Saturday, June 13, 2009

Astrology - a science or fiction? Or a bluff? From a rationalist's perspective

I am reading Dr Abraham Kovoor's radical book 'Begone Godmen' currently. It has changed my beliefs on a lot of things. I never believed in spirits possessing human body and such stuff. But I definitely believed in the concept of God, and astrology. Although the book did not crash my faith in God (to whichever extent it was - that's another story), what it really did was to shake my belief system in astrology. From what I read in the book, it is awfully stupid to think that stars 4 or 5 million light years away from us can affect our lives. A lot of the astrological constellations such as Aries does not exist. Some constellations change according to our geographical perspective. And the stars that form the constellation are often a few million light years away from the earth. How does that make astrology a science, as is favored by lot of astrologers and even scientists?

The book makes for an interesting read. To see that Dr Kovoor threw a 100000 Rs. challenge in 1960's for anyone to prove the concrete-ness of astrology with 100% accuracy in prediction - and it still remains open is an achievement in itself for rationalists all around the world.

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2 comments:

Tejaswy said...

I am not much of a believer in astrology but am a believer in palmistry.




you know why....

the way we fold our hands are the way the line are drawn.

for example
if i were a iron smith/black smith ...the way my hands lines will be different ....from a student..what say ?

Tejas said...

Tejaswy, thanks for dropping by and starting a dialog.

Let me ask you a question to answer your question :)

So in the case you are talking, the profession decides the lines in a palm, or is it otherwise? The palm lines do not determine the profession, does it?
What if someone studies to become a black smith, do the lines change drastically, different when he was a student and altered when he goes in his profession?

Looking forward to your response to this! I am really eager to know what people think about astrology, because I have gone from being a staunch believer of astrology to becoming almost a non-believer.