Do you guys and gals believe in those Zodiac Compatability stuff?

[Trimmer]

To complicate things even further 14 stars make up the "constellation Capricorn." This pattern doesn't actually exist independently in space. Its simply a pattern made up some 2000 years ago by people who thought the world was flat.

... and thought the sky was a big dome, too. We continue to think of the "constellations" as being essentially 2-dimensional patterns on a kind of a curved roof above us, but in fact, in your example, those 14 stars are at wildly different distances from the earth, too. If you could rotate your point of view somewhere "off to one side", they would make a completely different pattern.

 

None of the stars in this pattern are even remotely close to each other either, they are hundreds and thousands of light years distant from each other. So as you can see it gets very very complicated mathematically to calculate where each star really is in the "constellation Capricorn" on the date of your birth. You would need a PHD in Astronomy and a computer to even begin to attempt that.

And actually, if you had a PhD in astronomy, you would also know that the appearance of the stars in their positions, relative to each other, appears from our viewpoint to change so very slowly that it's actually pretty simple to calculate where they were on your birthday. To any amount you can detect by eye, they were right where they are now. They do move relative to each other, and they are moving at pretty fantastic relative speeds, but they are so far away that their relative positions don't really change detectably (to the eye) over hundreds of years. So no given "star" will move "into" or "out of" any constellation over thousand year periods.

 

Now the planets of our solar system (which look like stars), appear to "move across" the sky background at a much greater apparent speed, moving noticeably to the eye, day by day, week by week. But not the stars.

 

But again, remember, we view all this motion as a dimensionally-collapsed projection onto a curved 2-d sphere (i.e. our view of "our sky"), and the "real" picture is much more complex, once you reintroduce the full 3-D model. So if you think that Jupiter "moves into" a given constellation during some time period, all you have to do is expand your thinking back to the real 3_d situation, and (imagine a) move to a different spot in our solar system, and by virtue of changing your observation position, you will see Jupiter to "be" in a completely different place on the sky background.

 

Did I mention that I don't subscribe to the ideal that astrology has anything to do with human endeavors?

Edited July 20, 2010 by Trimmer

[teanoranges]

 

Please don't misunderstand me folks, I am not beating up on people who believe in Astrology, I am beating up on Astrologers WHO STEAL YOUR MONEY with readings and ridiculous "charts".

 

Have fun with Astrology, just please don't make life-altering decisions based upon it.

 

Definitely not misunderstanding you, as I've said I don't base my decisions on astrology. In fact, I have fun with it... so much fun that I literally light up in oh's and awe's when I see the multiple coincidences that occur in these free charts (yes, computer-generated) that I looked at for myself.

and this is ME finding the coincidences... not a paid psychic

 

And if I'm not entirely mistaken, ancient astrology is based on the light as perceived from earth and not the actual location of the constellation, ei: since you cannot see pluto with the human eye it is not included... this also goes for neptune, etc.

In this way, its kind of compared to the way the light of the moon has effected a woman's menstrual cycle long before artificial lighting was introduced....

 

please don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to convince anyone that astrology is real.

 

Simply, we tend to see what we want to see and believe what we want to believe. Even our science has been wrong.

[sh3rvin]

i used to believe it, ex was a scorpio and im a pisces. 10months on still think of her and she ignores my messages. though when i ask for things back she replies.

[A Hot Mess]

Check out the video I linked to.

 

Nah. I'll pass. Like I said, I don't take it that seriously. But thanks for trying to make me "see the light".

 

 

 

And guess what A Hot Mess? All 15 of the people say their "reading" is accurate and describes them to a 'T'. And then they are asked to pass their "special" reading to the person standing beside them... and all 15 "readings" are exactly the same.

 

That's cool. But I can't say that I've ever looked at a description of a sign (other than my own) and said, "yeah that sounds like me". But I'm just a sheep, so what do I know.

 

 

 

It's not magic, or the constellations and planets "controlling" earthly events as the Astrologers want you to believe.

 

I'm pretty sure nobody in this thread believes it's magic, juju, nor any type of mysticism. Nor has anyone said they're making "life-altering decisions based upon it". I think you need to relax a little. Your crusade here against everything un-scientific and un-provable, isn't really necessary.

 

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go throw chicken bones, and read them to see if I should quit my job.

[A Hot Mess]

That doesn't mean anything except that the girls you were dating are as generic as the advice columns astrologists put out.

 

Ya know, I LOOOOVE some generic girls.

 

Except for the fact that the things I've seen actually describe the way each of us would feel towards certain issues in the relationship, the problems we'd face, the possibility for chemistry, and the reasons why it eventually wouldn't work out. Not just crap like "an Aries female really likes to talk".

 

Again, I'm not a disciple of Astrology. But I find the compatibility charts interesting. And I've never spent on penny on any of it.