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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