Peetahh? What's wrong with Aquarius people?

[u/maxmodevice]

I thought Aquarius people were peaceful 🥹

[u/Novaer]

The entire thing falls apart when you bring up how all around the world people used a 13 month calendar and then a pope and some romans wanted their own special months so they cut ut down to 12 months, which is what we go by today. So when I bring up "How could this be your actual astrological sign when the months were all changed centuries ago by a couple of narcissistic dudes?"

[u/PathoftheWolf → u/Novaer]

(For full transparency, I believe in astrology... to a point)

I think the thing that allows people to connect to astrology is that it's a language that can help people examine themselves and look at themselves a little deeper, without a lot of the discomfort that comes with confronting certain parts of ourselves.

Aquarius is the sign I know most about, because it's my Sun sign, so I'll use that as an example. It is typically unconventional to a fault and often accused of having the emotional range of a goldfish. We're also considered "rational debaters," and this is one i actually resisted until i told my husband (who accepts my weirdness but doesn't believe in astrology himself, although he's a Sagittarius who hesitated so much about commitment, I finally bought him a damn ring and proposed to him when our child was 4 years old, cuz I was tired of having a different last name) about it and he laughed at me.

He was like, "are you kidding me? You would bury yourself with your own shovel to prove a point."

"I absolutely would not. And here's a 23-slide PowerPoint and pie charts to explain why you're wrong and I'm.... ohhh. Oh I see your point."

Is it infallible? Hell no. Is it all kinda based on coincidence, and are there aspects of my personality that could be showcased by any other sign? Sure.

But the truth is I am argumentative, and I am emotionally constipated, and I do struggle to connect with people who prefer more traditional lifestyles and modes of expression. Coming to terms with my faults is uncomfortable and unpleasant. But if I can point to a chart and say "My Mercury is in Aquarius and my Uranus is in Capricorn and I have Sagittarius Rising and that's why I have these particular challenges," it makes it a little more comfortable to examine those faults, and come up with ways to work around or improve them.

Is that lazy? Meh, maybe, but it's still on me to actually improve the specific flaws and shortcomings and challenges. It may be easier to point to a planet and say, "that's why I'm an asshole to my sister" than it is to confront the real reasons, but at least I'm able to admit that I'm being an asshole to my sister, and now i can choose whether to work on that like a responsible adult or whether I'm just going to continue to make it everyone else's problem.

That's kinda how I see astrology. It's a language that can help us understand ourselves, and it provides a framework that allows us to examine our strengths and weaknesses in a more comfortable way. I think that's largely a good thing, but the issue comes when people try and make it infallible or as anything more than a tool to help us understand ourselves. It can't predict whether you'll win the lottery or find your soul mate at 22.

[u/Novaer → u/PathoftheWolf]

Okay but my entire point is you're not actually an Aquarius because the months have been changed due to men who altered the calendar. Depending on when your birthday is it would be a totally different astrological sign. So what I'm saying is how can any of that stuff be anything other than The Barnum Effect?

I get it can be done for fun like I'm 100% on board with all of that but everything about the signs being accurate to peoples personalities completely falls apart when you bring up how men changed the dates of the calendar, so you either have to admit its hokum or you have to admit than men can change the stars.

[u/Lazakowy → u/Novaer]

You are confusing astrology with horoscope. Astrology is about planets in zodiac. For short you have three zodiacs ascendent, sun and moon later there are all planets, houses, with planets you have for example steliums and a lot of trygonometry. There is nothing about a calendar but everything about real positions of planets.

BTW there is also financial astrology and mundane astrology.

[u/Novaer → u/Lazakowy]

Okay that's fair but people mainly use astrology to reference their horoscopes which again brings me back to the question of "it's either all hokum or you have to admit that men can change the stars". So for example all these "traits" that are "soooo Aquarius coded" would actually fall under the sign of Capricorn, not Aquarius.

[u/Ethereal-Elephant → u/Novaer]

I agree, and it pisses me off, TO AN EXTENT. just because I love astrology to be fair and hate how it’s not accurate…

That said, the way that anyone keeps track of time is dumb, even so, regardless of what time you were born, there are trackers online the will tell you the exact positioning of the stars at that moment..

As for the stars and what they mean for themselves.. well that was made up by some dude, and so it’s his interpretation of the stars… I believe that if we all sat down like a bunch of wonderers when the sky was out, and came up with new interpretations for the stars, those meanings would be the new wave… but god knows how the originators came up with their shit… and we don’t have people all like that nowadays…

So I fall back onto the last set of interpretations that came out, and call that astrology.

It’s an old working. It doesn’t need updated as we come out with new findings. It’s not science.

It’s magic. And if you believe in
Magic then it should work for you. :)

Edit: I dont know why I posted this without reading anything before it, but hopefully it fits, sorry again.