The Age of AquariWhat?
The main complaint people have of astrology is that it claims to predict the future and fails to do so.

But seeing as how predicting specific, unavoidable events in the lives of individual people based only on some guess work involving a sun sign is what so many people seem to think "astrology" is, of course it wouldn't work!

Except that's not what astrology really…is. There's so much more to it than that. Those horoscopes in the newspaper are made as deliberately vague as possible for the following reasons. Number one, because newspapers usually get those off a wire service- the author of the column has to make the items as generalized as possible to satisfy the widest audience. Because editors may have no idea who this person is, nobody knows if they have credentials or if they're just making all this up. Furthermore, if newspaper horoscopes were as accurate as everyone wishes they would be, newspapers would never be allowed to print them. One of the reasons why the occult/witchcraft/paganism/magic etc is allowed to continue to exist by the majority religions and by scientific authorities is because people think it's irrelevant or that it doesn't work.

I've heard lots of religious people use that excuse when trying to explain why they're doing something a fundy friend or relative is complaining about. "It's okay, because it's not real." Fundamentalists hate and fear the occult because they often believe that it really works. People who seem more tolerant are often more tolerant because they think you're playing a harmless game. If you're an open minded liberal type who also believes in the occult you often end up in the middle, explaining on one hand that "it's not evil" and explaining on the other that "yes, this is real, but my believing so doesn't make me some kind of creepy, irrational fanatic".

Astrology is much more complicated than what we see in the newspaper. It's not just your "sun sign" (your dominant sign , the one you look up in the newspaper). There are moon signs, and star signs and all sorts of complicated stuff. Professional astrologers can calculate your life's horoscope if you give them the date, time and location of your birth, which will create an extremely personalized and detailed profile that's a whole lot more accurate.

Still, it isn't necessarily about telling you what the future holds. It tells you what might happen based on actions you'd probably take according to what people born under your sign/s tend to choose.

For example: Scorpio is known as a dominating, snarky, sign prone to depression, while Aries is known as a high spirited, argumentative, aggressive sign. Put a Scorpio in a room with an Aries when they're both having a terrible day- watch Scorpio become obnoxious, watch Aries punch their lights out.

That's not a prediction, that's a pretty darn accurate guess based on understanding of a method of categorizing personality types. And in that sense, yes you can try to "predict" what someone might do next if you know their astrological sign/s.

Astrology can also tell us why we do things. There's a book for how to deal with your boss according to their sign, how to deal with a significant other, and how to parent based on your child's sign. I can think of more than one occasion when I've been unable to get along with someone or been confused by their behavior only to realize later that it was at least partially about their sign.

After all, this system dates back to Babylon using the same symbols, minus the Greco Roman names.

And here's an example:

My family ordering pizza: My mother left us a specific amount, to pay for 2 pizzas she'd already ordered at the place where they have a good deal. My dad wants to buy a better pizza from a different place but can't decide if he really wants to or not, and can't decide what he wants on his pizza, and waffles about making the phone call until he abdicates all responsibility to me and my sister. I quickly and loudly agree that I want the better pizza and my sister defers to me in choosing my dad's pizza topping- then takes forever to make the phone calls and ends up whining about how she always has to do everything. I continue to play around on the computer, blissfully self absorbed. Then she takes off with her friends (who usually make plans by saying "a bunch of people might be getting together to do something somewhere") promising to deal with the pizza. She is late coming home. I am the first person to reach the pizza boxes, and then I go hog the computer and the tv, draping cat like in my chair, trying to convince other people to wait on me.

Which astrological signs do we have in our house?

What I also find bothersome is how so many sceptics out there portray those interested in astrology as flighty, gullible, bubbleheads who are unable to deal with science. Despite what astronomers think, the truth is in order to be a good astrologer, you first have to understand astronomy. I mean, one requires knowledge of the movements of the stars, planets and constellations and...one requires knowledge of the movements of the stars, planets and constellations. The only difference lies in what you do with the information once you have it. I don't have much interest in science myself, that's why I'll ultimately never been a good astrologer either.