- Position‹2 of 2
- No, zodiac signs don’t influence anything
- Argument‹2 of 2
Zodiac signs are a Western hoax
Some people claim that astrology (as practiced in its current form) is based on thousands of years of tradition. Until recently, explorers of modern astrology didn’t even have proper access to the classical astrological texts on which their predictions were based.
The argument
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines astrology as “the study of the supposed influences of the stars and planets on people’s lives and behavior.” Astrology, not to be confused with astronomy, was created by the Babylonians over 2,400 years ago and started with the belief celestial bodies could predict natural events and seasons. However, astrology expands its purpose to this day. People rely on astrology to predict critical elements of their lives including their strengths, weaknesses, relationships and careers. Traditional Hellenistic astrology brings a rigor and harmony to astrology that modern methods washed over. The modern system flattened the subjects, which describe worldly matters like money, love, and career, into the zodiac signs of the star constellations, while the ancient texts never conflated the two. Prying these important pieces of astrology back apart clarifies how the ancients related movements of the heavens with events on earth. Compare this to new-age psychological astrology, which over-accentuates internal matters of the mind and spirit, opening up far too much room for confirmation bias. Modern astrology hastily outsizes influence to the newly discovered planets of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto without the centuries of observational data that the Hellenistic astrologers were working with. In popular culture, astronomy and zodiac signs are used for entertainment and give false validity. Empirical evidence and astronomy’s history does not support the validity of zodiac signs.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Mentored by Freud and a friend of Einstein, Jung was inspired to research the metaphysical field to see if it could help him with his patients. He is considered to be the father of synchronicity, and coined the term when he noticed the correlation — but not causation — of lunar patterns and women’s menstrual cycle. Jung concluded that, in the same way that the moon synchronizes with but does not cause the female menstruation cycle, celestial conjunctions are but a mere reflection and a great example of how everything is connected; everything is in sync. Planets and constellations are archetypes — a collection of the basic themes that make up our human lives. They are components of the human psyche that are found in the collective unconscious.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P3] This is not necessarily true.