A simple quote against astrology “I the Lord am your God, you shall have no other gods…”, astrology is faith and hope in planets and stars and elements.
Gnostics can’t be Christians (and vice-versa) due to the simple fact that they have TWO god (a good and a bad one) and Christians only ONE.
THe Muratorian Fragment, date AD 170, lists almost all the books of the NT, so much for gnostics gospels going around as true, and although the full text were only found recently in Egypt, the were known to the church fathers as were rejected
The false gospel of Thomas and its faous phrase “ishall make her man…” is not what many want it to be
It might be spring in the north but it’s autumn in the south, unless you tell me the stars favour the north you need a little more “punch” to your statement
I think you’re missing the point, Rodrigo. Any celestial calendar, zodiac, legend, myth, or fairy tale that is developed by a culture in the Northern hemisphere is going to “favor” the North simply because the fact that the entire sky revolves about Polaris is an event that is so clear to anyone who watches the night sky.
I’m surprised that none of you have spotted the most basic of the flaws in the OP.
Astrologers in the regions of the Roman Empire from which Christianity emerged only practised tropical astrology. Far from thinking that precession was significant, those astrologers ignored, even denied, its effects and continued to base their calculations on the assumption that the Sun rose on the vernal equinox in Aries. This remained the universal basis for astrology in the Christian (and Arabic) world until modern times. That’s why newspaper horoscopes still assume that anyone born on 21 March is an Aries, not a Pisces or an Aquarius.
Given this, it is unsurprising that Western astrologers had no concept of astrological ages based on precession. To them the idea would have been meaningless. Indeed, the existance of such ages was not proposed until the late nineteenth century, when they were invented to give an astrological gloss (or should that be a pseudo-astrological gloss?) to the theories of Madam Blavatsky. Before then no one had thought that there was such a thing as an ‘Age of Pisces’. That had been true even in India, which, unlike the West, did have a tradition of sidereal astrology. (Actually, it is equally unsurprising that Indian astrologers never came up with the idea either, as most of them did not believe in precession, thinking instead that the observed change, although important, would be temporary.) Astrological ages are one of those things that sound as if they ought to be ancient but aren’t. Attributing the idea to anyone, not least astrologers, around during the early days of Christianity is a clear-cut case of anachronism. It’s a common mistake.
As with the start of the ‘Age of Aquarius’, an enormous range of dates have since been proposed for the start of the ‘Age of Pisces’. The only reason some modern astrologers have suggested that it coincided with the birth of Jesus is that they started from the arbitrary premise that the two events must have coincided; they picked dates in or around the start of the first century AD because that is when Jesus is said to have been born. The argument in the OP is thus a circular one.
Give me a break. The latest alternative theories? Maybe you should read up on much higher criticism written in the 19th century. Or read “The Golden Bough” written by Sir James George Frazer in 1922. These “mystery religion” origins of Christianity have been so long asserted, and repeatedly debunked based on absolutely no actual positive evidence and plenty of negative, that I am amazed anybody still clings to them as the “latest” thing.
“it is unsurprising that Western astrologers had no concept of astrological ages based on precession”
My impression was that the ancient Greeks not only knew of precession but calculated a pretty good time scale of it (i.e. ~10,000 years).
Of course, even if the scientific elite had knowledge of this doesn’t necessarily translate into it being common knowledge among astrologers, but I certainly would argue that the concept of precession was known well before modern times.
Of course the ancient Greeks knew about precession and some of the astrologers of the time did too. But I didn’t say they didn’t. What I said was that the astrologers ignored its effects. In the case of those astrologers who did know about it (Ptolemy being the most obvious example), they consciously decided that it didn’t matter. Apart from a few modern exceptions, Western astrologers have since based their calculations not on the actual position of the Zodiac but rather on the position it had been in at the time when astrology was first being developed. In other words, they had just continued to use the positions they had always been using. The calculations were mostly being done on paper anyway. To those astrologers, the fact that the Zodiac has since shifted is irrelevant. Yes, it’s all very illogical. Which is why this has been one of the main arguments regularly used against astrologers by their critics for the past two millennia.
The current system is the illogical one. The year is based, not on science and physics (the actual time it takes the Earth to go around the Sun) but on a church’s desire to keep certain holidays on the same day relative to the seasons.
The time the Earth actually goes around the Sun is twenty minutes longer than the standard we use.
The old standard (which is about ten minutes shorter than the actual year, but ten minutes longer than the one we use today) was fine for centuries, but then the church decided to skip a few days. A “logical” solution, right? Why not just readjust the standard then? If we had wanted to line up the calendar with the actual time that the Earth goes around the Sun, we would have had to pad the calendar some.
So, don’t go calling it illogical, because our system is also not logical–it’s functional. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. At least we won’t have the NHL playing hockey in warm weather. Wait, bad example…
I just knew that someone was bound to jump in to defend tropical astrology. Fair enough, as all you’ve done is to show why it was that astrologers were able to convince themselves that precession had no astrological significance.
RM, doesn’t that depend on which year you’re trying to match? To astronomers, the most relevant year is the amount of time for the Earth to make a complete revolution around the Sun. Since the stars, on a whole, are nearly stationary, this is often referred to as a rotation relative to the “fixed stars”, or a sidereal rotation. But this is not the year most relevant to most folks. To most people, the relevance of the year is that it gets cold part of the year, and hot part of the year. But the cycle of the seasons corresponds to the tropical year, the time from one vernal equinox to the next. So it makes perfect sense that the “official” year is a close approximation to the tropical year, rather than to the sidereal year.
Yes, it makes sense. As I said before, it’s functional.
We ignore the actual length of the time it takes for the Earth to go around the Sun, and use a value that is twenty minutes shorter. By doing so, we gain the convenience of making sure that summer vacation always occurs during the planting season. By doing so, we’ve regularized the calendar–at the expense of “losing” a whole year every 26000 years. I don’t think “logic” has much to do with it.
I think we actually do adjust for that, R M, but not frequently (for obvious reasons.) See: Why do we have leap years?, a brilliantly written piece by some member of the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board.
On the contrary, it’s perfectly logical. We don’t use the amount of time for a full orbit as our unit of time for the same reason that we don’t use the orbital period of Venus: Because neither of those periods has much use for humans (who, after all, are the ones who use years). It would be illogical to use either of them. But the tropical year has huge importance for humans, so it’s logical to use it. It’s the same reason why we call a “day” 24 hours instead of 23 hours 56 minutes.
I would draw the line there. I’ve already said that it makes sense, to me, and it is functional. I understand the reasons why, and the physics, etc.
But I wouldn’t call it “perfectly” logical. As Dex’s comment points out, there are a lot of people (dictionaries included) under the misapprehension that the Earth’s orbit is ten minutes less than 365 1/4 days (24 hour days ) when it is actually ten minutes more. We define a term, “year”, as the time it takes the Earth to go around the Sun, and then we define another term, “sidereal year”, as the time it actually takes. I’m not demanding that the language be rectified, I’m just pointing out that sometimes our use of it is not straightforward logical.
APB who called the original idea illogical, says I have only shown how astrologers have justified it–but the justification is the same sort as the justification that we use in using 24 hour days instead of 23h 56m, or the tropical year instead of the sidereal year. We can’t call one illogical, and the other perfectly logical.
RM Mentock, I believe you are missing the point as to why others are saying the astrological calendar is “illogical”. Now, I’ve always found astrology so patently ridiculous that I’ve never wasted time on it, but here goes my explanation as to why others feel the astrological calendar is illogical.
As you point out, there are at least two useful and logical concepts of “year” - one adapted to the seasons and thus convenient for the ordering of human affairs, and one adapted to the period of the Earth’s orbit (when assumed to be Keplerian), and thus convenient for astronomical affairs.
The fundemental claim of astrology is that astronomical conditions (the positions of the planets and certain constellations) have something to say about human affairs. (I have no idea if one is to believe the stars and planets influence our behavior, or if the stars and planets form some sort of messaging system.) Since astrology is based on astronomical conditions, logic would seem to dictate that astrologers are using the wrong calendar. The positions of the zodiac and the planets, as seen from Earth, on my girls’ birthday (late December) are not the same as that for Jesus’ nominal birthday, so why do they have the same sign and nearly similar astrological readings? This would have been most obvious at the adoption of the Gregorian calendar with the sudden shift in date.
) when it is actually ten minutes more. We define a term, “year”, as the time it takes the Earth to go around the Sun, and then we define another term, “sidereal year”, as the time it actually takes. I’m not demanding that the language be rectified, I’m just pointing out that sometimes our use of it is not straightforward logical.