Do you see what I see?

Do you see what I see?
A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite

It's a beautiful song, but I have news for the Catholic church which has (according to comments on HN: 1; 2) banned all forms of divination, including astrology, which I guess explains why so many Catholics and other Christians are such assholes to me personally on the topic of astrology.

And that news is that the above song is evidence of the history of the Christian religion and how it was founded on a belief in astrology and that the birth of their savior was foretold ("divination") and the world would KNOW when this event occurred due to the stars in the sky TELLING us it had finally occurred (aka ASTROLOGY).

YOUR RELIGION that is so dismissive of my belief in astrology is POSITED on a belief in astrology. YOUR RELIGION to THIS DAY celebrates the fact that we supposedly "know" Christ was a special person sent by God because the stars in the sky TOLD us he was.

I'm not Christian but supposedly Jesus rode into town on an ass in order to signal that he was the savior (or whatever) that had been prophesied. He made that choice to tell people "This old story foretelling the arrival of a special man? I am telling you that I AM THAT MAN."

There is an article on Atlas Obscura titled Why Catholics Built Secret Astronomical Features Into Churches to Help Save Souls. My snarky take on that:

Newsflash: Astronomy grew out of astrology; calendars are related to astronomical relationships; and science and religion went hand in hand for a very long time.

Film at 11.

My best understanding, as someone who is NOT Christian, is that nothing in the bible was written down until like 70 years after the death of Christ. Before that, it was all oral tradition.

My understanding of Christian history is they spread their religion like a virus by co-opting the traditional beliefs and holidays of the locals to whom they wished to appeal and this is part of why Christmas is an obscene celebration of modern wealth that has become a terrible burden on so many people -- it used to be an excuse for rich people to do something nice once a year for poor people, not a means to put a gun to the head of everyone on the planet to make merchants richer (and we wonder WHY there is a mini recession every January) -- and ALSO supposedly a celebration of the birthday of Jesus Christ.

Okay, you stupid people, let me tell you something: Your "savior" was probably NOT born in December. You want to know when he was born? Probably on the 27th of August 2 B.C.E.

His birth was foretold based on astrological events and the ONLY ASTRONOMICAL data that fits with the facts we know occurs on that date. HERE is the analysis of the carved in stone PROPHECY pointing to that date.

Until the 17th or 18th century, astronomy and astrology were NOT separate. They were both called astrologia.

You don't have to have taken a couple of classes of Classical Greek (like I have done) to follow me here if you speak adequate English: Biology is the study of life, Archaeology is the study of that which came first (aka history) and ASTROLOGY is the study of the stars.

ASTRONOMY just means THE NAMING of the stars because WHEN the two things split into separate things, astronomy was in its infancy. It was a POINTLESS hobby for people rich enough to own a telescope and go "Oh, found ANOTHER ONE. Because I found it, I get to NAME it! Woot!"

We were nowhere near ready to do anything with that info like travel to the moon, much less fuel the deluded hobbies of billionaires who like to imagine they will LIVE ON MARS someday while making no real effort to actually solve the very hard logistical problems involved in making such a fantasy come true. (Hint: Money can't buy you love and, by itself, can't buy you meaningful solutions to hard problems of this sort. Nope.)

I actually believe in astrology and studied it in earnest in my youth. Christians who bust my chops about that get on my nerves in part because of the long history of Christian scientists developing arguments to defend their right to believe in this irrational, unprovable, invisible thing they call God and ALSO be taken seriously as logical, respected, professional scientists. If you want to go down the rabbit hole on that history, I recommend you start with Occam's Razor:

Although attributed to William of Ockham, The phrase Occam's razor did not appear until a few centuries after William of Ockham's death in 1347. If you scroll way down to this section, it says in part:

William of Ockham himself was a Christian... However, unlike many theologians of his time, Ockham did not believe God could be logically proven with arguments. To Ockham, science was a matter of discovery, but theology was a matter of revelation and faith.

So let's sum up:

Christianity is founded on the fact that "dumb" (though smart enough to keep detailed ephemerides -- aka star charts -- and do complex math to cast charts by hand, etc), superstitious primitives who believed in astrology FORETOLD that there would be an astronomical/astrological event and a baby born under that influence would be all kinds of important because of being born that day.

So when a baby was born that day, EVERYONE went to the poverty-stricken little family in question and treated them like "This baby is all SPECIAL" and he likely spent his entire childhood listening to this BRAINWASHING and then at some point got fed up and was like "Fine. I'll bite." and rode into town on an ass to agree with this stupid nonsense.

Ergo, all this BULLSHIT was what I call self-fulfilling prophecy.

via GIPHY

Modern-day psychology tells us that if enough people ACT like x is TRUE and then work their butts off to MAKE IT TRUE, social things you predict can "come true" because you predicted them. Having nothing to do with invisible gods who are supposedly the one and only God, displacing a long human history of believing in MANY gods.

Then it came time to kill him for his disruptive behavior and two things happened. First, Jesus was like "Oh, geez, I don't want to die on the cross. Ugh." (Crucifixion being so torturous they invented a NEW word to describe how awful it was: Excruciating.)

Second, the wife of the guy that ordered his execution had a DREAM and told her husband "Oh, don't execute this guy. It will be the end of the Roman Empire." and he was all "Women!" and ignored her and executed him ANYWAY and now roughly 2000-ish years later we have a religion founded on this PROPHECY based on ASTROLOGY running around saying "don't practice prophecy and astrology -- it is THE WORK OF THE DEVIL."

So if Romans had been less misogynistic, Jesus would have been spared and most likely Christianity would have gone NOWHERE and, also, if the Catholic Church had ANY logical consistency, it would begin dismantling itself because its ENTIRE belief system is founded on a thing it has declared forbidden and the work of the devil.

While I don't agree that astrology is the work of the devil, I can absolutely believe that a church covering up child molestation by its priests is TOTALLY the work of the devil. Y'all hypocrites are more than welcome to begin dismantling your religion, please and thank you.

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Mathew 7: 21-23

Meanwhile, according to YOUR OWN history of developing philosophical arguments to defend your right to have irrational beliefs and also get taken seriously as scientists: I don't need to prove to you people that my belief (in astrology) is RATIONAL. I can believe in crazy stuff all I like as an article of faith -- as part of my spiritual belief in karma and reincarnation.

You people: Go study your OWN history and get off MY BACK. Your religion is not only just as irrational and stupid as MY belief in astrology, it is BASED on a belief in astrology.

To modern astrologers: Please stop arguing with "skeptics" who don't believe in astrology. Tell them to take a hike. You can believe whatever nonsense you want to believe. Rest assured, THEY DO.

Also, to modern astrologers: I like astrology. I really, really do.

But at some point, it jumped the shark. It missed its left turn in Albuquerque and got lost.

I do not have the time to try to FIX what is so glaringly wrong with astrology these days. I'm too busy trying to figure out how to do something about our housing issues and help modern peoples eat better, among other things.

But I do have time to BITCH about what's WRONG with astrology. If you want to view that as constructive feedback and use the writing here to try to up your game and fix this GARBAGE, coolios.

If, instead, you just want to HATE ON ME for this stupid HOBBY, hey, get in line. There's a LONG list of people ahead of you who already hate on me for MUCH more BIG FEELS reasons.