us. By the laws of chance it would be unusual if something like that never happened. But if that aspect of astrology is bunk, why do I hesitate to say the same of astrology as a predictor of character? It’s partly because of my random observations as mentioned above, and partly because others have come to similar conclusions. Admittedly they do so by extending the already vague meaning of “character” to career and health, but some people claim to see a consistent connection between star signs and the job people do or the parts of the body that are prone to injury and disease. For two or three years in an organization that I worked for in the 1990s, a consistently high percentage (20% to 33%) of the twenty-plus staff were Sagittarians. Around the same time, I was aware that most of my friends were Geminis or Pisceans, and I first became aware of my presumed allergy to Scorpio and Capricorn. (Apparently we all often find it difficult to get on with people from adjacent star signs.) Of course that could have been coincidence – and I notice now that my friends are scattered across the calendar rather than concentrated in two or three months. But assume for the moment that there is a connection between birthdate and character. If that is the case – and it’s a very big IF – how would it work? Start with the stars. Nothing in the moon or the planets or elsewhere in space causes one group of people to be more aggressive, tolerant, happy, or whatever than others. The position of the stars is an indicator that we have to interpret; it’s not a cause. As a realist I know it’s not supernatural. Any link between birthdate and character has to operate within the laws of science. All I can suggest is an extremely subtle biochemical influence on the fetus which varies according to the season and geographical location. A tad more nitrogen in Buenos Aires in winter and a little less of the earth’s magnetism in New Delhi in the hot season. An influence so subtle, that it varies from hour to hour and from city to city, yet so strong that it sets down patterns in the unborn child that will last throughout its life. Highly unlikely, I agree. But not necessarily impossible. The simpler – and therefore more likely – solution is that there is no connection between birthdate and character. Any resemblance that I or anyone else sees is purely coincidence. So, yes, I’m ninety percent persuaded to toss astrology into the garbage with life-after-death and religion. But I’ ll keep an open mind on the possible link with character. After all, isn’t that what rational people – and Sagittarians – are supposed to do?
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If God existed, he would... admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create recognize that eternity is meaningless deny both heaven and hell disown all men and women who speak in his name denounce the harm caused by religious "morality" help the human race to thrive without him If God existed, he would be an atheist. |