Astrology Is Still Bulls**t and the Universe Doesn't Care...

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...About You

No! NO! My sign has changed! According to some made up crap by a bunch of people who deal in made up crap, I'm now a Sagittarius, because of planetary movement. Unfortunately for those who care, this means absolutely zero.

The stars are giant flaming orbs of gas, floating in a vacuum. They dictate nothing. They determine nothing in your life. They do not care about you, or your girlfriend, or your job, or your sister's wedding, or your car not starting, or whether you're "the jealous type." They do not get to decide whether you get along with Libras, or can't stand Cancers, or are having a bad day. They don't care about anything, because they are giant flaming orbs of gas, floating in a vacuum. Stars don't even care about stars. If you're lazy, or sleazy, or easily angered, it's your own fault—not the galaxy's.

Which makes all of the media hubbub (and clamoring of shocked idiots) surrounding the shift all the more annoying.

"You may be a Virgo, scientists say," quoth Fox News. Scientists. Scientists.

No.

Scientists are the people who put together and run the Large Hadron Collider.

Scientists develop screens we can bend, find cures for diseases we might catch, and tell us exactly how those (mindless) stars work. But a people who claim to have adjusted the Zodiac in order to compensate for millennia of planetary shifting in order to bring astrology back to its Babylonian accuracy? Scientist is not the word for one of these people. Instead, try dumbass, quack, moron, etc.

But it's actually all okay! The disaster has been averted! According to CNN, it was all just a misunderstanding—the same meaningless label applied to your existence you thought you had have been reverted. I'm a Capricorn again! Which is to say, nothing. It's very easy to avoid disasters that never occurred in the first place, and are the stuff of fiction. Did you hear? The impending Lizard King invasion of North America has been called off! Wonderful news! The stars must be in alignment!

As James Randi demonstrated, horoscopes are designed to pander to our sad little lives. They are generic. They are shallow.

"You will accomplish a goal soon."
"You are yearning for something."
"You enjoy the scent of cake."

According to this pile of s**t astrology website I just googled, as a recently-restored Capricorn, I enjoy "hot, simple food, history, not being pressured by others, having plenty of unconditional love, and expensive gemstones." I have such strange and unique preferences! I also dislike "being teased" and "loneliness."It's like the website has known me my entire life.

Like Randi shows, a horoscope can literally be given to anyone (stupid enough), and they will read into it whatever they want in order to feel like there's some cosmic grandpa up there, ready to give you a hug and tell you it'll all be okay. And that you like fun! And have an aversion to being set on fire!

There's no grandpa. There are just stars. Lots of them. Burning matter. Ignorant particles. Maybe it sucks, but please—let's all be quiet about it and just admire them for what they are: gorgeous things that couldn't care less that we exist.

Photo by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (real scientists)

Thank you for cheering me up, Asp-Z.

Everyone who tatted themselves up must've been pissed after they heard about the signs being changed LOL

One small correction: Stars are not in fact "balls of burning gas", but rather spheroids of fusing plasma. The heat and light are merely side-effects of the fusion reaction (the "solar phoenix") going on in the core of each star.

Then there are the planets, supposed "rulers" of this or that aspect of our lives. Lifeless balls of rock, enormous globs of gas, often with other bits of rock or ice orbiting them; in one case, it's not even properly a planet, unless one wishes to recast all those astrological charts to account for the influences of Ceres, Eris, and Quaoar (or however that's spelled) as well. They too fall endlessly around the Sun, under the power of its gravity and their own momentum, each a source of wonder and information for those who value the sciences, but each at the same time uncaring of exactly how your particular life unfolds, whether you find love this day or face difficulties at work.

And really, isn't it enough to marvel at, say, Venus, with its hothouse atmosphere of sulfuric acid and its surface winds that put Earth's greatest hurricanes to shame, with its slow backward rotation that sees the sun rise in the west (if you could see the sun from its surface, anyway) to trek slowly across the sky in a day that lasts longer than a local year? At Jupiter, with its great storm that's been going on for at least 300 years and shows no sign of abating? At the grand and gaudy rings of Saturn, or Uranus rotating on its side around the Sun? In short, aren't the various celestial objects fascinating enough on their own, without needing to believe that they somehow rule your very existence as well?

Sagittarius forever!

Oh Moog, but what am I supposed to tell my family now when they believe the astrology page of women's magazines? They don't believe everything written there is crap; to them, it's their 'guaranteed future'. Saying the signs changed would have confused them to no end ...

Yes, two members of my family believe everything said from astrology reports. One even ate a tub of ice cream and cried for a week when she read that she was nearing a breakup with her true love. They're still together two years later. Pathetic, I know.

I think the article in the OP is a bit confused.

Something doesn't have to care about something to have an effect on it. What a weird thing to say. My Mp3 player doesn't care for Albert Ayler, but it still plays his songs.

People who believe in astrology aren't necessarily deists. There are many astrology believers who are atheists.

I can take of leave unconditional love and have no affection for gemstones, so I would not read Capricorn and think it was me. Bad examples?

Given a report and being assured convincingly it was about me, I imagine I could easily play up things that were like me and ignore what wasn't. Given a more open framework of presentation, I might give it a different scrutiny. It wouldn't surprise me that people shown identical astrology reports could be convinced that they were their personal reports. That's not a failing of astrology, it's a feature of human psychology. The placebo effect works, but you wouldn't call someone who got better because of it a dumb ass.

Moog, if someone were "cured" by the placebo effect, and went on to praise the efficacy of placebos and urge everyone to rely on them, I would indeed call that person a dumbass.

Similarly, horoscopes are generally sufficiently vaguely worded that they will, on occasion and by sheer random chance, happen to coincide with some aspect of one's life; should one then go on to proclaim that the relative positions of the stars, the planets, and the Sun rule over every aspect of existence and are infallible, one would once again be a dumbass.

Further, one would be closing oneself off to a true appreciation for the wonders that really, provably, are there, and render one's existence poorer thereby.

If astrology could have any validity, it would be due to that the planets move in cycles which might coincide with solar events (which have weather effects on Earth and so impacts the environment and thus the individual).

The part that astrology determines a person's personality is utter nonsense. Your biological makeup largely determines the personality alongside nuturing.

I remember watching a segment on Carl Sagan. The video had to be made 20+ years ago. It mentions that the astrological signs changed. Why is this news?