Comment by TravHatesMe
7 years ago
Interesting indeed! I suppose this is a sound argument against astrology -- a few thousand years ago you'd be looking at a different sky, how can you have a well-defined set of astrological symbols when their respective skies are changing, albeit slowly.
Astrology does take the Earth's precession into account; as the vernal equinox precesses from one zodiac constellation to another every 2150 years, it becomes a different age. You might know the 60's song "Age of Aquarius"; that's what the song is referencing. (I'm not saying there's any validity to astrology, just pointing out an interesting connection.)
They could believe that the meaning of the different signs changes as the corresponding constellations change.
For an entertaining science fiction look at that possibility, see season 2 episode 5 of "The Orville". Briefly, they encounter a civilization that believes strongly in astrology, to the point of using it as the basis of a very rigid caste system that pretty much determines at birth what jobs are open to you and what your place will be in society.
I don't want to give any spoilers, but I will say that the question of what happens when a constellation changes is an important one in this episode.
this is a sound argument against astrology
TLDR: I'm guessing you don't actually know a heck of a lot about astrology. Your assertion looks baseless to me.
Long form:
Not really. Astrology is basically observed associations from the point of view of the Earth. For example, it will mark planets as "retrograde," which means they appear to be moving backwards from our view here on Earth, though no planet ever actually turns around and moves backwards.
I've studied astrology some. I think there are some serious issues with traditional western astrology, such as the fact that most meanings, rulerships, etc, were assigned at a time when humans observed the night sky with the naked eye. We have only relatively recently discovered additional planets (thanks to telescopes) and kind of shoe-horned those in (to traditional astrology), mostly without research, from what I gather.
One somewhat famous astrologer once proposed in one of her books that we should include the Earth in all astrological charts "because if we ever colonize Mars, we will need to include the Earth in those charts." Mathematically speaking, the Earth is already included, implicitly, in the House System, though it could stand to be assigned rulership etc and included more explicitly in other ways.
Yeah, no one here has any clue what the hell I'm going on about. I'll shut up now.