Does anyone actually, non-ironically, genuinely believe in horoscopes?

[UnquietDad]

Because I'd been under the impression that even people who enjoy them know that they are "just a bit of fun", with no basis in fact.

But I've been reading a debate on another forum where someone is actually arguing for real belief in them. Makes me wonder what century we are living in.

Ah you see Niecie, I would agree it was interesting, but I would take it as a fascinating demonstration that the authors of the Gospels who were trying to pick a suitable date for Jesus's birth were aware of astrology and were using it to help promote their claim that he was the Messiah.
(apologies to any theologians who know about this in more detail - I just remember from Ancient History classes that the available evidence gives a range of possible dates.)

aren't you all boring. don't you just look up at the stars and wonder?

I love the universe and all it's wonders.

Loved that Sun prog that was on the other week.

It is all very fascinating and huge.

Horoscopes are not science though and is a load of bollocks.

Just written by some eejits in an office to fill news print.

Don't get be wrong, my dp's a physicist and we often look up at the stars and wonder but we don't wonder what they think we should be doing with our lives!

I wonder about what the stars would have seemed like to the people who invented astrology and what it would have felt like to see them, free of light pollution, and not know what they were.

yes while the middle class dream of their next extension/outfit/poncey writing

They were modern day nuns and had been through all the possible dates as deciphered from the gospels or ancient historians or whatever (can't remember the detail, it was several years ago) and decided on one particular date as it had a highly unusual configuration of planets.

And yes, Southeastastra, I do look at the sky and wonder. Can everything in the universe be totally random and have absolutely no effects on us at all? I don't believe in astrology as I want proof but I do wonder.

We know we are affected to an extent. Just a very simple thing like the effect of the seasons and the sun on us. What about all those people who suffer from SAD. Are they not affected by the planets?

I would take a lot of convincing but it could be true. Or on the other hand it may not.

I think a lot of people are looking for something they are afraid to find.

Tbh, I never look at any sort of writing as poncey, and always give it the benefit of, well, you can't really say a doubt.

But it's a form of self-expression.

So to be viewed as such, even if you find it, in your opinion, a load of steaming horse dung.

People who suffer from SAD are affected by low light levels and can be cured by regular sessions in front of a bright electric bulb!

OK SAD is a simplistic example, but all I am saying is that people are affected by the movement of the planets via the changing of the seasons, the tides, the time of day.

Obviously all that can't be encapsulated in 4 lines of guesswork in 'The Sun' though.

I do not believe it.
My MIL quite often asks a person's star sign - if I'm talking about a friend, she will ask what his/her sign is, as if to make better sense of the story.
SHe has started doing it with DS now.
She says we clash because we are both Sagittarians
[FFS]
There is no helpful debate after that, is there?

"yes while the middle class dream of their next extension/outfit/poncey writing"

what's that supposed to mean?

The problem is that if everything is written in the stars it suggests that your fate is predetermined and you have no control over your own life! Like Pruni and her MIL who are destined to clash until the end of time. Obviously a load of tosh. We all have free will.

i don't know really

think i'll get my coat

have a lovely christmas everyone. bye it was fun!

Of course it's rubbish. One can believe the universe is wondrous without being robotic about it, but also without believing a load of old guff about spinning rocks and balls of gas having an influence over our fate.

What I find interesting is that I've met people who quite happily dismiss astrology as a load of bunkum but who then also quite happily continue believing other irrational and superstitious stuff, which has equally shaky basis in fact.

Oh, there are population variations in various things(e.g. tendency to depression) depending on the seasons - some its when you were born and IIRC some when you were conceived. To do with things like vitamin D levels. So we may be influenced by one planet, the Sun - but the effect on any individual can't be predicted as too many other factors (diet etc).

thats sort of interesting but not much fun I'm afraid! More fun to wonder about what might really be out there... life, the universe and everything.

And educational outcomes can be influenced by whether you were born aug31 or sept 1 but thats arbitrary school year not some influence from outer space.

My partner's mother, a highly intelligent and qualified woman, became an astrologer in later life.

It was an area where I always kept my mouth shut, as personally I think the whole thing's outrageous bollocks.

I do know other people who believe in it, though, including a particularly bonkers former friend who once told me quite seriously she could communicate with the souls of photocopiers.