by Shivam
CHAPTER 7
DEBUNKING
ASTROLOGY
"In the absence of fear there is little faith."
-- Michael Pain
Not to be confused with Astronomy, Astrology is a different thing. Astronomy deals with study of celestial objects while Astronomy deals with the effect of these bodies on a human. It all started about 2300 years ago when Babylonians came up with the idea that the gods lived among the stars and other celestial objects, and were able to impose their will on humanity by controlling the destinies of individuals and nations alike. The Babylonians divided the sky into 12 “slices”: which we now know as the signs of the zodiac… Taurus, Pisces, etc.
As elementary Physics would tell you, the force of gravity is inversely proportional to the distance of the two bodies. You can guess by yourself, what’s the distance between you and the planets, and what will be the force exerted!!
There was an interesting study done in 1948 by psychologist Bertram R. Forer. Forer gave a personality test to each of his students. Afterward, he told his students they were each receiving a unique personality analysis that was based on the test’s results, and to rate their analysis on a scale of 0 (very poor) to 5 (excellent) on how well it applied to themselves.
The analysis presented to the students was as follows:
You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is one of your major goals in life.
The results were pretty promising. Each student received the exact same analysis: On average, the rating was4.26/5 (that is, the students found their “personal” analysis to be 85% accurate). It was only after the ratings were turned in was it revealed that each student had received identical copies assembled by Forer from various horoscopes.
In another experiment, the famous French Astrologer, Michael Gauquelin, offered free horoscopes to any reader of Ici Paris, if they would give feedback on the accuracy of his supposedly “individual” analysis. He wanted to scientifically test the profession of astrology. As with Forer’s experiment, there was a trick: he sent out thousands of copies of the same horoscope to people of various astrological signs – and 94% of the readers replied that his reading was very accurate and insightful.
What they didn’t know was that the horoscope was that of a local mass murderer, Dr. Petiot, who had admitted during his trial that he had killed 63 people. This is clearly another case of subjective validation where subjects focus on the hits of some general analysis that’s supposed to be unique to them.
Now moving to the scientific details. There is no force, known or unknown that could possibly affect us here on Earth the way astrologers claim. Known forces weaken too fast, letting one source utterly dominate (the Moon for gravity, the Sun for electromagnetism). An unknown force would allow asteroids and extra solar planets to totally overwhelm the nearby planets
Another great loophole is that the planets were named based upon Roman Gods. That was completely arbitrary. There might have been some logic behind it (Mars is red, war has blood, etc.), but overall there is no real reason to think that just because Venus was named after the goddess of love, that it should hold any sway over one’s relationships. If the “effects” of the planets on people, had any real relationship to the planets themselves, then Venus should be the ruler of bad gas, not love.
What about Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, which were only discovered within the past 250 years? In ancient times, these outer planets were unobservable with the naked eye. Astrologer’s based their system and equations upon the seven planets they believed revolved around the Earth. If the position of the planets has an influence upon human behavior and events, then how could any of the beliefs have been correct, if these celestial objects were missing from the “equation”?
CHAPTER 8
YOLO
“Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.”
-Christopher Hitchens
You Only Live Once. It was pretty funny for me to put a slang word in a book like this. But there were no other options visible to convey what I had to say. In this chapter, I will be focusing only on my opinion not any scientific reasoning or something. So there is pretty high probability that large number of people might get offended or might not like this chapter. But who cares. YOLO right?
I have lived 21 years of my life trying to impress others, doing what others say, or want me to do, crushing my dreams and the list goes on and on. People would say you have quite much left to see and you would eventually like the path you have followed. Well Yeah, People with long experiences obviously have a better outlook on life and most of them are right too. But again as I said You only live once and there is no guarantee of your life, people should pursue their dreams and follow the path they wish to aspire. Anyways this is a topic completely off the road. But to start the chapter, a basic outline of the term should be explained.
There are lots of temples, churches, mosque and other religious places all over the world. And to worship the God, they have representatives in their respective places, named as Pundit or Father or anything as a matter of fact. Now, there are several organizations existing in India and Worldwide focusing on creating awareness about the lord. One such example is ISKCON. It talks about Krishna Consciousness, and how you should surrender to God to find eternal freedom. According to them, our whole life, we crave for materialistic possessions and die wishing for it too. According to them instead of craving for physical satisfaction, we should urge for mental satisfaction; and that can only be achieved by surrendering to the supreme God Krishna.
They also talk about ‘Karma’ and how you can improve it by worshipping Krishna. And if u don’t you will eventually end up screwing your karma, and in the next birth, you will be punished for the karma which you did in your last birth. It sounds pretty funny though. You will be punished in this life for the things you did in your past life, and wait, you can improve it too, if you start praying to the god Krishna. According to them, the body which you possess is just a support for your soul. It’s the soul which goes on and on. It’s very unfair though, getting punished for things you have not done, and about the soul, it does not remember things it has done in its past life, why is it being punished now?
The thing about materialistic possession and crave for physical need seems somewhat true, but that’s what we have. We just have our body and our mind. It’s one life and you have to live it, do what you want and die. The worst part about that concept is that, you have to surrender yourself to the God, just to get a better next life, the proof of which exists nowhere. And is you God so shallow, that he might need smothering like this from so many people, just to give you a better life. So what’s the point in doing that? Fulfill your materialistic wishes, achieve your goals, and like all men, finally die. This is the process which is not going to change for anyone.
I have seen devotees in that organization of all
ages, of all races just repeating “Hare Krishna Hare Ram” around like thousand times, to smother him, to get a better life, and better “karma”.
Their life could be a much lot better if they believe in science and knew that this is their only opportunity “Use it or waste it in search of some fantasies”.
Believe me or not, that organization if full of lots of educational people, with masters and PhD and still no clue about life. Their life could have been well spent doing some research, contributing to Science, and obviously humanity. Praying to God has never served the poor, but yes doing something valuable has.
India is an over populated country, and quite religious too, so you could definitely guess the number of people rushing to temple to pray for their future, family, themselves, blah blah. This is not the end of it; this temple thing is a business in India. Devotees spend lakhs and crores of rupees submitting to God, and if you visit any major temple in India, they earn daily thousands of crores Rupees. Even in ISKCON, there are lots of people pounding everywhere and there are the temple agents who mean pure business. They trick you something on the name of God, and make you in buying books, and bracelets and obviously you can’t say no to them, because the name of God is written on it, and you definitely can’t say No to god.
I have been brought up in the state of Bihar. Well for dummies, who don’t know much about India; just imagine what you think about India, that’s the exact same thing, people from other states think about Bihar. It’s one of the poorest state of the country, poor GDP, illiteracy are the common problems there. But, that’s not what we are focusing on. This State is developing the largest Hindu temple of the World, which will cost thousands of crores of Rupees. In a state like that, when there are major issues, we need to overcome, and with the amount of money you are spending on temples, If u just distribute it among the poor, all the problems will be solved. But no, this is not going to happen. That way, you can upset the God, and you must know how ruthless can he be. Sometimes I just ponder “When is this madness going to stop?” and the answer to it seems nowhere to be found..
BOOKS OR WEBSITES CITED
1. The God Delusion- Richard Dawkins
2. www.atheistempire.com
3. www.listverse.com
4. India Today- List of Superstitions
