Social help

[Gerben42]

I recently got into a tough social situation, and I'd like your input on it. With a group of acquaintances I was sitting in a bar and we were having a good time, when suddenly someone got the idea of asking everyone what their zodiac sign was, and analyzing if Virgo would go together with Leo and all that stuff.

 

Now as you all know, astrology is complete and utter nonsense, but on the other hand I didn't want to mess up the upto this point good atmosphere by pointing this out.

 

What would you have done?

[jdonn]

Just play along, who cares if you know it's not true. This was a wtp to me.

[Hanoi5]

Go with the flow.

 

Now as you all know, astrology is complete and utter nonsense, but on the other hand I didn't want to mess up the upto this point good atmosphere by pointing this out.

 

I wouldn't say utter nonsense anyway. It's like being on a group where people are talking about God and saying:

 

Now as you all know, the existence of God is complete and utter nonsense

 

You can't prove it either way (the existence or non-existence). Zodiac signs (not the daily horoscope) are like the enneagrams of personality, some stuff will be true, some will not.

[awm]

Sometimes you can approach this issue indirectly. Like "Wow I never realized that (two straight male acquaintances) are perfect for each other!" or "So that's why I shouldn't date (someone whom it should be totally obvious you shouldn't date)."

 

Usually people laugh when you say something like this. If most of the group doesn't take astrology really seriously this injects humor back into the situation (and might shut up the astrologer if in fact that person does take it seriously but most others do not). Of course, if you get a lot of blank stares it will be awkward, but at least now you know that you're the only one who doesn't believe the nonsense...

[helene_t]

Agree with Adam. There will be a number of people who don't really care whether astrology is true or not but just consider it good entertainment.

 

It is probably less explosive than the existence of God (as Hanoi compares to). There will be some who would get upset if you say that we all know that astrology is nonsense, but few will get upset about jokes about astrology.

[kenberg]

In similar situations I acknowledge knowing that I am a Capricorn and then pretty much keep my mouth shut, responding honestly but hopefully tactfully to questions directed my way. No need to dis someone else's enthusiasms as long as they are not, for example, running the country. I once read that Capricorns always have their bids.

 

I attend a Yoga class. Mostly we do stuff that feels good but occasionally there is some background theory that strikes me as unlikely. It's OK.

[helene_t]

I once read that Capricorns always have their bids.

Interesting.

 

Btw, I was reassured by being told that virgos don't believe in astrology.

[Al_U_Card]

Next you'll be saying that professional wrestling is fake!!! C'mon people....we are going thru the looking glass here!

 

When someone brings up (mundane) astrology, steer the conversation towards Chinese and then Mayan and then Egyptian star studies.

 

The best part of the conversation then slides into how people don't change, just circumstances. In this way, you lose the trite and get into what actually can tell you something about those with whom you associate...

[barmar]

I think there's a difference between telling people that astrology is nonsense and telling them that religion is bunk. Religion has much more societal support, so people who believe in it feel much more justified, and have a right to expect you to provide better arguments against it.

 

Believers in other supernatural activities, such as astrology, psychics, palm reading, etc., know that they are out of the mainstream. Also, these rarely form parts of someone's core belief system, the way religion does.

[Winstonm]

Now as you all know, astrology is complete and utter nonsense, but on the other hand I didn't want to mess up the upto this point good atmosphere by pointing this out.

 

What would you have done?

 

Offered instead of an astrological reading to read the bumps on the women's chests as a counter assessment-of-the-future technique.

[vuroth]

I once read that Capricorns always have their bids.

Gosh, I wonder if my parents got my birthday wrong. :)

 

Go along with it. The more analysis they put into the reading, the more they'll be telling YOU about what's going on in their subconscious.

 

Maybe they'll let slip an assumption or understanding they have about someone that you didn't previously know.

 

V

[onoway]

My mother and I used to go get our tea leaves read about twice a year. We would have been appalled at anyone thinking we took any of it seriously. Sometimes it was quite fun, when they drifted out of the usual and got creative. I didn't know I was a sailor in a former life, for example. :)

[Hanoi5]

I once read that Capricorns always have their bids. 

 

Apparently I have never played with a Capricorn...

[Lobowolf]

I recently got into a tough social situation, and I'd like your input on it. With a group of acquaintances I was sitting in a bar and we were having a good time, when suddenly someone got the idea of asking everyone what their zodiac sign was, and analyzing if Virgo would go together with Leo and all that stuff.

 

Now as you all know, astrology is complete and utter nonsense, but on the other hand I didn't want to mess up the upto this point good atmosphere by pointing this out.

 

What would you have done?

I'd identify myself as a "skeptic" and suggest that instead, if there's someone in the group who really believes in astrology, what might be more interesting is to have that person discern each member of the group's zodiac sign from his/her personality.

[ochinko]

You can't prove it either way (the existence or non-existence). Zodiac signs (not the daily horoscope) are like the enneagrams of personality, some stuff will be true, some will not.

I agree with you that one should go with the flow but not with the provability of the matters.

 

God (at least the Christian one) is by definition unknowable by a mortal human's mind. Astrology, on the other hand, claims to be able to predict your daily fate depending on the time of your birth. So its predictions could be subjected to statistics and scientifically proved or disproved. I am not at all surprised that AFAIK nobody bothered to do it but it's still doable.

[Gerben42]

So its predictions could be subjected to statistics and scientifically proved or disproved. I am not at all surprised that AFAIK nobody bothered to do it but it's still doable.

 

People did bother and scientific results were as follows:

 

A professional horoscope fits the great majority of people and is interchangeable. For example they took the professionally made horoscope of some well-known person that people wouldn't want to be associated with (think evil dictators, serial killers, etc.), and let people believe that this was their personal horoscope especially made for them. 95% of the participants said the horoscope described them well.

 

They also let astrologers make predictions and then see if they came true. The predictions that came true were made in such a way that they would be true most of the time anyway. The very specific predictions rarely did.

 

Nostradamus' verses work in the same way. As they can be interpreted in many ways, you just have to wait for something to happen, and then point out that some verse predicts this.

 

Conclusion: Personal horoscopes are interchangeable, even astrologers think that the weekly horoscopes in the newspapers are nonsense, and astrological predictions about the future are like putting your money at number 12 in roulette, and then spinning the wheel until it hits 12, then pointing out that you've won.

 

Sorry if I've disillusioned you.

[barmar]

The horoscopes that are just based on your sign, and not all the other details that "real astrologers" use, are obviously silly. Can anyone really believe that the same prediction is true for everyone born in the same month? At least personal atrological charts pretend to be customized to the individual, by narrowing down to the date, time, and location of birth, and using planetary locations in addition to the position of the sun.

 

Maybe the way to deal with the conversation is to try to confuse them with a paradox. Say something like "I'm an Aries, and they don't believe in astrology."

[Codo]

Hey, I am a capricorn, and WE don't belive in astrology. But I won't discuss this any further, the newspaper said that we capricorns must avoid any stress today.

[Al_U_Card]

For the curious.....this site provides you with a decent natal chart for your edification and enjoyment.....free of charge!

 

http://alabe.com/freechart/

 

 

mine was more accurate than I care to admit...

[mikeh]

For those who think that describing astrology as nonsense is somehow different from describing religion as nonsense... consider the origins of astrology... a belief in our lives being influenced by the stars stems from now-obsolete religious beliefs. IOW, it is a form of religion.

 

I would also go along with the flow (and have done so in the past)... but you might consider asking anyone purporting to do a chart whether they have accounted for the movement of the zodiac, over the past several thousand years. They do not, I understand, lie in the same relative places in the sky as they did when first identified... and of course the patterns we see are no longer exactly the patterns than our ancestors saw, because the stars all move relative not just to the earth, but also to each other.

[helene_t]

They [the zodiac signs] do not, I understand, lie in the same relative places in the sky as they did when first identified... and of course the patterns we see are no longer exactly the patterns than our ancestors saw, because the stars all move relative not just to the earth, but also to each other.

Their movement relative to each other is negligible.

 

It is true that due to precision of the Earth's rotation axis, the zodiac signs have moved some thirty days relative to their location 3000 years ago which are still used by astrologers. But this is besides the point IMHO since the zodiac calendar is just a division of the year into twelve equally long months, for practical purposes. One might have called those months M1,M2...M12 but someone apparently got the idea of naming them after star formations which are close to the Sun's position during the respective months. In fact the ecliptica crosses thirteen star formations (the twelwe zodiac signs plus Cygna), although this is arbitrary since one could obviously have chosen to divide the sky using other star formations. They vary in span from some ten days to some 50 days.

 

So if someone says he/she is born in the virgo sign, it just means "late summer" (or "late winter" on the southern hemisphere). It wasn't really related to stars in the first place (apart for a naming convention), so it's no big deal that it's even less related to the stars making up the virgo sign today. (Besides, at the Northern latitude I suppose one could be born under e.g. Ursa Major rather than those tropical signs. But again, it doens't matter, it's just a naming convention and always was).

[NickRW]

For the curious.....this site provides you with a decent natal chart for your edification and enjoyment.....free of charge!

 

http://alabe.com/freechart/

 

 

mine was more accurate than I care to admit...

Mine had about as much to do with me as the results of the political compass thing - not a lot.

 

Nick

[matmat]

I would just say one of the following:

 

1. I don't remember when my birthday is.

2. what's my sign? "Road Work Ahead"

3. I'm a cerberus.

[Lobowolf]

Regarding "provability," I think a mass study using any of the major personality profiles correlated against specific zodiac signs, or "water/fire/earth/air" signs and revealing no significant variation would be easy enough. There might not be "proof," but there's got to be a lot of "supportability."

[Al_U_Card]

Seems to me that a lot of heads of state (and/or their spouses) have been fans...which may just prove the converse. :P