Quote: Nogget @ February 9 2011, 11:49 AM GMTIt's not just superstitious nonsense, it's prejudice comparable to racism.
Not really though, is it?
Astrology Page 8
Quote: chipolata @ February 9 2011, 11:47 AM GMTYou go on about astrologers as if there's swathes of them roaming the country bilking millions of pensioners out of their savings.
There are.
I'm touched by the homage to my tendency to defend the undeffendable.
Might suggest though this isn't the best subject to play devil's advocate with?
Quote: chipolata @ February 9 2011, 11:47 AM GMTYou go on about astrologers as if there's swathes of them roaming the country bilking millions of pensioners out of their savings.
No I don't.
Nothing I've written refers to my perception that there are hoards of these types. My contention is that the fact that there are even any at all is bad enough in itself. Just have a look at the back of many mainstream magazines to see how many there actually are. Sky TV even has (or certainly had at one time may not now) channels devoted to this. So there are significant numbers out there for sure. How many? Don't actually know, but that's not really the point I'm making.
Quote: Griff @ February 9 2011, 11:49 AM GMTFirst they came for the astrologers, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't an astrologer. Then they came for the Tarot readers, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Tarot reader. Then they came for the crystal healers, the homeopaths, the reflexologists and all those other tossers. And then everything was sorted.
I'd have included comedy script consultants.
Quote: sootyj @ February 9 2011, 11:51 AM GMTThere are. I'm touched by the homage to my tendency to defend the undeffendable. Might suggest though this isn't the best subject to play devil's advocate with?
And I'd say keep things in perspective. There are far greater evils in the world than Russell Grant.
Sometimes you have to fight the lesser evils.
Quote: Griff @ February 9 2011, 12:52 PM GMTthe Massacre of the Huguenots.
Which made My Lovely Horse possible
What? The Huguenots massacred? When? Why wasn't I told!!!
Quote: Matthew Stott @ February 9 2011, 11:39 AM GMTI'm not anti-astrology, I couldn't care less about it really, but if someone brings it up I'm not going to pretend it's not bollocks.
What Stott said.
Quote: Blenkinsop @ February 9 2011, 12:59 PM GMTWhat? The Huguenots massacred? When? Why wasn't I told!!!
It was in Father Ted they died in a plane crash.
Quote: DaButt @ February 8 2011, 11:47 PM GMTMan's knowledge is continuously growing as a result of advances in science, so it is perfectly reasonable to dismiss outdated theories and beliefs that have since been disproved by modern scientific methods. Occasionally an ancient bit of lore (such as a plant that was used for a specific medical purpose) proves to have a solid basis in fact when examined by today's scientific methods, but that doesn't mean that we have to give the flat-Earthers and witch burners the benefit of the doubt.
I have a couple of bones to pick with this.
First, I don't believe that the world is flat, nor do I believe in burning witches and to insert those examples into the conversation verges on a straw man.
Second, the scientific method can neither prove or disprove anything. It is a form of inductive reasoning which is no more logical than believing in a flat earth.
Any 'proof' that comes from the scientific method tells one only what would happen in a certain place in a certain time. The scientific method is a very useful tool in understanding how the natural world works, but it cannot establish anything like a Natural Law.
For example, the 'law' of gravitation. If I were to go up on my balcony and drop a football off the ledge 100 times and the football falls to the ground 100 times the law of gravitation says that the football will fall in the same manner on the 101 time. However, even if I were to drop it 1000 times or 1,000,000 times, there is no logical argument for the ball falling on the next attempt. Logically, we have just shown that on the last 1,000,000 times the ball fell.
The Materialists would defer to the law of gravitation, but there is no such thing and Einstein admits as much in his General Theory of Relativity.
He, like all materialists, approach the phenomena with the presupposition that there are no supernatural phenomena and therefore there must be a natural explanation for gravity, which he equates to the electromagnetic phenomenon: "...we have come to regard action at a distance as a process impossible without the intervention of some intermediary medium." (Chapter 19: The Gravitational Field)
Einstein admits that the Materialist (the scientist) is constrained to "imagine...that the magnet always calls into being something physically real in the space around it" that thing being the magnetic field. So Einstein says that because we are not allowed to believe in faeries that magically make objects fall to the ground, we must invent a natural process by which this happens and he declines to discuss the justification for this "incidental conception, which is indeed a somewhat arbitrary one."
The Materialist will tell you that gravitation is immutable, a law. Einstein admits that it is an arbitrary, incidental conception.
Now getting back to "proof" that Materialists use as their trump card. Since the scientific method can only inductively tell me what happened in a certain place at a certain time, it takes a certain amount of faith to imagine that this pattern creates a Natural Law.
Sure, it is relatively easy to respect gravity, and I don't deny it. But there is a logical suspension of reality that ones has to erect to place such blind faith in the apparatus of the scientific method. Chesterton argues, much more charmingly than myself, in chapter 4 of Orthodoxy, "The Ethics of Elfland" how similar it is to those who irrationally believe in magic and faeries.
I can already hear the retort "I would much rather put my faith in the arbitrary, incidental conception that is gravity than in the irrational, superstitious belief in the supernatural." I too would wager much more on the possibility that there is some physical explanation for the phenomenon of gravity than there is for astrology, but that is because I have thought a lot more about gravity than I have astrology. If I were to spend some time thinking about astrology, perhaps I would reject it as hocus pocus.
My problem is that most Materialists who put their faith in such incidental conceptions that spring from inductive reasoning neither think about why they believe in gravitation or disbelieve in astrology, and yet they reject astrology without another thought, because that is what they are told, while accepting gravitation without another thought, also because that is what they are told.
I am not claiming that any knowledge that comes from the scientific method must be rejected because it requires a logical leap of faith. To do so would result in hyper-skepticism in which nothing could be believed.
This is why I consider myself a 'credulous skeptic'. I am actually quite skeptical about fantastic claims, but I realize that I cannot reject them outright without placing my faith in something.
I have had numerous discussions with students of the hard sciences about why they believe in a certain conception for the birth of the universe or the descent of man. Regardless of their ability answer logically, they will usually claim that very smart men with advanced degrees have submitted their work to peer-reviewed journals not to mention that they base their results on falsifiable claims. When I ask if they have looked at the test results themselves or seen the experiments performed, they usually admit that they have not. When asked how they can put their faith in a process in which they have no first-hand experience they fall back on the falsifiability of the experiments. If I tell them that their scientific method is based on a logical leap of faith, they can do nothing but admit that their proof has no more grounding in reason than the astrologers.
So it all comes down to how much faith you put in inductive reasoning as well as your beliefs on the fullness of the corpus of scientific knowledge. I am willing to put a lot of faith in the conception of gravity as well as many other conceptions arrived at through the scientific method, but those are generally conceptions that are more 'near' to us than conceptions about the universe in its entirety. The more removed the conception is from our tiny place in the universe (or is it a multi-verse?) the more skeptical I am. What is scary is the amount of faith the materialist is willing to put into it does not waver and when someone like myself questions them and their logic they result to even more irrational ad hominem attacks on my "irrational superstitions".
This is what I believe and I believe that I am right. If I am not, prove it. I am more than willing to listen with an open mind!
Quote: Matthew Stott @ February 9 2011, 8:58 AM GMTIt's not pompous or irrational to dismiss astrology, it's common sense.
OK, go ahead and explain it to me. I am open to your thoughts.
I really tried to read all of that but only got two paragraphs in.
Quote: Nogget @ February 9 2011, 11:49 AM GMTFunny how our enlightened society condemns discrimination based on things like your colour or sexual orientation, but hasn't yet properly condemned the practise of prejudging people based on that other accident of birth, the time you exited the womb. It's not just superstitious nonsense, it's prejudice comparable to racism.
This is quite frightening, actually. Not the idea, but that you would suggest it. If we are going to condemn discrimination, then we must go all the way and condemn your discrimination for anyone who believes something different than socially accepted norm. Would that make you feel more comfortable?
Quote: Nat Wicks @ February 9 2011, 4:35 PM GMTI really tried to read all of that but only got two paragraphs in.
That's OK, logical thought is not for everyone! 
I read it, it had loads of words.
But my response the magical ju ju of science has way more verifiable results than magical supersitious ju ju.
Sorry but this "everything is possible because no truth is definitive"
is the aimless philosophical pap that like wanking, communism and spot squeezing is best left to the 6th form debating society.
If I follow the BBC weather news over Mystic Mog.
It's because most of the time when they say it rains, it rains.
Quote: sootyj @ February 9 2011, 4:42 PM GMTSorry but this "everything is possible because no truth is definitive"
is the aimless philosophical pap that like wanking, communism and spot squeezing is best left to the 6th form debating society.
That is absolutely not the point I was making (not to mention what you call philosophical pap, philosophers would call Aristotle).
Merely trying to shed some light on why certain conceptions get irrational acceptance while others get irrationally rejected.
Yes, there are a lot of words, and perhaps this wasn't the forum for it, but the limen between the supernatural world and the physical world is something I have thought a lot about (actually have about 40,000 words written on the subject).
I believe that it is possible to prove the existence of the supernatural world, but that proof would take quite a few more words. So it might not be find a receptive audience here.
Quote: deckard @ February 9 2011, 4:35 PM GMTOK, go ahead and explain it to me. I am open to your thoughts.
It's not true. There, I done explained it! If you think it is, fair enough.