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Falsity Of Astrology

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Astrology, though claiming truth, reveals its own falsity. First of all, astrology claims that each horoscope specifies only for a specific person. Just as Mr. Smit realized, however, Mrs. Johnson’s horoscope identifies not only with Mrs. Johnson, but also with Mrs. Petersen (Smit). Just based on this, how can horoscopes explain a person’s life if they explain many people’s lives? A French researcher conducted a study in order to show that people take what they deem true from the readings of horoscopes. He advertised a free horoscope reading in a newspaper. Over 150 people, unaware of the study, asked for a reading of their horoscopes. After the people received their readings back, ninety-four percent who responded stated that they could picture …show more content…
People make their descriptions fit them by finding a message in a line even if that line was supposed to mean something different (Augustine 55). This study also reveals a very important point: a horoscope does not just relate to a specific person. Therefore, a person’s horoscope does not just define his life specifically, but it defines, if astrology is true, a multitude of people’s lives. If a horoscope defines many people’s lives, then the other people’s horoscopes show wrong information about themselves. This makes a horoscope false, and astrology is revealed false if horoscopes are wrong since horoscopes reveal the destiny of someone. Saint Augustine, in his book Confessions, wrote an incident that proved to him the falsity of astrology. Augustine had a friend, Firminus, who had a father absorbed in astrology. His father had a close friend, who was also absorbed in …show more content…
Both the father of Firminus and the father’s friend made the same exact horoscope for the child. Saint Augustine explains that if he was to interpret the two exact horoscopes, he would make two interpretations: one based off the high status of Firminus and one based of the slave’s servile conditions. “Therefore,” he wrote, “it followed that after inspecting identical horoscopes I should give different forecasts in order to get it right, and that to offer identical forecasts would be to get it wrong. From this I drew the certain inference that true predictions on the basis of horoscopes are given not by skill but by chance, while false forecasts are due not to lack of skill in the art but to chance error” (Ibid 117-119). So one can understand that the planets and stars at the time of birth do not make nor do they reveal the destiny of a person. Astrologers, as Augustine said, interpret the truth because they speak so much and also because of chance: they are bound to state at least some things correct (Ibid 117, 119). The conclusions of astrologers follow illogical thinking. How can one horoscope mean one thing, and another exact horoscope mean another thing if both show

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