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Do you believe in the Zodiac? Does your sign match your personality? It was always something that bothered me because of how accurate it seems to be. The popular explanation is that the descriptions are so vague they apply to anyone, but it doesn't take much for me to realize that isn't true. Some of the signs are described as being more shy, others more outgoing, some.more intuitive, some, more thoughtful, some being very self driven others not. Only my sign really applies to me when I look at the descriptions, maybe one other one so if its pure chance the odds are a bit better they got something right. If it were true they are all vague and apply to everyone I could read tge other zodiac signs and think it applies to me as well as mine. regardless I still don't really buy it, and would love an explanation as to why it seems to work other than "the descriptions are very vague" because they arent really especially when you look at the sun and moon sign soykaf. Or the interactions between people of different signs where they seem to, for me at least, accurately say who has the power in the relationship and how the dynamic works.

>>4274 mine is extremely inaccurate.

I can't make myself believe it even if a lot of people around me seem to. I'm not a total sceptic, and I am inclined to give credit to some less materialistic concepts. But I see no reason to think zodiac can have any validity. The only thing I considered is that maybe it's based on the time of the year when people where born, as in early spring, late summer, that stuff. But the counterarguments far outweight that. However my sign seems to be somewhat on spot. I recently read a bunch of descriptions on my sign as an experiment and many things resonated (though others were blatantly wrong). But I think that's because so much of the zodiac is so general and inherent to humans and aimed to fit as large an audience of people. My zodiac says that I have a very dualistic nature. Which is kind of right, it was more convinced when I was a teen and I heard it for the first time. But I also think that there is also a sort of inclination to "catalogue" oneself and thus some people are bound to bias their own perception into fitting the description given by their sign.

Ignoring the daily horoscope crap, western astrology has been both too accurate as well as too precise for me to ignore. Might be the wrong chan, but this "science culture" I find myself in is rather annoying. This isn't to say a bunch of scientists or even a bunch of smart people; I mean how even stupid brainless idiots will believe anything in a "science" textbook, and when something is branded with the word "science" in any it's put on a golden pedestal. They don't attempt to challenge it, or even consider the possibility that it's wrong. They leave the challenging of the idea to other people. >TL;DR If you've ever seen it's always sunny in philadelphia, I'm basically mac in his evolution vs the bible episode. https://youtu.be/Zgk8UdV7GQ0

Absolute nonsense.

>>4275 >>4281 I think the fact that some people can look at it and say this clearly isn't me means this whole "its just vague thing" isnt entirely true. In that case I guess its just luck. Maybe its that people whos sign gets it right are more likely to talk about how true the zodiac seems then those who don't match up with theirs who kinda just go this is stupid and don't really care to mention it. I won't deny the descriptions are kind of vague, but only vague enough to where if you said "that isn't me" some horoscope reader could stretch it and say it is you. At first glance of a half decent website if you've got any brains they aren't vague enough for you to go "what the hell these all apply to me". I also wonder if you looked at people who believe the zodiacs past, if they were told about it or into it as a kid while those who don't were told about it maybe later in life. Self fulfilling prophecy maybe going on. >>4280 yeah that was kind of the issue here. Zodiac true or false I could care less either way, it's not that important to me. However everyone just accepting this explanation "its just vague" was irritating me. They always give an example that they made up and go "how many people does this apply to that you know?" yet that example is never taken from a zodiacs description. The major overall descriptor of pisces is "very sensitive and artsy". If I said "How many people do you know that this applies to" you would not say "wow almost everyone". Not everyone is sensitive and artsy, not even almost everyone is sensitive and artsy, possibly like a third of people at most would consider THEMSELVES those two things. Very good chances still then that a lot of people are going to match up, but not because it's vague.

I've just looked at mine. It's about half right and half wrong. I expect that's the same for most people. You probably only notice the stuff that's correct and dismiss the stuff that's wrong as within error.

>>4280 >western astrology has been both too accurate as well as too precise for me to ignore. in what way? It's never been better than a random guess in my experience.

Astrology was never my thing personally but my main teacher in mystical matters is very into it so I know a little. I'm told horoscopes are just soykaf that sells newspapers. It's not meant for telling the future so much as telling you about people and your star sign is just the easiest to measure, sun and moon signs are much more important. There's also the idea among some astrologers, such as my teacher, that personality, in a weird sense, is a bad thing. It's better to be flexible and adapt to the situation. As such they view the things astrology tells them as something to overcome rather than something to accept. I don't know too much about it specifically but I have to imagine there's something in there about people having aspects of other signs, probably related to what the celestial bodies are doing at the time. Seems a bit of a waste otherwise. >>4280 >this "science culture" I find myself in is rather annoying I don't mind so much. Beats the church being the arbiter of truth. A world where everyone cares about and challenges everything would be great but in reality we all pick our battles. >>4282 >However everyone just accepting this explanation "its just vague" was irritating me. The whole just vague thing is more heavily used in one to one situations, so much more by mediums than astrologers, where you have to worry more if you miss. Career astrologers can afford to play the odds and be happy with their third or so. >>4284 Not at all surprising. Before the rise of empiricism it was totally understandable that confirmation bias would result in these beliefs and it did so on overwhelming scales but anyone holding onto the idea that it's empirically testable these days has their head in the sand. It doesn't need to be objectively true, it just needs to be useful.

>>4274 What happens if you were born on December 21st according to astrology? Do astrologers believe only people born on that day are truly free from the random cold reading tier aphorisms that make people think it applies to them on the days when it says something they can associate with them self then forget the days when it didn't? >>4282 It plays on the same emotional mechanism that cold readers exploit to make people think they can speak to the dead or know what their illness was out of a crowd. People wanting something "cosmic" to seem to care about them and speak to them. >>4280 Most Christians wouldn't believe this horoscope bullsoykaf and many of them aren't exactly "science culture". > western astrology has been both too accurate as well as too precise for me to ignore. You mean western astronomy. The daily life of humans aspects of it are blatantly wrong in the sense that they do not apply to everyone born within the block of time assigned to them by astrologers. The nature of seasons is variable along latitudes and the southern hemisphere exists surprisingly too in case that's the argument people want to go for. There is an increasing trend of Scientism that is unfortunate, since science is constantly evolving based on new evidence, but that doesn't validate things like astrology that are in direct conflict with evidence from reality.

it's bullsoykaf but I sometimes pretend to believe it because it's funny. If I read it it's usually when I'm supposed to go out but I don't feel like it, if it sounds bad I stay home. IIRC its accuracy could be explained with confirmation bias and the Barnum effect t. libra

>>4275 Same here. As a Gemini, I always read about how Geminis are supposed to be sociable and communicative, but that's just really inaccurate for me. I kind of wish it were more accurate, though.

I'd recommend doing your full chart if you're skeptical and know your birth time and place. It's way more detailed than just reading a description of what a gemini is, because you actually have a bunch of signs that define different parts of your personality. Something like http://astro.cafeastrology.com/natal.php

Me and my partner are the most stereotypical aquarius and cancer I can imagine, respectively. I can explain the strong adherence to my zodiac with having gained knowledge of astrology at a young age (reading mom's books for fun) and then using that as a substitute personality, as I never had a identity of my own, still don't. My partner however, hasn't really known about his sun sign until about a few years ago. It's hard to determine if this has affected his behaviour in a way that can't be attributed to anything else. He hates having cancer's traits though. It wouldn't make sense for him to emulate them on purpose, unless he was really starved for some kind of a distinct personality. I don't really know what to believe, but I want to keep an open mind.

There may be some correlation with the type of person who gets pregnant in january versus july. These characteristics are heritable. This means zodiac predictions can be better than random if done correctly. I don't think that there is much to astrology though.

Astrology is based on the Tolemaic system, wich we know is wrong, ao astrology is wrong and has no real basis