Is astrology harmless? I think believing in astrology is means a lack of critical thinking, but it does not ask you to ostracize or harm anyone. What other evil can astrology lead to? Is it harmful to engage in astrology for entertainment?
Is astrology harmless? I think believing in astrology is means a lack of critical thinking, but it does not ask you to ostracize or harm anyone. What other evil can astrology lead to? Is it harmful to engage in astrology for entertainment?Entertainment, seems fine. Problems arise when we replace, rational fact based evaluation of situations, with belief in fantasy thinking and faith-blinded nonsense. Particularly, when the faith demands you ignore down to Earth reality. Then people start inflicting harm and evil.
Is astrology harmless? I think believing in astrology is means a lack of critical thinking, but it does not ask you to ostracize or harm anyone. What other evil can astrology lead to? Is it harmful to engage in astrology for entertainment?Entertainment, seems fine. Problems arise when we replace, rational fact based evaluation of situations, with belief in fantasy thinking and faith-blinded nonsense. Particularly, when the faith demands you ignore down to Earth reality. Then people start inflicting harm and evil. These problems are limited to the individual. If a person believes a fortune teller he/she runs the risk of being fleeced. Is there a greater harm to the society? For example, if one follow a religion that says a particular minority/group are a threat to my religion, they will be persecuted.
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Is astrology harmless? I think believing in astrology is means a lack of critical thinking, but it does not ask you to ostracize or harm anyone. What other evil can astrology lead to? Is it harmful to engage in astrology for entertainment?Entertainment, seems fine. Problems arise when we replace, rational fact based evaluation of situations, with belief in fantasy thinking and faith-blinded nonsense. Particularly, when the faith demands you ignore down to Earth reality. Then people start inflicting harm and evil. These problems are limited to the individual. If a person believes a fortune teller he/she runs the risk of being fleeced. Is there a greater harm to the society? For example, if one follow a religion that says a particular minority/group are a threat to my religion, they will be persecuted. I think you only have to look at the disaster unfolding in American politics, or the manmade global warming catastrophe we are creating, etc, etc, to recognize the public dangers of personal dependance on wishful thinking. Unfortunately what we think, does not remain in our bedrooms. :cheese:
āThese problems are limited to the individual. If a person believes a fortune teller he/she runs the risk of being fleeced. Is there a greater harm to the society? For example, if one follow a religion that says a particular minority/group are a threat to my religion, they will be persecuted. I think you only have to look at the disaster unfolding in American politics, or the manmade global warming catastrophe we are creating, etc, etc, to recognize the public dangers of personal dependance on wishful thinking. Unfortunately what we think, does not remain in our bedrooms. :cheese: How does global warming relate to this? Counter evidence provided against climate change is much better than evidence provided by an astrologer. PS. I think climate change is happening and is man made.Is astrology harmless? I think believing in astrology is means a lack of critical thinking, but it does not ask you to ostracize or harm anyone. What other evil can astrology lead to? Is it harmful to engage in astrology for entertainment?Entertainment, seems fine. Problems arise when we replace, rational fact based evaluation of situations, with belief in fantasy thinking and faith-blinded nonsense. Particularly, when the faith demands you ignore down to Earth reality. Then people start inflicting harm and evil.
How does global warming relate to this? Counter evidence provided against climate change is much better than evidence provided by an astrologer. PS. I think climate change is happening and is man made.It's the embrace of wishful thinking I'm referring to. It's the using fantasy thinking to ignore reality and to ignore the consequences of our actions, that I'm referring to. I link the delusional full throttled embrace of evangelical personal cult - Jesus Savior - promises "After-life" in heaven, so we can ignore everything downing to this Earth in this life. The Bible tells us "GOD" tells us consume the Earth fast as fuking possible without the slightest concern for the consequences of their actions. Cause God's got em covered on the rebound, in Heaven, after our bodies are gone and returned from the Earth from whence it came. (oh boy, you're getting me going, but I got no time, gotta stop ) Don't tell me that don't effect everything .... :cheese: People that presume they know god and "are doing God's duty", to the total rejection of experiential fact based understanding. They are running the world and destroying the world. But I've got to check out of this conversation for a few days. If you're still around next week, we'll meet again. Oh and welcome to CFI, hope you have some fun over here.
here, chew on this, tell me what you think.
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/19905/
How does global warming relate to this? Counter evidence provided against climate change is much better than evidence provided by an astrologer. PS. I think climate change is happening and is man made.It's the embrace of wishful thinking I'm referring to. It's the using fantasy thinking to ignore reality and to ignore the consequences of our actions, that I'm referring to. I link the delusional full throttled embrace of evangelical personal cult - Jesus Savior - promises "After-life" in heaven, so we can ignore everything downing to this Earth in this life. The Bible tells us "GOD" tells us consume the Earth fast as fuking possible without the slightest concern for the consequences of their actions. Cause God's got em covered on the rebound, in Heaven, after our bodies are gone and returned from the Earth from whence it came. (oh boy, you're getting me going, but I got no time, gotta stop ) Don't tell me that don't effect everything .... :cheese: People that presume they know god and "are doing God's duty", to the total rejection of experiential fact based understanding. They are running the world and destroying the world. But I've got to check out of this conversation for a few days. If you're still around next week, we'll meet again. Oh and welcome to CFI, hope you have some fun over here. Thanks! I see religion and astrology as two different things.
It is harmless. Very few people strongly believe in it, and those people often have other serious psychological problems that deserve far more blame.
Fun fact: In America āprofessional" astrologers and fortune tellers are often fronts for criminal activity.
Its not harmless in cases when the fortuneteller is taking large amounts of money from the ācustomerā.
I agree that astrologers and fortune tellers can easily fleece gullible people. Should there be a law against it in that case. I donāt know how āfraudā is handled by the legal system.
Itās only harmful if itās the basis of action that affects others. I seem to remember Reagan relying on an astrologer. If that was the case and he used it as a basis for decisions, then yes very bad, even if the decisions themselves resulted in something positive.
Is astrology harmless? I think believing in astrology is means a lack of critical thinking, but it does not ask you to ostracize or harm anyone. What other evil can astrology lead to? Is it harmful to engage in astrology for entertainment?Entertainment, seems fine. Problems arise when we replace, rational fact based evaluation of situations, with belief in fantasy thinking and faith-blinded nonsense. Particularly, when the faith demands you ignore down to Earth reality. Then people start inflicting harm and evil. These problems are limited to the individual. If a person believes a fortune teller he/she runs the risk of being fleeced. Is there a greater harm to the society? For example, if one follow a religion that says a particular minority/group are a threat to my religion, they will be persecuted. But why does an individual believe? Astrology appears in every newspaper and is presented with no notice of it being for entertainment only. I know people with good jobs, who appear to be intelligent, but spend a lot of time on it and take it quite seriously. They have children and other young people see this and that perpetuates belief. Religion is obviously much better organized and fake news has become a weapon in the war on sane political choices. So, it's not a problem limited to the individual. If it was, the word "scam" would be meaningless. We have a culture that promotes credulity. It's not a conspiracy, but there are forces behind it that can be identified. It's not that easy to draw a line and say this or that is an individual choice and nothing should be done to interfere with that choice.
Maybe āindividualā was the wrong term to use there. I think in order to qualify something as a āfraudā or āscamā , one should establish damage/injury or loss. If horoscopes cause damage, people would be suing newspapers and magazines.
PS: I am not a legal expert.
I agree that astrologers and fortune tellers can easily fleece gullible people. Should there be a law against it in that case. I don't know how "fraud" is handled by the legal system.Some jurisdictions have laws prohibiting astrologers et al. from accepting payment for their āservices", but itās only a misdemeanor so the penalties are very mild and unlikely to steer behavior in a fair direction. Other jurisdictions require a novelty license to set up shop, but again that is a mostly futile attempt at curbing exploitation. In either case these people are usually savvy enough to navigate any legal traps.
Maybe "individual" was the wrong term to use there. I think in order to qualify something as a 'fraud' or 'scam' , one should establish damage/injury or loss. If horoscopes cause damage, people would be suing newspapers and magazines. PS: I am not a legal expert.You don't need to meet a legal standard for something to be what it is. Libel and slander are pretty easy to recognize, but it's hard to sue someone for it. Scams are a little easier because there is usually some blatant lie with the intent to get money. This is less obvious when you are telling someone what they want to hear and then they want to reimburse you for your trouble, but an outside observer can still spot it as a scam just the same.
Astrology is interesting as a part of history, as a precursor to astronomy. In a similar way that alchemy is a precursor to chemistry. In that sense, astrology isnāt dangerous and may actually be useful for historical research. Of course, realize that there isnāt just one astrology - Roman astrology is different from Chinese astrology, for example.
But, when people still really buy into it, itās as harmful as many other kinds of non-critical thinking, as previously noted by posters here. 
Is astrology harmless? I think believing in astrology is means a lack of critical thinking, but it does not ask you to ostracize or harm anyone. What other evil can astrology lead to? Is it harmful to engage in astrology for entertainment?
Thanks! I see religion and astrology as two different things.Okay, fair enough, so your OP got me going on what I wanted to talk about. Now, can you explain what you wanted to talk about? Not trying to be a jerk, just trying to be concise. :-) What is the point you would like to be making , . . . Or can you ask a better question?
What one can learn is directly linked to (or if you want to be grumpy - limited by...) how well one can formulate the questions one is asking. :)Gotta run, Go downstairs for a few minutes of thump'n twang, then back up here to stay away from this dastardly computer, and crash. 6 am wake up dude. Then comes Saturday, the big one, happy to say plenty of years of sturm-und-drang have paid off, Smooth sailing this year, well smooth enough, with fair weather on the horizon, still need to sleep more than in those old days when this place* really rocked on every floor way late into night and morning. *Strater Hotel, Durango, Colorado, wild west, or at least its final echo was back a few years ago. Nowadays the after 10:00pm music has been confined to the basement. But, you know, after a couple years of confusion and reorientation, the basement is what it is, So the hallways clear, as musicians (imagine fantasia for a moment) descend down the stairs to congregate in the basement and get it on. Excuse me for derailing the conversation - if it's any consolation, this victorian hotel has many a ceiling with wonderful stars amongst other splendid ornamentation on its ceiling. I'm done. Now what's the deal with this astrology business of yours, what the heck is it good for?
It's only harmful if it's the basis of action that affects others. I seem to remember Reagan relying on an astrologer. If that was the case and he used it as a basis for decisions, then yes very bad, even if the decisions themselves resulted in something positive.That reminds me recent events in South Korea. President had to step down and her "advisor", who is a member of some sects (a wild guess - moonists) was recently sentenced for jail.
For this I checked in. 
Meanwhile at the ranch, Iām in the home stretch now, was hoping something interesting would have occurred
while I was spending the day putting out brush fires and feeding hungry people.
Astrology, the mirage is so fascinating, but in the end, vapors and so much hot air and thatās it. :long: