This is the year of the Fire Pig, a year in which situations can gather speed and burn out of control. In the past, these years have been fraught with many wars, political takeovers, and worldly unrest. Perhaps it was fate that Kula has returned to save the world from itself in such a powerful and potentially destructive time.

Gah! that doesn't bode well for Iran...it's one of those situations where it'll definately get worse before it gets better. Entering the last two years? of this presidency in the U.S.A. so surely this administration will want to make more changes before it gets kicked out.

I weep. weep. For those who take Astrology seriously.

Oh no way man! This shit has been followed for thousands of years! Of course, the money's in New Age nonsense, but astrology is an ancient science. It has predicted many things throughout history. Anyway, is this chinese thing astrology? I know nothing about it

It has never predicted anything that anything that has been scientifically verifiable.

That is why Astrology is not part of science.

Now, I am not trying to say 'science is everything'. There's an argument to be made that some things (e.g. God - were he to exist, let's just suppose) aren't amenable to scientific analysis or prediction, et cetera.

But the whole point of Astrology would seem to be prediction (as opposed to say, a relationship with God, which might have other values). Yet by the standards of prediction, it fails. For science is not some specialised way of predicting... it is the only sensible way of predicting. Prediction - test - success or failure of test - refinement of hypothesis - and picking a theory based on verifiable accuracy of predictions, etc. I submit that the scientific method is self-evidently the only sensible way to predict anything at all.

As for generalisations like "In the past, these years have been fraught with many wars, political takeovers, and worldly unrest." it is easy to pick out events in any such years (and, no doubt, greater events of unrest / wars, which do not fall in those years). Backwards (as explanation) or forwards (as prediction) it is without value.

Hmmm. I was just trying to find some way to make the Chinese New Year relevant to Kula's return, it was not to be taken seriously. I didn't know it was going to be picked apart and scrutinized. From here on I will try to keep my posts to a minimum.

And for the record, I don't believe in astrology either.

quote:

Originally posted by King B:
Hmmm. I was just trying to find some way to make the Chinese New Year relevant to Kula's return, it was not to be taken seriously. I didn't know it was going to be picked apart and scrutinized. From here on I will try to keep my posts to a minimum.

It's ok, I got that was what you were doing. Happy New Year in all lands

Ah true, all very true. Yes, we should be logical. It's just that at some unusually opportune times in history unusal things have happened in the sky:
at the fall of Constantinople the moon rose in an eclipse, and the was another phenomemnon of the light, which made it appear that there were fires on the horizon - this "fire" was an optical illusion caused by the intense red twilight glow from clouds of volcanic ash, throw up by the eruption of Kuwae in the Pacific. There were other weird side effects of this volcanic eruption that also would have told the people that Constantinople's time had come.
A better example of astrology telling people something useful in an obvious way was the appearance of Halley's Comet overhead during the Battle of Hastings, a sign of the end of Anglo-Saxon rule in Britain.
So yeah, I believe there's definately something in looking at the sky to find out about the world. Thanks for your advice though, we've got to be logical about this stuff!

...look for signs and portents...there's got to be a reason.....to believe!!!

Never underestimate mankind's refusal to accept coincidence as just that, coincidence.

Also don't underestimate the propensity of ancient (and otherwise unverfied, be they ancient or not) sources to embelish the truth.

Good example is Halley's Comet. Think of all the wars / battles / takeovers that occurred during the middle ages and before / since with no comet.

You, my dear James have obviously never seen the joyous Maid Marian and her Merry Men by Tony Robinson which definitively proves that it is not in fact Halley's comet but actually Hayley's Vomit. And I though you were an educated man of reason and philosophy

Okay, now you're just being silly. What about all the other examples of strange celestial events before an important historic event? I only gave two examples, here, the birth of Christ is one.

That makes 3 coincidences. Go figure!

Are you trolling? There's no actual evidence that there was any such cosmological event before the birth of Jesus.

What's trolling? There's loads of cosmological evidence about this, google it....and I'll google trolling....

http://www.darkstar1.co.uk/ds8.htm

....

well you started it....sorry