Astrology

Astrology... Who in there right mind could possibly buy into one word of that garbage? Yesterday, I was standing in line at taco bell and these three girls got in line behind me. So the first thing I hear one of them say is "Oh he is such a Gemini, one minute he's angry the next minute he's happy. All Geminis have that dual attitude."

I wanted to vomit all over her. She seemed to have been describing a friend of hers with a case of bipolar disorder. Yet she was wasn't attributing the swing is her friend's mood to drugs or a chemical imbalance or even anything that can truly affect behavior. She was blaming the fact that he was born in June... Then she went so far as to make a gross generalization and say that all people who were born in June behave this way. Biologist Richard Dawkins poses an experiment. Take your horoscope and replace your sign with your race or gender or sexual orientation. So lets say your horoscope says "Taurus: You have a motivational problem. You tend to be lazy and untrustworthy. Try to overcome this by associating yourself with a few hard working Virgos." Now replace Taurus with Hispanics and replace Virgos with Asians. How racist is that statement now?

"But Astrology is REAL! I read my horoscope yesterday and it said I would receive good fortune today and that I shouldn't trust and Virgos. Then later that day I found ten bucks but this guy tried to take it from me and say it was his! I knew he must have been a Virgo so I punched him in the face and kept the money! How do you answer that Mr. Cynical?"

I've heard this argument from personal experience before. Something happens that you can't explain and so therefore astrology or ghosts or Jesus or whatever your superstition is must be true. Well, arguments like that don't hold any water. The sheer number of coincidences that occur every second is staggering. Every second of every day something that only had a one in a million chance happens to someone. There are six billion people in the world and everyone of them as had something completely unlikely occur in their lives. But you must remember, none of those strange coincidences ever defied the laws of physics. Just because Jupiter was in the fifth house and Venus was in retrograde when something unbelievable happens to you doesn't mean that the planets had ANYTHING to do with it.

I just hope that people will start to use a little common sense and stop thinking like ignorant fools with bronze age superstitions.