Astrology Refuted: They Should Have Seen It Coming
A comedian once showed a newspaper to his audience. The headline read, "1-800 Astrology Business Goes Under: They Should Have Seen It Coming." Everyone laughed, including me. We chuckled at the irony of a real contradiction here. If such a business could provide the service they claim, then its owners should have succeeded where other businesses failed. In fact, if they really knew the future, they likely wouldn't bother with this business at all. They would simply raid the stock market with a perfect investing record. We all somewhat instinctively know this, even those of us who have never had the occasion to sit and think it through carefully.
But this pseudo-science has another problem that concerns us. It's adherents who create the garden-variety horoscope columns (found in most any newspaper) spotlight a basic contradiction. On the one hand, they pretend to tell your future based upon the timing of your birth and the alignment of the stars and/ or planets. Philosophers have called this assumption "astral determinism."
This means simply that the stars and planets determine your future, hence the phrase, "written in the stars." On the other hand, however, when the predictors finish telling just what will befall you, they move onto the next part of the column. They offer advice. But this advice you may take or leave, as though you have a free choice to make, the outcome of which no star determines.
So they assume astral determinism when predicting, and then assume its opposite when advising. One simply cannot have it both ways. The only way to resolve this contradiction derives from saying that the heavenlies determine SOME things, but not others. This avoids contradictory impulses, however, at the cost of engaging a purely arbitrary (pick and choose whichever you like) approach to what stars do and do not determine about your life. And yet their charts promise a principled (non-arbitrary) way to know the future. So this option makes no logical headway either.
Either way then, assumptions necessary to the trade of star-traffickers show themselves bogus. The whole thing turns out a useless mirage. Astral determinism thus represents a phoney idea, and we can show this with a little logical rigor.
Finally then, we wish to add logical insult to mystical injury by noting that our refutation of astral determinism posits a fairly clear and obvious problem for their trade. And like the bug who never quite manages to avoid the fast-approaching windshield -- they should have seen it coming.
Carson Day has written approximately 1.3 gazillion articles and essays, many with very insightful, if alternative, viewpoints. He presently writes for Ophir Gold Corporation, and specialized in the history of ideas in college. He has been quoted in the past as saying "What box?" and remains at large despite the best efforts of the civil authorities.
You can visit the Ophir Gold Corporation blogsites at http://scriberight.blogspot.com (Writing With Power), http://ophirgoldcorp.blogspot.com (OGC's Free Web Traffic), or http://ophirgold.blogspot.com (Church and State 101)
Latest News
Johannes von Moltke to launch Center for the Humanities Faculty ... News from Washington University in St. Louis, MO - Von Moltke — the first of six speakers appearing for the Center for the Humanities this spring — was invited to campus by 2009 Faculty Fellow Jennifer ... |
Habitat for Humanity's ReStore site of food drive West Fargo Pioneer, ND - The Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore, a building supply thrift store located in Moorhead, is kicking off a month long food drive to benefit the local food ... |
Jackson Library To Present "Abraham Lincoln Man Of Sorrow" Jakson Time, NJ - ... offered through the Horizons Speakers Bureau of the New Jersey Council of the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. ... Lincoln, without the varnish |
 The Express Times - LehighValleyLive.com | Northampton Community College awarded $800000 grant to create ... The Express Times - LehighValleyLive.com, PA - It has been awarded an $800000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to ensure Northampton and Monroe county residents can study aspects of ... NCC receives $800K grant for Pocono and Bethlehem programs Northampton Community College grant to further history studies Grant for $800000 challenges Northampton Community College to ... |
New leader tapped for humanities council Las Vegas Review - Journal, NV - The organization is one of 56 state and territorial councils affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities, creating and supporting humanities ... |
UCC to begin distance learning courses in natural sciences/humanities Modern Ghana, Ghana - ... on Thursday announced that plans were far advanced to introduce distance learning programmes in the natural sciences and humanities. ... UCC to introduce more courses … in distance learning programme Many Ghanaians are embracing ‘Distance Education’, says university don |
 Inside Higher Ed | Unlikely Haven for Humanities Publishing Inside Higher Ed, DC - The University of Houston-Victoria is an unlikely hot spot for experimental fiction and the humanities. But this 3200-student institution has, ... |
USU names interim theater department head Salt Lake Tribune, United States - Yolanda Flores Niemann, dean of USU's Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences college, asked Jessop to assume the additional duties, as Colin Johnson, ... |
Division of Arts and Humanities offers up a 3 in 1 Penn State Altoona, United States - ALTOONA – Shorts, an evening of one-act plays produced entirely by Penn State Altoona students, kicks off Thursday, February 5, 2009 in the Paul R. and ... |
American Academy of Arts and Sciences Launches Humanities ... PR Newswire (press release), NY - 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Academy of Arts and Sciences today unveiled the Humanities Indicators, a prototype set of statistical data about ... First National Picture of Trends in the Humanities Is Unveiled |
Resources
-
Sorry Currently Unavailable