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From: gadfly@ihu1m.UUCP (Gadfly)
Newsgroups: net.astro
Subject: Astronomers vs. astrology
Message-ID: <576@ihu1m.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Jul-85 12:35:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihu1m.576
Posted: Tue Jul 30 12:35:46 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Aug-85 22:07:07 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 38

--
I've always been amazed at the vehemence with which astronomers
condemn astrology, like some bastard cousin they're too ashamed
of.  Of course it's not science, but they're awfully quick to villify
something they know *nothing* about.

I have a degree in physics; back in my hippie days I did get
deeply into astrology.  And it's a lot more complex than
those phony horoscopes in the paper.  Of course, that's all
most people know about astrology.  To claim to understand it
from such figments would be like claiming to understand all of
Christianity from seeing advertisements for "The Living Bible."

There's actually an enormous amount of literature, and most has
nothing to do with "telling the future".  The basic philosophy deals
with recurring patterns in nature, not cause and effect.  It's
essentially religious, so you believe it or you don't.  As with
any religious belief, objective notions of "right" and "wrong"
don't apply.  Yet astronomers seem obsessed with debunking it,
even though the arguments they drag up derive solely from woefully
mistaken impressions about astrological practice.  The way astronomers
spit on astrology probably drives more people to it in these
xenophobic, anti-technological times than astrologers could ever hope
to convert.

I left astrology back with the drugs and the revolution.  (Looking
at the vacuous materialism that has superseded them, I'm still
ambivalent about this, but like they say, you can't go home again.) 
I know astrology is bunk--but astronomers don't.  They've never
studied it.  Actually, they seem to be very superstitious about it.
'Fess up--you *do* know your sign!
-- 
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