I consider myself to be a reasonably tolerant, rational, calm and accepting person; but there is something that has the ability to really get under my skin – the question:

“So what star sign are you?”

My answer is always the same:

“I don’t have one”.

This answer produces a myriad of reactions – from amusement to incomprehension to indignance. If I haven’t already made up my mind about someone prior to them asking such an inane question, their response to my answer certainly seals the deal.

To some, astrology may be “fun to think about”, but to me it is a ludicrous pseudo science with the potential to cause harm in much the same way as religion if taken too seriously.

I believe that there are two types of adherents to astrology – casual newspaper readers and “sun sign” devotees. The boundaries between them can tend to blur however.

Before I forge on however, I will declare my hand.

I became an atheist at about age eight, yet I held on to astrology for some reason for another four or five years. I am not quite sure why that was, religion and astrology share so many common factors:

• neither are backed up by any form of logic, science or rationality
• both involve worship of the sun or suns (as a god or some kind of influential factor)
• both were ideas framed by superstitious peasants not fortunate enough to have access to the reasoning that science has provided us with
• both make assertions that are highly improbable and require a leap of “faith”
• both fill holes in vacuous minds
• both give “hope” to the weak and fragile

There are many more commonalities, but I think that you get the drift.

I fell into the casual newspaper reader category for a short while before exploring it further and even as a young teenager, knew that it even were one to become a devotee, the premise behind it was flawed. Why I didn’t desert it as soon as I became an atheist, I am not quite sure. I suppose that it was “nice to think about”.

The simple fact of the matter is that this pseudo science was created over 4000 years ago, prior to most of the planets and stars we now know exist having been discovered. The “charts” that are used to plot ones life path, “destiny”, future are flawed and incomplete.

Even if there was any rationality behind this trickery, the premise would be flawed for that reason, but also due the fact that the light from the stars upon which this court jestery is based comes to us from several million years past.

Withholding disbelief for a moment, say for example that astrology carries any kind of weight, are you going to tell me that simply because of where some celestial bodies were at the moment I was born, the path of my life has been preordained?

If that is the case, why on earth do we have any crime/misfortune/famine/disease/war etc etc in the world? Surely if this pseudo science had any merit, there would be teams of astrologers working away with the birth records of every one of the 200,000+ children born every single day, plotting their charts and making recommendations of infanticide to the appropriate authorities in various regions throughout the world.

You see were astrology in any way, shape or form; real – it wouldn’t suffer from the paradox of free will and omniscience/omnipotence in the same way that religion does.

Its proponents claim that based upon the date, hour and minute of your birth; your nature can be explicitly defined, with no room for error.

If you are this sign, you are stubborn, if you are that sign, you are loyal, if you are another, you are sexual… fuck me, we are human beings, each subject to completely unique experiences, born with unique abilities and moulded by our unique environments – a person with a modicum of intelligence may just give a moderate amount more weight to such things than the position of the stars and planets when one is born…

What really concerns me though, is the amount of atheists that I have met who continue to afford this charlatanry any kind of credence.

Three of the most devout devotees to astrology I have met were also devout atheists. One would think that their atheism would engender rationality. Sadly, attempting to have a discussion with them about astrology was met with the same kind of response as one would encounter when discussing relgion with a fundamentalist theist. ’twas most perplexing to me to say the least.

I know that that is hardly a scientific sample size, but to me, it illustrated humankinds irrational desire to seek a higher purpose, something other than themselves; almost as if we have an innate desire to abdicate responsibility for our own choices and the path that our life takes.

To me, this makes astrology potentially as dangerous as religion when in the wrong hands and I sincerely believe that the slippery slope principle applies equally.

The only difference is that there is no vengeful deity who will smite you, should you choose not to worship the stars.

Perhaps that is what makes it comforting for “weak” atheists – they want to believe in something, just not an angry bearded guy in the sky who will smite them if they disobey…