For one thing people don't spend hundreds of dollars for a reading
unless they are seeing someone really famous. How much do you charge
for an hour of your time anyway? And please don't answer that on an
ideological basis but more relevant to someone wanting to pay you for an
hour long consult on a writing project.
Yes lots of people do get readings for entertainment purposes, others to
see if anything rings true. Don't forget that gems tend to hold their
value so if the purchaser doesn't think it did anything for them they
can always set them. Kavaches and talismans tend to be experiments for
people too. Also there are remedial measure that don't cost anything
such as feeding birds, etc.
But that wasn't my point with SallyAnn (which is what Thunderbird wants
to rename him). It was to point out that he lacks the proper
credentials or scientific depth to discuss the issue properly. He
doesn't appear to know even basic astronomy.
What I think we have here is a division between though who fear the idea
that our lives are predestined and those who celebrate it. If astrology
seems to give some clue about destiny fine. Science may also discover
the patterns which rule our lives and indeed there are scientists trying
to do so. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who hide behind the
shield of science who know little about science.
For example, I wonder over to Raw Story, which during the Bush era was
the bastion of liberal news and thought. The poor folks who run that
news site must be wondering what has happened. Much good discussion
that existed in the comments section has given away to obviously paid
shills from Monsanto and other GMO companies not to mention NSA and CIA
plants trying to influence the discussion. I have great fun walking all
over these people and watching them explode. Their latest little bit is
celebrating TV scientist (or shall I say establishment ordained
scientist) Neal DeGrasse's claim that GMO is okay. The only reason for
some of the posters to spend so much time rebutting those of us who call
his claims bullshit is that they are getting paid for it. Love to blow
their cover. :-D
On 08/06/2014 12:39 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com
[FairfieldLife] wrote:
*From:* salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com>
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <noozguru@...> wrote :
And besides, we get it, you don't like astrology. :-D
I've yet to see anything to like about it.
As previously noted, I don't think there is any link between the
motions of the planets and human behavior, *even on the level of
long-term observance of trends*, using the "motions of the planets"
only to map the supposed repeating time-trends. I think it's all hooey
onto which people project their shit.
That said, I see no more harm in astrology *used for entertainment
purposes*, and nothing else. I see it as on pretty much the same level
as these silly websites that promise to tell you your "personality
type" or (recently) your "life novel." They're just Rorschach tests,
which can be used to explore one's own personality, along the lines
of, "Wow...I can't believe I see a hot babe in that blob of ink. What
does that say about me."
You can potentially have the same level of fun with an astrology
reading, presuming that you didn't pay very much for it, and don't
take it too seriously, and as anything *more* or *more meaningful*
than entertainment. I can still make jokes about my own "Sagittarius
tendencies," for example, and laugh about the supposedly Sag traits I
read about that seem to apply to me, but at the same time I know that
I'm just projecting any correspondences onto these traits, and that
they aren't real. They're just entertaining.
It's when people start putting money on the line for astrology that
things go over the line. Paying hundreds of dollars to some charlatan
for a reading goes over the line. Making life decisions or economic
decisions or even romantic decisions based on the "reading" is going
over the line. Buying gems or other Woo Woo talismans to "mitigate
karmas" is going over the line. Treating astrology or jyotish as if
they were some kind of "science" is going over the line.
The squiggles on a "chart" are IMO no more potentially meaningful than
the arrangement of tea leaves in the bottom of a teacup. And no less
so. If your mind has the ability to slip into "seeing" mode and get a
hit off of tea leaves, then it might have the ability to do so with an
astrology chart. But it's your mind doing the "seeing," not the
creation of a chart, or the dumping out of the tea leaves.
But all of this is pissing into the wind when addressing people who
are locked into Woo Woo Syndrome and constantly looking for the Next
Big Thing to spend money on to increase their Woo / sense of
self-importance. There is no real "wish to find out" there. They're
going to go for anecdotes that reinforce their "will to believe" every
time.
http://lowres.cartoonstock.com/money-banking-psychic-fortune_teller-crystal_ball-gypsy-carnival-awhn243_low.jpg
