Hello @livvy and @chris-fitz, @apeetha-arunagiri and @anhp,and @Iratxe.
[I had to make a new topic as the thread would not accept my post.]
Thank you all for your interesting insights. first of all, I will talk about obstacles I have encountered, just in case, a beginning student might also feel these conflicts after a while. These conflicts for me because I am a Gemini and kind of double minded, yet always looking to reconcile what seems to be a contradiction, or looking for logic.
As many people, my ideas of heaven and earth were formed by the church, which includes a great prohibition against astrology. Often I have been called to account by believers who know that I am very interested in astrology, either that or scoffed at by my scientific minded friends. These condemnations exist, sometimes coming from the most unlikely quarters, especially from people who know little about astrology. Sometimes the condemnations come from within as we try to reconcile astrology with our religious training, or with the scientific fact that our earth is not the center of the solar system.
I would tell my novice friend how I have attempted to reconcile these religious and scientific challenges, and even though I am not a scientist or historian, I have made a holistic theory of my own. I have learned so much from astrology, and it has increased my vocabulary for experiencing life, so I have accepted it as a real measure. but how does i work.
My Scientific speculation:
The earth centered zodiac is the biggest Problem. So I thought, what if we are measuring a larger force that also influences the planets as they circle around the Sun. For example, if we look at a temperature gauge or thermostat, and we didn’t know any better, we might assume that these instruments themselves were causing the rise and fall in temperature, when they are really registering changes in a larger force – the weather. I speculated that perhaps the planets rather than being the cause of changes, are like the cyphers on a gauge, and are registering a larger cause, as yet unknown and identified. But they somehow register this force in a predictable way, but they are not the cause. So this was I can release my mind from the geocentric model. I might tell a beginner my speculation, if they have trouble with the scientific inaccuracy of astrology.
Religion and belief in God.
We know that astrology has an ancient history beginning in Mesopotamia, long before Judeo Christianity. At first it was practical, and like an almanac for agricultural planting and harvest and measuring the seasons. It was one with Astronomy. Then through time, migrations and sharing of knowledge, astrology became a means of not only measuring seasons, but also people and events. It became enriched through mathematics and religion both, just as our current scientific thought grows through experiment and discovery.
I believe that astrology was in the beginning a gift from God, to assist human being navigate their practical affairs. It was not to replace God, but like like the plants, and animals and natural resources that God provided for humans, but required work and study to cultivate. In fact, Astrology coexisted with God until the enlightenment. Gothic Cathedrals are decorated with the glyphs and images of astrology. I have seen medieval Calendars with the Zodiac signs floating through the sky.
But then the church saw astrology as a competitor and conducted a witchhunt against astrology, burning books, and exiling astrological knowledge as diabolical. I think knowing about the witch hunts in europe, tells us a lot about the fate of astrology, and how it was marginalized to the shadows and stripped of its natural place in society. A psychologist once told me that Astrology was the first psychology or attempt to understand human behavior, but it was sent underground by the powers of the Church.
So I would tell my beginning freind this historical perspective, how astrology once coexisted with the Church.This would be to help them with conflicts they may have with their religious training. It places astrology within the tradition of knowledge, and not as some diabolical invader in competition with God.
This how I had to sort it out. thanks for listening.
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