Astrology: A question for other Catholics

[tabsie3210]

Hi!

This is a question posed to other Catholics specifically because I really need a Catholic opinion, particularly from someone with a better understanding of both theology and apologetics than I’ve got.

First, to be up front, I have to say, I don’t believe in horoscopes. Here’s a quote from a great “Weird Al” song that sums up my feelings perfectly concerning Horoscopes:

Now you may find it inconceivable or at the very least a bit unlikely that the
relative position of the planets and the stars could have a special deep
significance or meaning that exclusively applies to only you, but let me give
you my assurance that these forecasts and predictions are all based on solid,
scientific, documented evidence, so you would have to be some kind of moron not
to realize that every single one of them is absolutely true - Where was I?!

Heh…

So, anyway, I don’t believe in horoscopes at all. But I’ve got to wonder about birth signs and the like affecting personalities.

Naturally, this has NOTHING to do with astrology - the stars don’t affect us. But nature around us during different times of the year could affect us, couldn’t it? I mean, say I was born in late April (as I was). I seem to share a lot of traits with other “Tauruses,” in that I have curly hair, am bull-tempered, am artistically inclined, have trouble with my throat, etc. These are all standard traits of my sign.

I had to wonder if the reason that I share some of these traits had less to do with my genetics just happening to work out that way, and more to do with the environmental influences my mother had on her while she was pregnant with me. Is it possible that people have mistaken similarities between “signs” for being something affected by the stars, when in reality people are affected during their pre-natal lives by outside factors, such as what foods are widely available, what kinds of colds or other sicknesses their mothers might have been exposed to, how much sunshine Mom got while pregnant, etc.?

I’ve never been able to get a horoscope that made sense for me, so naturally I have little patience for people who look up their futures for the day, but I wonder if it’s possible to identify oneself as a Taurus with the understanding that what I’m saying is, “I was born while this particular star picture was in the sky, and that means my mother had X environmental factors affecting her, so I share certain similarities with other people born during the same time frame?”

Naturally, it wouldn’t have much affect on me as a grown person (except as an interesting curiosity), but I was wondering about the way it would affect small children. If a child is born at a certain time and her body is affected by the environment around her mother during pregnancy, could adults use her “sign” as a way of considering what kind of personality affects she might have, and thus help her out if there are any pitfalls.

That sentence was awful. Let me try that another way -

I’m a Taurus, and we typically have bad tempers, but can be pretty laid back in a lot of situations. If, let’s say, I gave birth to a daughter who was also a Taurus, could I look at her and say, “Your fate is NOT determined by the stars, but because of when you were born and what was going on while you were a pre-born baby, there’s a chance you will have a temper, too,” and then put on some extra effort to assist in teaching her to control her temper while she’s very little and still developing, so that she’ll have a shot at being calmer growing up than I was?

Now, keep in mind, I KNOW that there’s a LOT more than simple environemental factors out there that affect a human’s personality - the uniqueness of her soul, her relationship with God, her genetics, her personal interests, the people she grows up around, the things she sees in her daily life watching adults, the type of play she experiences with other kids, etc.

I’m simply wondering if, in addition to those other factors, a person could use one’s “sign” as another series of considerations in how to help a kid grow up around certain obstacles.

For the record, I’m not pregnant (I’m not even married, so there’s no chance of that). I wondered because I have friends who are into astrology and who talk about such things. They take it way too seriously (I find horoscopes funny, myself, but that’s about it), but I noticed that their kids that shared “signs” did have some similar traits.

It was just something I considered. Opinions from other Catholics?

 

[revert_jen]

I’m a Taurus, and we typically have bad tempers, but can be pretty laid back in a lot of situations. If, let’s say, I gave birth to a daughter who was also a Taurus, could I look at her and say, “Your fate is NOT determined by the stars, but because of when you were born and what was going on while you were a pre-born baby, there’s a chance you will have a temper, too,” and then put on some extra effort to assist in teaching her to control her temper while she’s very little and still developing, so that she’ll have a shot at being calmer growing up than I was?

You should probably wait to see the characteristics of your hypothetical child before trying to deal with them. I think that assuming that people have certain characteristics because of what time of year they’re born is an insult to the variety of human character. For example, I wasn’t born anywhere near the end of April and I have always had problems with my temper. However, I usually attributed it to my Irish lineage, which is in fact at least as much of an insult to the variety of human character, so I’m not really in a position to throw stones.

So I’m not exactly sure what you are asking. But as a fellow Catholic, I have the following opinions about the idea that your personality is determined in any significant way by what time of year you are born:

• I don’t think it’s true. If it’s related to weather, and things being in season, etc., it would mean that most people born in, for example, Hawaii (where the average high temperature varies between 80F in January and 88F in August) would have less variable personalities than people born in, for example, Topeka (where the average high temperature varies between 37F in January and 89F in July). I haven’t personally found that to be true.
• I also don’t think it’s sinful to think it’s true, as long as it isn’t used as an excuse for not fixing the things in one’s own character that are less than ideal. However, this would mean that you would not take the arbitrary dates used by astrology, but would merely use the general time of year. To avoid giving scandal, I would also suggest referring to them that way, e.g., early spring, late summer, etc.

OTOH, if you really think that it makes a difference that someone is born on (for example) the 18th of April vs. the 23rd of April, then you are really giving more credence to astrology than you are admitting to yourself. External environmental factors couldn’t be different enough in five days to make any impact, unless it is really some sort of occult thing. And if you believe in the occult part of it, then you are heading down a bad path.

I wondered because I have friends who are into astrology and who talk about such things. They take it way too seriously (I find horoscopes funny, myself, but that’s about it), but I noticed that their kids that shared “signs” did have some similar traits.

There are a lot of reasons why this might be true, without there being any truth to astrology whatsoever:

• Self-fulfilling prophesy. The parents expect a child with a particular sign to act a certain way, and so the parents’ behavior causes the child to act in that way.
• Selective perception/memory. The parents expect a child with a particular sign to act a certain way, so they notice particularly when the child acts that way, and report the “characteristic” behavior to their friends (e.g. you).
• Heredity. If the parents (or siblings) have certain characteristics, the children (or siblings) can have them regardless of the time of year they were born.

In any case, I’m not in a position to say definitively that astrology is bunk. However, I can say that using it to predict the future (including the future personality of a child) is either bunk, or it’s evil. Either it has no power, or it derives its power from infernal regions. Either way, I’d leave it alone. (This only refers to “real” astrology, not the pretty-much-unrelated idea that your personality is somewhat affected by the time of year you’re born because of environmental influences.)

:twocents: Just an opinion.

–Jen

 

[feargalmac]

I seem to share a lot of traits with other “Tauruses,” in that I have curly hair, am bull-tempered, am artistically inclined, have trouble with my throat, etc. These are all standard traits of my sign.

I have a brother who was born “under” Taurus but doesn’t have any of those traits. I don’t see how a Catholic can have anything to do with starsigns. We’re all unique in the eyes of God. Anything that lessens that is incompatible, from astrology to enneagrams. They’re all the same.

Don’t forget that different cultures have different ways of seeing the stars. For example the Lakota see a turtle where we see Pegasus.

 

[tabsie3210]

Hi Jen! Thanks for your reply!

You should probably wait to see the characteristics of your hypothetical child before trying to deal with them. I think that assuming that people have certain characteristics because of what time of year they’re born is an insult to the variety of human character. For example, I wasn’t born anywhere near the end of April and I have always had problems with my temper. However, I usually attributed it to my Irish lineage, which is in fact at least as much of an insult to the variety of human character, so I’m not really in a position to throw stones.

I don’t really see that attributing your temper to your Irish lineage is an insult to human dignity.

We know that God makes every one of us totally unique, but still able to relate to other humans, since we are God’s image-bearers one and all. But people born in certain areas do have certain uniqunesses to them. For example, to protect from the constant shine of the sun, equatoral peoples have darker skin pigmentation. Because of the heat, they have different cultureal clothing. People outside the USA have a different sense of time - they take longer lunch breaks, for example, and are more relaxed during their breaks, whereas in the US, people often take “working lunches,” because they feel more of a time crunch than other people do.

That’s not really an insult on human dignity, because some US residents (like me) take relaxed lunches and refuse to work through them, and combine our 15-minute breaks with our lunches (which is perfectly acceptable in my job ) so that we have longer, more relaxed times to ourselves in the middle of the work day. That’s because I’m not just a US resident. I’m more than the sum of my parts, naturally.

But I do note that I have certain similarities to other people in my town, in my place of residence, in my work, etc., based on some of the environmental similarities that we all grew up with. Because of that, I know what might be offensive to some people won’t be offensive to others. For example, some groups of people I know don’t know what the heck a “peon” is, whereas others of us use it as a playful term for those who are in entry-level positions at our businesses, but there is one group in my area that takes strong offense to its use - the blue-collar workers who are well-educated and do know what it means. Environmental factors have made the term offensive to them, so we avoid using it.

I was thinking more along those lines - some influence in the environment may have an impact on how a child develops during the early years, and may be notable by considering someone’s birth time. And since the seaons aren’t really tied to one particular calandar, but rather respond to the rhythms of the earth that God gave us, I was thinking an astrological calander might be more accurate than a solar calander for determining when a “season” really is. I’m speaking strictly of time here, not of anything magical.

Further responses in the next post:

 

[tabsie3210]

True to form, my work computers have reset themselves, so I lost the ENTIRE post that I was typing.

Since I don’t have long left on my break, here are the highlights of what I had been writing:

So I’m not exactly sure what you are asking. But as a fellow Catholic, I have the following opinions about the idea that your personality is determined in any significant way by what time of year you are born:

• I don’t think it’s true. If it’s related to weather, and things being in season, etc., it would mean that most people born in, for example, Hawaii (where the average high temperature varies between 80F in January and 88F in August) would have less variable personalities than people born in, for example, Topeka (where the average high temperature varies between 37F in January and 89F in July). I haven’t personally found that to be true.
• I also don’t think it’s sinful to think it’s true, as long as it isn’t used as an excuse for not fixing the things in one’s own character that are less than ideal. However, this would mean that you would not take the arbitrary dates used by astrology, but would merely use the general time of year. To avoid giving scandal, I would also suggest referring to them that way, e.g., early spring, late summer, etc.

1. We know that environment does affect people in certain ways - different foods can affect cholesterol, for example, and lack of sunlight can cause depression.
2. The human mind is greater than the human body, because the mind can control the body, as show in studies of OCD - people with OCD have used their minds to train their brains not to freak out.
3. Therefore, if there are environmental factors that might influence how a child’s personality could be affected, then there’s a chance parents could use the information to help them overcome personal difficulties, much as parents who find out they’re going to have a Downs Syndrome baby can take the knowledge and use it to modify the house or to get special classes for the kid to improve his chances of having a normal life.
4. Such chances for change are good because we need to respect each individual as God’s image-bearer and help them overcome difficulties.
5. You’re right, we should stay away from the astrological calander and stick to seasonal descriptions to prevent issues of scandal.

OTOH, if you really think that it makes a difference that someone is born on (for example) the 18th of April vs. the 23rd of April, then you are really giving more credence to astrology than you are admitting to yourself. External environmental factors couldn’t be different enough in five days to make any impact, unless it is really some sort of occult thing. And if you believe in the occult part of it, then you are heading down a bad path.

You’re absolutely correct here. It’s silly to suggest that the specific day affects how a person’s personality develops. I’m more interested in what was happening during pregnancy than where some star was the night I was born.

1. Astrology is 100% pure bunk, I assure you. I’ve got too many friends I made when I was young who turned to New Age bull, and believe me, it’s bunk. I’ve seen it in “action.” That’s why I got the idea that maybe factors outside the mother during pregnancy might cause similarities in kids born around the same time - as much pure junk as New Age is, I was surprised to see some real similarities in kids born around certain times. Since we can rule out the position of the planets and the stars as somehow being a factor, I figured there had to be an environmental reason.

I hope this helps everyone understand where I was coming from.

 

[SpiritinMe]

When Jesus was born he was pin pointed by a specified Star in the east, He is the only one that is suppose to signify a climax in time as (Main Messiah) Messiah meaning Messenger, also as Christ (anointed one) He is the only one that is to be recognized by astrology. The word of God wants us to avoid geneologies, astrologies & sorcery for this reason! God works on a “Need to know” basis, and Satan is the one who wants us to see that destiny is already carved out for us, while God gives us the freedom to live freely and build our character as we go along in life experiences and struggles. The reason why this youth and generation is in one accord with the same personality is because of the love for the world and the things in it. The sins in it are equal and the thus forth every one is placed in one of the twelve signs. The devil wants you to think that you were born with a temper and anger in you, therefore rendering you unable to grow in the spirit of gentleness and self control, and decreasing your faith in seeking peace, “Jesus gives you true rest”. Donot fall into the trap of Satan, He is clever, but the Holy Spirit of God is more wise. Feel free to stop by my group and ask anything you’d like or comment.

ps. Oh yea, the devil is a mimic and copy cat, so remeber who the stars really are focused on, and see that Satan want’s to give you more importance than our Lord Jesus, who is the Bright and morning Star