20 replies to this topic

[killakanz]

Astrology is somthing I've never really taken seriously. Afterall, how can someone know me just by looking at which way Jupiter is flying?
A popular opinion indeed.
I stayed with a friend last week. I knew she was into reading her stars and that but it wasn't untill last week that I really realised how much she was into it. Out of curiousity I read mine over her sholder, had a giggle at it and thought nothing more of it. As the week went on most of the things it said happened. A fluke?
I went online to get a reading. Giving it only my name, date time and place of birth and my starsign, it came back with this:

Section 1: How You Approach Life and How You Appear To Others
You are a natural diplomat, reasonable, tolerant, fair, always willing to listen to varying viewpoints, and ready to see the other side of an issue. Even if you strongly disagree with someone, you will try to find points of similarity and agreement rather than emphasizing the differences. You often avoid taking an extreme or one-sided stance on anything. You have a strong desire for harmonious and pleasant relationships, and express a spirit of cooperation, compromise, friendship, and fairness. You very much want to be liked and because of your need for approval and acceptance, you are easily influenced by others' opinions, especially when young. You so much want to please that often you will suppress your own intense or unpleasant feelings in order not to offend others. Sometimes your politeness is interpreted as phoniness or wishy-washiness.

Reading it through a couple of times I thought it seemed fairly accurate. I tend to become good friends with people I meet. I'm the sort of guy who doesn't like to argue. Sure I let one off now and then when I'm really angry about somthing, but who doesn't? Most of the time though I prefer to calmly discuss both points of view and find a comprimise that both sides are happy with.
So, fairly accurate. Another fluke? How about section 2?:

Section 2: The Inner You: Your Real Motivation
You have powerful emotional attachments to the past, your family, your childhood, those places you associate with safety and security and your beginnings. Maintaining a connection with your roots and heritage and keeping family bonds strong are very important to you. Loyal, devoted, and sentimental, you tend to cling to whatever is dear to you, be it person, familiar place, or cherished possession.

Again, very accurate. I often go back to the places I grew up. I keep in contact with school friends. Despite a divorce between the parents I'm still very close to both. The person I hold most dearest, she knows who she is, I often find that when I'm up in scotland and she's down in London I often wish I was down there clinging to her... wont go anymore into that...
But this is beyond a fluke now. How can a random website know me, know who I am, by just my name and birth details? Is everyone born on my birthday just like me?
Well, I don't know. But in the past week or so I've started to take astrology a bit more seriously. There's definatly somthing about it...

[Allied General]

dude don't let the alignment of the planets control your life, you have self will and your own mind to do that

[Athena]

I used to believe in astrology a few years ago. I bought these books a few years ago, every day they stated what would happen. IE I bought a book of 2003 and the year after that I bought the one of 2004. They were right sometimes, and then, I think a year ago, I accidentely opened the book of a year before. After I'd finished the bit about what would happen this month (every month there also was a text about the whole month), and I suddenly saw I was reading the wrong book. So I opened the right one (for that year) and I read the bit. It was exactly the same as stated in that other book (same series, from a year before). That was when I knew something wasn't right. And now I just don't believe in it anymore. They make it fit to lots of people.

[AdmiralGT]

Astrology is all about psycology.

The reason why many people believe in it is because it applies to you. But you have to ask yourself is it destined or is it really just a conincidence? The problem lies in that because someone has told you something you then associate it as being special when it happens. For example, I could tell you now that tomorrow you'll meet a blonde girl, 5ft 7in tall with blue eyes. You may or may not see her but he's where the trick lies. If you do meet her you'll think wow, aren't I amazing for predicting that but if you don't, you'll no doubt forget I said it. It's probably likely you meet a blonde girl, 5ft 7in tall with blue eyes every other day and think nothing of it, but because i've told you it becomes special. Because of this, you skim over the bits that didn't happen and pick out the bits that did.

Not only that, but if you read all the things that will happen to each of the star signs, you'll see that they are in fact, very similar to each other bar the phrasing of each of the "events" that will take place but because you only read your own you take no notice of how every other starsign is similar. Try it out, go back to the online reading and try some other dates, you'll no doubt associate with most of those as well, you just think because your birthday reading is a lot like you that there's something special in it.

All of these readings and such run off the same principle and it's quite well known and hence, in my opinion shouldn't be thought of as important or as a measure to tell you your future.

On a side note, Immo, the gravitational effect of the Moon on us compared to the Earth is miniscule, much less than 1%. The radius of the earth is 6000km which is much smaller than the distance to the moon and gravity goes as a factor of 1 over distance squared added to the fact the moon has a much smaller mass than the Earth. Also, the planets are much larger than the Moon, although i'm not entirely sure about Pluto and Mercury.
But, the Moon does effect our daily lives, it's responsible for the tides and hence is used a lot in the shipping industry.

[AdmiralGT]

My apologies, yes, the strength of the change in gravity from the moon's orbit is minute.

[killakanz]

Looks like Revora's sharing the same opinion on Astrology then

[Kazyumi]

If Astrology also includes Horoscopes and all, its usually a load of Bollocks.
I often check my horoscope, but usually a week to late (its in the tv magazine, and I read it near the end of the week to see what could've been right)..... I actually use it more to see it as a summary then as a prediction. I gotta admit, its often pretty accurate to my life.
But they're not accurate enough to predict everyone. Simply because it usually random crap and only some people actually go through what is for spelled.

[killakanz]

hmmm. I just recieved this in email:

Romance is on the agenda, big time, for the next few days, so there's only one thing to do: Get started on cleaning up your nest. Oh, and then do some shopping. If you're going to be entertaining, you'll need provisions.

Bit ironic that I've spent most of the day tidying anyway, before I read that. But romance? With the imbreds that live in this area? I think not. Unless I happen to meet someone on the TA shoot this weekend.
EDIT= oh yea, and we are entertaining. My cousins are comming to visit for a few days. If romance happens there well, that's just sick!!!

Edited by killakanz, 28 April 2005 - 03:32 PM.

[ComradeJ]

Meh, it's all crap. The astrology is written in such a way that applies to everyone. Horoscopes are awfully inaccurate - Mine said my love life would be good and that I had a hard time with homework. I haven't ever been in love and I haven't made homework in half a year.

Oh yeah, Immo... A lot of planets are much closer to Earth than the sun is... And most are way larger than our moon...

[Mastermind]

They do affect us in other ways though. Jupiter is quite possibly the reason we have life on earth. It has taken, or deflected a very large number of potentially life ending comets and asteroids and such. So, they do affect us, just not in the way we live our day to day lives.

[ComradeJ]

F = G m1 m2 / r^2

They might be closer than the sun and bigger than the moon, but their effect on gravity is still very small. The moon's effect is large because it's close (r is small) and the sun's effect is large because it's heavy (m2 is large). The rest of the planets are neither really close nor really heavy.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I never did question that

[AdmiralGT]

A lot of planets are much closer to Earth than the sun is... And most are way larger than our moon...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

While that sounds entirely accurate, when thought about it's actually rather wrong. Only Mercury, Venus and Mars spend time closer to us than the Sun. All the other planets are much further away. The Earth is 1 AU away from the Sun (or about 150 million kms) while Jupiter is about 5 AU away (750 million kms) from the Sun.

Now that means Jupiter will be a minimum of 4 AU away when Jupiter and Earth are aligned with the Sun. At any other times it will be somewhere between 4 AU and 6 AU.

So, we've cut it done to 3 out of the remaining 8 planets being closer at some point. But, they aren't always closer to us than we are to the Sun. Take for example the period of time when a planet is "behind the sun". The planet is therefore the distance we are from the sun plus the distance it is from the sun. Because of this, approximately half the time a planet is closer to us than the sun and half the time further away than the sun.

So, in fact, most planets aren't closer to us than the Sun.

GT (your friendly physics with astrophysics undergraduate)

Edited by AdmiralGT, 28 April 2005 - 07:22 PM.

[August]

Astrology's a crock. I recommend watching Penn and Teller's "Bullshit!".

[MaperRiz]

Well... astrology might ve worthless in its context, but to be truthfull some things in astrology are true to perfectly normal things. Here's an example.

Cancers are known to be sexually wild and tend to have hidden emotions. They also use their feelings when doing anything and love people who think with their brains. Scientificly, the ones who are born in mid-summer (where most people live in the northern hemesphere - hence why people who live southerner have lower belives in astrology) often leave the hospital in a few weeks and gain first amounts of sunlight during july. The Sunspot Cycle normally peaks around this point, causing larger amounts of X-Ray to be emmited but lower amounts of Gamma. X Ray has the side effect of affecting internal organs and thus affecting hormon growth. Lower gamma means a slightly slower brain damage rate, causing them to address their feelings (lying in the slightly deeper mamalian brain) and like people who don't get affected by this effect; hence why they love people who use their thoughts (the humanoid brain).

That's that for today's biology class. Good Day!

[Ash]

Killa, try inputting a DIFFERENT name, but a similar DOB. See what happens.

Make the name something stupid like Joe Bloggs.

[Kazyumi]

I cant believe how accurate the horoscope of mine is lately.
I always check it a week after that its predicted for and it always seems to have a fuckin load of simularities.
Explain that to me Einstein. Am I being stalked telepathically? 0__o

[Allied General]

I cant believe how accurate the horoscope of mine is lately.
I always check it a week after that its predicted for and it always seems to have a fuckin load of simularities.
Explain that to me Einstein. Am I being stalked telepathically? 0__o

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

don't believe in a ball of gases