Astrology

[DipDipDive]

Do you believe in it? If so, to what extent?

I know a good bit about it and would say I believe in it. Historically speaking, its theories seem to be accurate in terms of my interactions with people. I'm trying not to put too much stock in it though, because I'm finding that too often, I let it dictate my relationships with people before they've even developed.

Example: I'm interested in a boy. Then I find out he's a Cancer and I immediately say to myself "it'll never work."

^ Stupid. :(

[b i o n i c]

im all about logic and reasoning, and i dont believe in superstition and crap like that, but im kind of embarassed to say i think there's something to astrology. not really the horoscopes, but more about people's personalities and compatibilities.

id be VERY sceptical about ever dating a libra again. do you speak from experience in compatibilities and astrology?

[DipDipDive]

do you speak from experience in compatibilities and astrology?

Yes. I have always gravitated towards particular signs in both romantic and platonic relationships, which is what has driven me to learn more about it. After realizing that I seem to end up with a lot of friends who are sign A, want to hump people who are sign B, clash with people who are sign C, etc., I looked further into it and now probably have more information than I should. I find it fascinating but I'm concerned about the possibility of ruling/seeking people out based on their signs rather than letting relationships progress naturally and hoping for the best.

Edit: Uuuuhhhh...I'm thinking I might have already made this thread once before. Fuck.

[Bob]

I'm trying not to put too much stock in it though, because I'm finding that too often, I let it dictate my relationships with people before they've even developed.

Example: I'm interested in a boy. Then I find out he's a Cancer and I immediately say to myself "it'll never work."


yeah i figure that's why astrology is "accurate"

also i'm a cancer fuck you

[DipDipDive]

also i'm a cancer fuck you

I am too, Bob. I always want to do it with Cancer fellas but then am turned off by visions of both of us weeping in eachothers arms post coitus. Bunch of emo fucks, we are.

[b i o n i c]

i thought you were horny fuckers

[Bob]

I am too, Bob. I always want to do it with Cancer fellas but then am turned off by visions of both of us weeping in eachothers arms post coitus. Bunch of emo fucks, we are.

wait, that's a turnoff for you? i guess you're right, we'd never work

[DipDipDive]

i thought you were horny fuckers

:cool::cool:

[DipDipDive]

wait, that's a turnoff for you? i guess you're right, we'd never work

PM if you'd like to talk about your feelings. I bet you do.

[Bob]

is horny a feeling

[DipDipDive]

HAHA! It's associated with feelings, at the very least. Namely frustration for me lololol. :(

[The Notorious LOL]

Overall Ive found that basing judgment of a person on their sun sign is an excellent way to restrict yourself from meaningful relationships.

The whole "rebirth/transformation/reinvention" piece of my sun sign is true for me personally, but I think everyone experiences that to some extent.

[Yetra Flam]

I do not have any characteristics of my sign at all, whatsoever.

[The Notorious LOL]

whats your sign?

[Yetra Flam]

scorpio - all dark and mysterious and sexual.

[The Notorious LOL]

everyone likes doing sex. there you go.

[b i o n i c]

my highly scientific theory is that it might have to do with what time of year you're born in and how that affects your coming into consciousness.. like if you're born in the summer, you might be outside more at the beginning of your life and discovering different things. but then there's the northern/southern hemisphere thing

[Yetra Flam]

that's an interesting thought actually

[b i o n i c]

®

[Echewta]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dp2Zqk8vHw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDhxcIaC23k&feature=related

While I do believe in energies from things, I don't believe that Mars, when in retrograde, causes my car to have issues or that I should never put anything of myself inside someone because they were born between March 18-April 21st because we apparently clash. Its impossible to have everyone, based on when they were born, be the same way.

Astrology tends to generalize so that you will always find something that relates to you. You will find wealth, communicate with a long lost friend, and a new opportunity will find its way to you. Oh, well I did win $10 with a lottery scratcher so it was right! Meanwhile, you forget about the new opportunity and the long lost friend never happening.

I feel the same way about religion. Prayers mostly are never answered but when one is, the power of prayer is amazing. Silly. All the unaswered prayers are fogotten.

[Myu-to]

All the unaswered prayers are fogotten.
That's not true at all, just listen to how Garth views it. (http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/TWbTVEjo_r0/)

[Echewta]

Thats such a big touche, you have no idea.

[Kid Presentable]

nobody believes in it but everybody knows their 'what sign they are'.

[HAL 9000]

It depends what you mean by Astrology, obviously the position of planets and stars has no direct impact on a person’s fortunes or future – that is just silly. But it is not implausible that people of particular star signs could be more likely to behave in certain ways.

Bionic (above) set out one such mechanism and I would add to that by observing that (in many countries) all Arians tend to be the youngest person in their class at school whereas a Libra is generally among the oldest. This could be significant in the development of a persons personality. Also it is plausible that (as others have noted) that a person who is ‘into astrology’ could fit their character to the stereotype.

Ultimately, however, this is not a matter of belief, either Astrology has something to say about a person’s personality or it doesn’t. Either it makes prediction about the future or it doesn’t. We can test this very easily, and it has been tested. The studies I am aware of show no link between star sign and personality trait. This includes studies of twins separated at birth. So while I think the idea is superficially plausible (at least for having a low level impact), any effect is not significant enough to be detected by a human.

It would be easy for an astrologer to demonstrate the effect by watching a series of interviews with test subjects and guessing their star sign. It would be important that the test subjects do not know the purpose of the test (or they might act into their star sign character) and the test should be double blind. If star sign had a genuine influence on character, the astrologer should do much better than random chance. As far as I am aware, astrologers fail such tests.

What studies of astrology do show is that it is a classic example of ‘Confirmation Bias’ which is the root cause of many areas of pseudoscience (homeopathy etc). As pointed out above, people remember the hits and forget the misses when looking for evidence relating to a previously accepted ideology. This is why personal anecdote is completely useless as data in studies of things like this or prayer and similar ( Look at the Anti-Vax movement – a classic case or personal anecdote vs. scientific data). You need large controlled studies and these pretty much always find no effect.

If anyone can accurate tell a strangers star sign without being told, contact James Randi and he will give you a million dollars subject to an independent test. The fact that know one has taken his money in this or any other area of bullshit, probably tells you all you need to know. I would certainly suggest that astrology is a spectacularly poor basis on which to make real life decisions.

[Fern]

Creo de nada.

[HEIRESS]

one day for LOL at work I found out a bunch of my coworkers signs and then printed out internet handouts on how their signs interacts with all the other signs and then wrote which coworkers were each sign next to their blurbs.

it was pretty goddamn entertaining and alot of it freakishly true.

I am born on the exact cusp of Cancer and Gemini so it's kinda hard to follow really basic horoscopes etc...

and regardless it is probably one of the most fucked up cusps to be born under.

edit: I just looked up something on it and it is known as the "Cusp of Magic" OOooooOOOOOoooooOOOOOooooo

[b i o n i c]

every virgo i know is a neat freak

[funk63]

Where my sagittarius' at??

[na§tee]

i'm a cancer too!

we're homeloving and sensitive. DON'T LEAVE ME!

[skinnybutphat]

Anything that you can buy rolled up like a little scroll in the impulse buy section of the grocery check-out line has to be legit. It's right above the Twix.

[HotAndWet]

I noticed recently that I have a lot of friends that are leos, I'm an aquarius and apparently they're supposed to be really good together...I don't know.

[paul jones]

I've been out with girls who were Taurus and Aquarius and they were a real bunch of confusing fucked up cunts let me tell you.

I'm supposed to be best matched with cancers and scorpios but I've yet to fuck either so I don't know.

I've read descriptions on signs and matched them to people I know and they're quite accurate but I think that ther'es diffrent kinds of each sign.

I've met good people of all signs and complete cunts of all signs

that fucking Ace Of Base song was on the radio the other night.(I think that's about horoscopes maybe:confused:(y)

[roosta]

I don't believe it whatsoever, and struggle to understand how people can.

[Echewta]

I'm a Virgo which explains everything.

[Pres Zount]

I don't believe it whatsoever, and struggle to understand how people can.

There's a lady at work who reads her horoscope every day, and without fail always manages to add how it's "so her". I want to kill her.

If her star sign read that someone was going to kill her, and she read that out to me, I would feel compelled to kill her : /

[Dorothy Wood]

I'm a leo, and I just googled "leo traits" and found this:

Generous and warmhearted
Creative and enthusiastic
Broad-minded and expansive
Faithful and loving

On the dark side....

Pompous and patronizing
Bossy and interfering
Dogmatic and intolerant



all of which is true. but perhaps might have more to do with being an only child.

however, my mom is a cancer and I've dated 3 cancers in my life. here's what they say about those:

[B]Emotional and loving
Intuitive and imaginative
Shrewd and cautious
Protective and sympathetic

On the dark side....

Changeable and moody
Overemotional and touchy
Clinging and unable to let go



That's pretty darn accurate.

so, logically speaking, it's tough for me to believe in astrology, but it's hard to deny the spooky coincidences.

[The Notorious LOL]

I think you can find traits from almost anyone in the vague ass astrological descriptions.

In a nutshell, there is some truth to it but it goes far beyond a simple sun sign. One has to take into account the ascendant, moon sign, planets and their oppositions, etc etc.

Im more Leo or Libra than I am Scorpio, but thats what my sun sign is.

[Dorothy Wood]

I think you can find traits from almost anyone in the vague ass astrological descriptions.

In a nutshell, there is some truth to it but it goes far beyond a simple sun sign. One has to take into account the ascendant, moon sign, planets and their oppositions, etc etc.

Im more Leo or Libra than I am Scorpio, but thats what my sun sign is.


yeah, I think my personality traits come less from the sun and more from my mom being a sap and my dad being an asshole. that makes me a sap hole.

[MC Moot]

I don’t pay a lot of heed to it in general…I only really look when I feel crisis abounds or I'm undergoing some kind of monumental sea change...but I do believe that some of the personality traits assigned to various sign can be pretty damned accurate…I do not gel well with Capricorns,this is true…We Virgo’s rule the celestial heavens,that is also true…

[HotAndWet]

I've been out with girls who were Taurus and Aquarius and they were a real bunch of confusing fucked up cunts let me tell you.



I'm an aquarius!! :mad: I am a pretty fucked up cunt though.

[paul jones]

I'm an aquarius!! :mad: I am a pretty fucked up cunt though.

duh! I was just saying that the aquarian I aqquired was a cunt(y)

[skra75]

I've found the shit to be surprisingly most often correct. I find I get along with Leos to an extent and get pissed off at Aquarious (well, except maybe this one dude I know he's allright) Scorpios, Aries, and Tauruses almost all of the time. I"ve had good times with Pisces, Gemini, and Saggitariuses. But also had deeply bad times with all of those signs too (same signs, different people). One Pisces stalked me and I thought she was going to kill me.

I've also found that I can't glean anything from those astrology "daily advice" columns. it's random and the stuff could apply to anyone. When I was single it was a nice emotional crutch though.

It's all very funny since I'm often the first one to talk shit about hippies.

[Chicka B]

Hmmm...I'm a virgo and it's surprisingly accurate in how it describes me and relationships with other signs. It's off on some things of course, but it puts a lot of emphasis on worrying about everything and annoying the other signs with it (which is the story of my life haha). Of course I can't say I believe in it, it's just interesting and fun. I study a lot of things I don't believe in just for fun, like right now I have some obsession with hypnosis. "now feel the tension slowly being released from your buttocks and replaced with relaxation" *faaaaaaart*

[mickill]

I do not believe in it the least bit. I don't even know what signs my children are. In fact, if someone was offering me 100 trillion dollars to tell them right now, I would only have a one in twelve chance of guessing either of my kid's signs. That's how much I do not believe in it.

I do however allow fortune cookies to determine certain levels of my own optimism from time to time.

[QueenAdrock]

Like Dorothy, I just see some strange coincidences between my sign and my personality. I'm one of the only people I know who will make conscious efforts to mix together my work friends, school friends, friends from when I was little, family friends, etc, and having all my 'groups' meet and intermingle. Then I read something about how that's a specific Libra trait, craving balance and harmony between all of their relationships. I thought it was just because I was a dirty hippie at heart, wanting everyone to hold hands and be friends and shit.

[mickill]

^ That's weird. I tend to do that too. And you and I share the same birthday, although nearly a decade apart. Perhaps this is more than just mere coincidence.

[b i o n i c]

"Slowly improving influences should start being noticeable from today. What you can look forward to is a gradual improvement in emotional matters, including romance, so if you’re single you certainly shouldn’t waste a moment of the positive vibes; someone somewhere is interested!"

somewhere.. but where??

[Echewta]

Wow, I can't believe how may people fall for it.

[HAL 9000]

It is amazing how many people fall for this stuff. On a similar note, I used to work in Financial Crime prevention. Interviewed a man who had been convicted of carrying out 419 scams by email (aka Nigerian Advanced Fee fraud - I am a Nigerian prince trying to get money out of the country - send me your bank account details and £1000 and I will deposit millions in your account). He said thatfor every 100 emails he sent out he would get 15 interested replys of which 4 would end up handing over cash.

It is scary how vulnerable many people are to simple psycological manipulation and logical falacies. I suppose horoscopes and stuff are at the harmless end of the scale but still :rolleyes:

http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/h0059240

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.