i roll my eyes at astrology but generally don’t mind a little “folk wisdom” if it helps people deal with the world, though of course it often doesn’t actually really help and just obscures the real reasons behind things.
kinda similar to how i think a sincere belief in religion might actually help someone in many cases, but can also veil the world and make it less accessible.
how do you feel when it actively makes the world a worse place?
because a lot of these folks believe in anti-vaccination and other crazy stuff that is actively harming other people and themselves.
I don’t think astrology begets antivax beliefs, though they do both fall under the woo-woo alternative health/spirituality umbrella. I know people who are into one or the other but not necessarily both.
It shows a lack of understanding which correlates nicely with other wrong beliefs, some of which are very harmful.
it doesn’t.
but woo-woo beliefs are infiltrating every aspect of life, including places where they do not belong, like public health and the justice system. and that’s problematic for everyone.
then it’s harmful and should probably be stopped. ideally you’d have empirically verified folk wisdom, but then it isn’t folk wisdom anymore, just science.
the problem is people are willing to commit violence for beliefs.
not so much empirically verified science.
Yeah man, I hear about those roving gangs of astrology girlies murdering people like all the time
I don’t know if the website has been updated recently, but http://www.whatstheharm.net/astrology.html has a pretty good record of the harm various pseudosciences have caused.
This site needs a page on the harm caused by not using HTTPS
I mean, every single of these entries isn’t caused by astrology but by other nonsense.
People fled because there was a warning of a cyclone, not because they believed in astrology.
Numerology is not astrology. People believing in witches is not astrology. Scammers will use anything including astrology.
And if those are the only examples, it really is less harmful then people make out.
Seriously why is that lol
because like half of all women are into astrology
like 45% of them is the latest stat. Only 20% of men believe in it
for me, it’s probably 1/3 women who is into it, and they get really really angry with you if you don’t take them seriously when they start lecturing you about it.
because like half of all women are into astrology
In the same way that half of all men are into video games, sure.
they get really really angry with you if you don’t take them seriously when they start lecturing you about it
I’ve definitely had girls explain it to me. And I’ve stepped in it when I teased one too hard, because she just read me as an obnoxious prick (which… in my early 20s… she wasn’t wrong).
But I see astrology get the same treatment as veganism. You mention, in passing, that you’re into a thing. People line up around the block to heckle you and argue with you and scream slurs at you. And for some reason this doesn’t really change you opinion on The Thing You’re Into. It just changes your opinion on dating or on talking to anyone outside your insulated The Thing community.
It’s not a hobby though. Or a personal preference like veganism, it’s a belief system based on an incredibly unimaginative fairy tail.
Somebody may very into collecting Yu-Gi-Oh cards but they would quite rightfully be called crazy if they started to insist that they really had magic powers. There is quite an important distinction between an interesting hobby that you kind of suspension of disbelief, believe in, versus an actual astrology theolog who insists that it’s all real.
The way people treat vegans and vegetarians is so weird.
If someone doesn’t smoke you don’t smoke with them. If they don’t drink you don’t drink with them. If they abstain from sex you don’t have sex with them. If they don’t like sports you don’t go to the game with them.
If they don’t eat meat they’re just an asshole.
One of my favorite scenes that I saw David Spade in was in Grandma’s Boy. The main group ended up going to a vegan restaurant and when they realize it, they made jokes about it to the waiter (David Spade). Then the waiter goes off on the group.
If they don’t eat meat they’re just an asshole.
mostly because the vegans we typically run into are militant vegans. you know, assholes. if you’re worrying about what someone else is eating and your primary concern isn’t that they get enough to eat, you’re doing it wrong.
I ditched someone when she attributed something to her star sign, because I have no interest in a relationship with someone stupid
Astrology, tarot, any religion whatsoever
I’m not going to be able to respect them, and no relationship works without respect
I ditched someone when she attributed something to her star sign, because I have no interest in a relationship with someone stupid
I’ve just always seen this as a lack of personal accountability, and that’s a massive turnoff for me.
Like, no Becky, you’re not being a bitch because you’re a cancer, but you are a cancer because you’re such a bitch.
Honestly while I’m secular myself, this stance would lead to me politely refusing a second date.
Yes astrology is daft, but most of the things you and I believe are daft too or at least only locally true and culturally constructed rather than globally true. I don’t care if someone is religious or secular, what I do care is to what extent they believe humanity can know unfiltered truth in the first place. This is a much more important and useful axis in my view than whether they are religious or secular.
In my view no human can know direct truth, they are forced to rely exclusively on the unreliable narrator of their senses and for this reason I don’t trust people who make excessively confident claims about the nature of reality at all, whether religious or secular ones.
So when you buy a coffee do you lecture the cashier about how ‘culturally constructed’ money is, or do you just pay them?
This isn’t the ‘gotcha’ you think it is. I could just as well ask the fedora fanclub how they respond to someone saying ‘bless you’ when they sneeze. The point is there are local truths and there are global truths, and you don’t have undistorted access to the latter. None of us are playing with a full deck.
To use your own example of fiat money, we all know it’s a society-wide fiction but it is kept up willingly and enthusiastically for the reason there’d be a very non-fictional economic meltdown if we didn’t do that. We are pretending a small-t truth is a capital-T Truth for practical reasons alone. The danger comes when we forget we’re doing that and mistake our aggregate belief for reality itself in my opinion.
I cannot stand people who think they are personally exempt from this kind of thing; people who insist their imperfect senses give them full and perfect access to objective truth. These kind of people are dangerous whether they’re religious or secular, I would much rather date a superstitious person who was aware most of what they believe is vague and wooly than someone who calls themselves a rationalist and makes these massive sweeping metaphysical judgements about things.
your premise here is that real things aren’t real.
good luck with that. all I see here is something trying really hard to feel they are ‘one up’ on other people because they have mistaken skepticism for reality.
I’m sure that sounded clever in your head
Star racism is still racism. I don’t make fun of it, I simply reject it as esoteric bigotry.
I mean the word you want is prejudice but sure star racism is a lot catchier and race is a construct anyways.
Prejudice is much too generic imho.
“Races” in racism are (socially constructed, as you said) classes assigned from conception/birth, which racists believe to have class-specific inherited (often behavioural) traits.
The only functional difference between (classical) racism and the (star) racism of astrology is that one claims inheritance via genetics, the other inheritance via “vibes” from star formations.
Yeah, it’s deterministic sorting. That’s what racism is too. The idea you must possess/lack inherent traits based on your race, for astrology it’s your DOB.
MTBI fans also have a lot of this. The websites play into it by pretending some personality combinations are rare, or that any of it is set and doesn’t actually change every time you take one of the damn tests, or that you can’t force results. So you have the INTJs who definitely think they’re better than and smarter than everyone else, or the ENTJs who are categorized as “visionaries” so they’re totally going to become a corporate CEO once they’re done working on their dad’s construction crew. If there are subforums, you’ll get to watch people fight over their self-labeled categories.
Also to further your point, there are notable periods of the eastern zodiac where people either try to get pregnant or avoid getting pregnant just because of the good or bad luck attributed to some years. Japan also has an actual word for blood type discrimination (avoiding or not hiring AB or B blood types) called bura-hara.
Yeah, this is what bothers me about it too. It really seems like it’s just a low stakes, socially acceptable way to be a bigot.
Easy choice
presses “gay” button
Now I’m surrounded by superstitious lesbians
And I’m surrounded by Linux users.
Edit: sorry, but that’s the gayest thing I could think of.
sneaks up Oh hi there!
- a gay Linux user
Associating operating systems/kernels with sexuality, hmmmmm… What would you assign to these?
- Windows from Microsoft (modern)
- [Mac/i/watch]OS (are they different?)
- Android (kernel changed enough that I consider it it’s own semi-compatible thing rather than Linux)
- [Open/Net/Free/Dragonfly/Ghost/Hardened/Midnight/MirOS /Fuguita ]BSD (are they different?)
- ArcaOS
- Haiku
- 9front
- Inferno64
- GNU Hurd
- MINIX
- RiscOS
- SerenityOS
- Redox
- PureDarwin
GreenteaOS too!
At a glance: is this another ReactOS but with .js files in the repo? Why the fuck?
-
Straight
-
Femboys
-
Straight dude who thinks acting gay would get him invited to girl sleepovers.
-
A pansexual who’s also Aromatic.
-
The straight guy who’s into grannies.
-
The guy who thinks they have a type, but their type would never date them.
8.Aeroace but would set you up with their friend
-
The gay who only wants to top
-
Old grandad gay. Someone who wasn’t shy boning dudes back when they would’ve been executed for it.
12 The kinda gay who would only hangout with people over 40.
-
The bisexual who didn’t care exploring further cause they live in conservative environment(relatable)
-
The guy who thinks applying nailpolish makes him gay.
-
I’m sorry. You’re a Debian and I’m a Fedora. We’re just not compatible.
I use Arch btw.
Solution: date an astronomer
astrology believers is about 30% of the population. a few billion folks
astronomers are about 0.00016% of the population. (there are only 12,500 globally)
I went on a couple of dates with someone who had a Astronomy PhD, but worked in marketing. Not sure that counts. She did not believe in astrology, but made fun of me for working in research rather than industry.
There’s much more interest in science than there are careers in it.
I teach scuba and underwater photography at a major university as a side gig. I have dozens of former students with advanced degrees in aquatic biology who now work in retail.
Yeah, but how many of them come from a family where they were never expected to work or pay their own bills?
At least in my experience of a handful of folks in Marine Biology research… every single one of them.
Working low/minimal wage work isn’t so bad if your folks are loaded and you’ll just inherent their wealth. It’s just a waiting game.
How fucking many? Where the fuck is it 30%? The US? Source?
In a college classroom with only women, we did a student survey that asked how many believe in astrology. It was 50%.
I’m curious how that boils down in a coed institution, or a research 1 school or something.
Of all the non-scientific things to believe in, astrology is one of the weirdest. Especially if you’re talking about ancient astrology, come on now… the sky has changed significantly in eg 2000 years, how could you make any conclusions based on that? Or the figures drawn from groups of stars, constellations, that are not even remotely close to each other if you look from another viewpoint?
But I guess it’s even worse… I guess most people talk about their magazine horoscopes, that aren’t even written by actual astrologers :(I just can’t imagine how they can fit twins with completely different personalities in their world view.
As has been pointed out many times the configuration of the solar system today is completely different to the configuration of the solar system on this date precisely 365 days ago, because the orbit of the Earth has very little to do with all the other planets. So even if the locations of random astronomical objects, but not others because they don’t count obviously, have an impact on my personality why are all libras the same, how does that work?
Cold reading. That’s how it works.
Oh, a technical explanation
This was foretold! “Today, you might run into a kind stranger asking you a question that you maybe answer with a touch of silliness.”
They’re also just inert balls of gas that are way too far away to have any effect on our planet
Well… their photons do reach our planet after sometimes thousands of lightyears’ travel… I will call that impressive.
That is such a Leo thing to say
I’m a woman, I have no patience for pseudoscience.
Typical Sagittarius! /s
I’m a Gemini actually
Just what a Gemini would say!
have you ever had anyone argue with you about your star sign?
I have, it was wild. They insisted my DOB was wrong and I was totally a Capricorn. They also argued with me that my job was awful and unfulfilling, despite me saying I enjoyed it. That was also bizarre.
That was also bizarre.
No! It was one of the most normal experiences of your life!
Sadly, yeah it is getting more like that year after year. Too many tiktok crackhead crazies out there, and they didn’t exist 5 year ago.
Hey there, how you doing?
I’m okay
It’s tough having no patience for pseudoscience in 2026
That’s how anyone should be!
I like to think of astrology as a fine grained personality shorthand like Meyers Briggs.
A trait can apply to anyone in any category. The whole premise is an exercise in the celebration of ignorance. I won’t stand for it.
total Capricorn move
I like to think of personality tests like Meyers Briggs as pseudoscientific nonsense like astrology
It’s clearly pseudoscientific nonsense. But it’s easier to say “I’m a pisces” instead of “I’m feeling hesitant about the future of our relationship, Sarah” if she is into that. The value is in being able to reference loose personality archetypes without having to spend a paragraph describing someone.
The problem is that you’re not really referencing “loose personality archetypes” in these sorts of conversations, they’re being assigned to you, relatively arbitrarily. It doesn’t matter if I’m serious and thoughtful, but because I was born on the third moon after the pomegranate harvest, I’m the joker of the group.
No, I think it’s pretty reasonable to push back if you’re being pigeonholed into some kind of archetype you disagree with. Tell them to stop being such Capricorns. The trick is it doesn’t really matter what sign you use, it’s just a bit
But being a Pisces doesn’t mean anything, does it? It could both mean being someone who is afraid of risks and someone who is bold and takes chances.
How is it easier?
It’s all contextual, honestly, but here are my impressions of the uh, categories:
Pisces: wishy washy, both sides, indecisive, peacemaker, likes blue stuff
Capricorn: hustle culture, hates fun
Taurus: confident, aggressive, clumsy, bro-ish
I don’t have any others on deck without looking them up lol
How is that helpful if the categories are based on birthdays?
That part is dumb. I edited my comment now that I understand the confusion
Here’s what I got from the dating pool: Gemini: bipolar two-faced Scorpio: will stab you and eat your soul
And you can’t see how stupid this is?
I addressed this in a tasteful edit.
it means what people want it to mean.
And that’s why Astrology is so powerful. it’s 100% projection and bias confirmation.
‘take chances’ is entirely relative. what is a bold risk for one person, is an afterthought for another person, but in astrology there is no specific context, just vague nonsense worded such that anyone can project onto it.
Early in our dating, my wife had me take the enneagram test. I got a 2, she’s a 9. I told her I found a page detailing relationships between 2’s and 9’s and some of the strengths and weaknesses we’d navigate as a couple.
As I was reading it she kept saying, at first, “That makes sense!” Or “Yeah I can see that.” There were a few that were kind of out there. But she kept listening.
Eventually I revealed to her that I was ACTUALLY reading a page detailing relationships between a dragon and a sheep, our respective Chinese Zodiac signs. And that I was using this to support my argument that personality tests are astrology for educated people.
Still ended up getting laid, though not that day. 😅
because they are
nobody takes them seriously other than teenagers and other emotionally immature folks.
Personally I do find it interesting, when people do tell their Myers-Briggs -test results, since it can tell about, what sort of a person they want to be. But it is not scientific in the slightest.
That argument falls flat to me simply because there are 13 zodiac signs, not 12, and ancient (and modern) astrologers simply ignore the 13th one (Ophiuchus) for convenience.
If you are going to claim the stars have influence over our personalities, at least be consistent with how you “read” said stars.
Not to mention, there is zero evidence that astrology works.
updated my comment lol
I can appreciate that view point as long as we are in agreement that there is no real science behind it. I can totally see how people use “I’m such a Pisces” to describe themselves as sensitive and emotional. I just wish they would say “I’m sensitive and emotional” instead, lol.
I tried to express that as clearly as I could, it’s just like a more ethical version of Slytherin/gryffindor/etc, I tend to be friends with excessively referential people I guess.
Also, at the time most of the zodiac and star chart arrangements were plotted out, the Earth had an entirely different north star than it does now. So your modern star sign would not even be consistent with the ancient charts and star signs, yet somehow all the same definitions and assumptions are supposed to apply.
You forgot the part about how it’s determined by giant balls of gas millions of light years away that aren’t actually arranged in neat patterns, but are actually incredibly far from one another and only look like patterns from our specific position in the universe
I kinda find this post moderately offensive to women.
Actually it’s offensive to men too, isn’t it?
nah, not really. ive been there more times than i can count. it happens.
people believe in all kinds of crazy shit. its up to you if you can look past someones beliefs for a casual fling or something more serious.
i tend to not openly judge others for something that makes their life more bearable. life sucks, its confusing, and shitty, more often than it is rewarding or enjoyable. people never know what to expect, so they search for patterns to predict a better outcome for themselves, or at least a way to soften the blow of a potentially shitty outcome. some people like astrology, some people like drugs, god, the universal conciousness, whatever. pick your passion.
cant judge someone for being human, when you’re a human yourself. we all believe in something absolutely insane, and we all want to fuck each other.
plus, it can be fun to imagine that the stars aligned just for us, on this night…isnt it? even if it isnt true. its a beautiful illusion, and it can be appreciated when you suspend your disbelief until the morning light washes away the night, and all its constellations. and replaces it with bad breath, bed head, and a hangover in a strangers apartment.
life is easier when you dont take it seriously.
Thank you for this perspective. I was lacking it and you brought it to me.
I read most comments above this
you can judge people for holding belief systems that are constructed for them to avoid personal accountability for themselves.
which is what astrology and other alt beliefs are for most of these folks. a way to explain away their problems rather than take responsibility for them.
some people like astrology, some people like drugs, god, the universal conciousness, whatever. pick your passion.
Now hold on… One of these things is actually real though, and has very direct effects on your consciousness. It’s insane to include drugs in there.
Only if you believe it applies to all men and all women. Or maybe, just maybe, it might be a shitpost.
It does say every straight man in the picture
The key is to be just a little gay, as a treat!
So, my gayness is what’s protecting me from superstitious women?
I think it’s a case of correlation as opposed to causation but yes, absolutely.
Or he could find a woman who’s not superstitious, or go gay.
the gays seem even more into astrology…
How do you “go” gay?
You just decide. Everybody knows it’s a choice
I upvoted, hoping you were sarcastic.
Conversion therapy
Surely not
Sheer willpower.
Leather helps, I think.
Fake it 'til you make it ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)
Top or bottom, depends how you are feeling.
I believe that is called a switch
It’s a vers. Switches are between dominant and submissive
I’ve heard that a huge percentage of people have latent homosexual/ bisexual/pansexual leanings. So just lean into it I guess.
Hmm?
What does that even mean in this context, “latent”?
You mean “unexplored”? If I’m a “latent” homosexual, it just means I’m homosexual, no? So if by “go” you mean “be true to myself”, then fine, I guess?
But if I’m bi, or straight, I can’t just turn off my attraction to the opposite sex to “go gay”.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, non-straight, non-gay people! Is it possible to just flip your attractions off? Sincerely, cis straight male who’s earnestly trying to be as woke as possible and educate myself to be accurate and inclusive.
Or just don’t try to get laid with stupid people.
Dated a girl and, while we were walking through the park, she points up at the sky. “Oh look, Chemtrails”. I absolutely bust up laughing, because I assume I’ve accidentally stepped into a relationship with a conspiracy theorist. She looks incredibly confused. I explain what chemtrails are. She gets even more confused. We whip out our phones for a minute. She says, “Omg I meant contrails”
She’s a lawyer at a white shoe firm now and makes, like, twice as much as I do in IT. Also, absolutely incredible in the sack.
LOL that’s a fantastic story.
First day of uni. Having lunch with 3 people.
“Hey do any of you watch my little pony?”
I burst out laughing. Turns out guy was super serious. He was convincing enough that he managed to get me to watch half of friendship is magic before I decided i would never talk to him again.
Tbf The show was well written for a children’s show… But it was still a children show
Oh wow, with all the memes I’ve only ever learned the word “chemtrails”. Don’t think I’ve ever seen the word “contrails” before, even though that certainly makes a lot more sense…
I mean calling half an entire gender stupid is pretty bold
It’s a good thing nobody is doing that, then. Nowhere near half of women believe that nonsense.
Oh sorry, only 43% of women aged 18-49, I guess 43% is nowhere near half. I suppose if you’re a granny chaser then it is indeed only a quarter. If you’re into LGBT folks, it actually goes above 50% (over 60% for LGBT women).
Since my own dating pool and most of my friendships are smack dab in the middle of that 18-49 demographic, I can tell you it’s easily around half of women around that age who believe in astrology, tarot or something else similar here in Estonia, so it’s not US specific either. Including a lot of otherwise very intelligent women. A master’s degree in a STEM field for example does not discourage one from believing in astrology by any means.
Or perhaps you just don’t know enough women?
Oh and men aren’t all innocent either. A fifth of men aged 18-49 believe in astrology or similar superstitions too. Less than half as many as women, but still a significant amount.
Wow that statistic is way more depressing than I realized. I guess I am lucky to only be surrounded by non-crazy women.
I suspect a lot of the women you know believe it but don’t talk about it unless prompted. Luckily the “oh you’re a whatever sign, it would never work” level of belief seems uncommon among even those who do believe.
We really need to distinguish between “stupid” opinions and “stupid” people.
Very smart people can hold very stupid opinions in some aspects and the average person will certainly hold some stupid ass opinions not necessarily restricted to “spirituality”.
My uncle was top of his class but fell for every mlm he encounterd, my dad is a capable businessman but believes a cut up onion in the window will get all viruses out of the air. I have so many examples like that.
So half of women aren’t stupid but probably 100% of all people hold at least one stupid “believe” i think.
And 100% of gamers have pressed the randomize button to at the start of a game to see if it’s something they can identify with.
Consulting Tarot has as much to do with thinking it’s scientifically real as flipping a coin has to do with making objective decisions.
Astrology and personality tests that get sold to businesses and a ton of other “fake” things all work the same way: they propose things that are frequently or universally true and then invite people to look at in what ways they agree with them or how they fit current situations.
Calling these things fake is the same as saying the personal reflections of people aren’t real.
Half of everyone really. The average person is a fucking moron.
I don’t disagree, but it’s twice as common among women. That’s why there’s a stereotype in the first place.
Yeah, and the women who believe in astrology are dumb.
But there are men who don’t believe in it but have some other crackpot/spiritual nonsense to fill in that 30% gap.
There are more stupid people than non-stupid people.
Getting laid is a numbers game. You vastly reduce your chances if you start getting picky.
But maybe, just maybe, and I know I’m talking crazy here, but maybe if you weed out the ones that aren’t worthwhile your quality will go up.
for a lot of people being picky means they will never get laid. and that’s fine, if you can accept that.
but they don’t. they are enraged by the lack of ‘quality’ people available to them. and offended by the abundance of low quality people available to them.
the idea you can ‘raise your standards’ and get ‘better results’, in dating/mating, is mostly cope. Especially when you start looking at the statistics. truth is people really should lower them, and well, humble themselves. because most folks aren’t nearly as ‘hot’ as they perceive themselves to be.
it’s also highly subjective. I attract a lot of very desirable women, but they aren’t desirable to me due to my own biases and lifestyle preferences. Just yesterday I got like half dozen likes from women on Hinge, but they all worked in finance or pharma, so I rejected them because for me working in those industries means ‘low quality’ just like believe in astrology. But if I wanted to get laid? Yeah I should get over that bias, those type of women really like me, even though I hate them. And I only developed this bias due to my younger years… repeatedly trying to date them and running into the same miserable issues again and again.
Them being stupid makes em hotter. They fuck like they got smth to prove
I never make fun of it I just roll my eyes and move on.
The reason I have trouble getting laid is my neuroticism and pickiness. When I find someone smart, atheist, similar sense of humor, into video games & tech, politically aligned with me, and there is mutual physical attraction, I end up acting like a crazy person and blow it all up.
If at least 1 of those boxes is not checked (except the mutual physical attraction bit of course) I usually feel pretty meh about the person but I usually keep my cool and can get laid. However, then I usually don’t pursue a relationship with them beyond that.
Recently found someone that I am pretty sure checked all those boxes, so had a mental breakdown and scared them off. Kind of want to buy some rope and/or find a nice tall bridge these days.
it sounds like you’re just really egotistical and you need someone to be a mirror image of yourself before you find them remotely interesting.
also like you hate yourself, so yeah, you’d self sabotage the second you met someone like yourself, and by definition, neither of you can emotionally regulate so it’s doomed anyway.
I don’t want to date dumb people, religious people (but I repeat myself), rightwingers and centrists (but I repeat myself again twice more), we need to have a rapport through humor, and I want to be able to share video games as a hobby with a future partner. I think these are reasonable desires.
Honestly self-awareness is the first step to change, and what’s painful is you will become aware before you become able to act on self-improvement, but that’s how it works. I also think those who have trouble with relationships imagine that others are always having a great time but that’s certainly not the case. Prove to yourself that you’re better than you perceive yourself to be, ignore your self talk when you say it won’t happen, and keep pushing. Get help if you’re serious about those thoughts, because nobody should have to fight that battle alone
I’m pretty indifferent to astrology these days, but I have spent enough time studying the basics of how it works that I think anyone criticizing it should also at least have a basic enough understanding of it that they can criticize the thing itself rather than the stereotype of the thing.
If you’re going to attack something for being stupid, it’s a good idea to not be stupid yourself.
They aren’t saying astrology these days is too polarized or something. They’re saying the basic premise behind astrology itself is nonsensical. It’s like expecting an atheist to read the Bible.
I was raised without religion. Decided I was atheist as soon as I came across the word as a kid.
I’ve read large parts of the Christian Bible, in a “know thy enemy” sort of way.
Also, reading the Bible is one way atheists come to be atheists.
That said, I have zero interest in learning more about astrology. Yes, it’s completely nonsensical, and not worth anyone’s time pursuing. There’s nothing behind it. The “basics of how it works” is that it obviously doesn’t work at all. It’s complete bullshit.
No, it’s like an atheist criticizing the Bible by saying things that are untrue about the Bible. If you care enough about something to be informed enough to make a credible critique, that’s fine. But if you’re just going to harbor and further perpetuate false stereotypes about a thing, maybe just stay in your lane and a, “Hey I don’t know about that stuff and I don’t care,” is all you need.
But atheists never claim “Abraham had two dads”, and anti-astrology people don’t say “Geminis like jalapeños”.
Ah right, because atheists and anti-astrologists are never guilty of error or logical fallacy? Oh wait.
What specifically do you think anti-astrology people been claiming about astrology?
The two main ones I see are, 1) statements like, “I think it’s ridiculous to think the stars control our fate.” Which, they don’t. While there is a branch of “naturalistic” astrological rooted in Aristotle’s classical elemental ideas, virtually no one uses that model, and the prevailing thought these days is the movements of celestial bodies are more like symbolic markers. You never see anyone accuse clocks of controlling time, for instance.
And the other one is the perpetuation of the idea of each person’s sun sign essentially determining their entire personality or whole events. The sun sign is obviously a large variable, but in actual astrological practice the natal chart factors in the total state of the entire solar system with an honestly staggering number of variables. That’s not the whole story either, because people change over time, and astrology has methods for forecasting those changes by producing whole charts at multiple times and places.
Which, if you think the premise as a whole is still ridiculous - that’s fair. I’m not trying to defend astrology here, just saying that people can at least try not to perpetuate stereotypes.
As long as they make fun of you for having an MBTI phase, then all is well in love and peace
