Astronomy & astrology - both deal with the celestial bodies but are still different in names, why so?

Question

How scientists interpret astrology, so an astrologer about astronomy, do they contradict? If so, whom will you support? Your reasoning please!

Answer 1

To set the record straight...

Astrology means the study of heavenly phenomena as they relate to earthly events, and especially to humans.

Astronomy is concerned about measuring the sky, i.e. calculating the movements of planets, hypothesizing about the make-up and history of stars, the physics behind a changing universe, etc.

Astronomy takes a materialistic (so called 'scientific') view while astrology maintains that heaven and earth are related on a level that matters to human lives. In fact, astronomy was part of astrology in the olden days because astrologers needed to calculate the positions of the heavenly bodies. It was only after the scientific revolution that the two disciplines separated.

Today there is no substantial connection between astrology and astronomy. Astronomers in general have no knowledge of and despise astrology and astrologers, and astrologers have no knowledge of and care not for astronomy apart from chart calculations (save a distinct few on both sides).

Modern astronomy follows the scientific method and is part of mainstream science. Astrology is mostly practiced as a form of divination, and chart interpretation relies heavily on the astrologer's intuition. This is the basic reason why an astronomical prediction will more or less be the same irrespective of the astronomer, while an astrological prediction is substantially influenced by the astrologer's personality and skills.

Answer 2

As we've told you when you've asked this question in the past, astronomy is a science, while astrology is a superstition. There are no effects of heavenly bodies on human lives. The positions of stars and planets in the sky have no effect whatsoever on human life and behavior. This is what all the available scientific evidence tells us. This is why astrology is not a science — because people who believe in it do so despite the fact that all of the evidence ever discovered refutes it. You can view astrology as an extension of astronomy if you like. Just be aware that in doing so you're not being scientific, and no actual scientist will agree with you. Unless, of course, you have some actual evidence to support your position. Do you?

Answer 3

Astrology is the practice of using the stars to predict the future. It is an archaic and non-scientific method of studying the skies.

Astrologers are those ladies on TV with the ridiculous Rastafarian accents and Astrology these days really has nothing to do with the study of celestial bodies and has more to do with making money off of the gullible.

Astronomy is the field of study which focuses on the motion and behavior of all celestial bodies including stars, galaxies, planets, and the like. Astronomy uses all aspects of science and mathematics to explain how the Cosmos behaves.

The difference is clear: Astronomy: Real Science... Astrology: Fake

Answer 4

Astrology is fortune telling based on the position of the planets.

Astronomy is the science of predicting the positions of those planets, and lots of other space science too.

Astronomy as a science started as astrologers trying to predict where the planets would be in the future to use that information in their fortune telling.

The only problem is that the position of the planets does not tell you anything about events in people's lives on Earth. So astronomy went its own way and astrologers are still trying to come up with rules to assign certain meanings to certain planetary positions.

Answer 5

Astronomy is a science, the study of the stars, planets, galaxies and so on. Astrology is a pseudoscience in which it is claimed that the positions of the planets against the backdrop of the constellations in some way influences our human lives. Scientists mostly interpret astrology as the nonsense which it is, and if astrologers knew anything about astronomy, they would realize that their star charts are about 3,000 years out of date, and thus doubly irrelevant.

Answer 6

Sorry, Electro.

"Nomos" in Greek means "law." The word "astronomy" literally means "the study of the laws that govern the stars."

"Astrology" means "the study of the stars." It is an older discipline, but has long been known to be unrelated to fact or science.

Astrology is garbage, and astrologers don't especially care for the scientific parts of astronomy. It is not possible to subscribe to both at the same time, if that is what you mean.

I recommend you forget astrology and study the scientific reality.

Answer 7

"Aster" or "astro-" means star in Greek.

"Nomen" or "nom-" means name in Latin, and "-onomy" means "the naming of."

"Logos" or "log-" means word in Greek, and "-ology" means "the study of."

So, both of these fields have named themselves as those who study the heavens. Both of them "study" what goes on up there. Astronomy could have named itself astrology, but we need different words to distinguish what are really very different things.

Scientists interpret astrology as bunk - pseudoscience that doesn't stand up to the level of scrutiny that a scientific hypothesis must withstand to be considered possible or right. When horoscopes are wrong, no one stops believing their horoscope, because they don't read it for its reliability - they read it out of psychological need, or curiosity, or even faith. But the beliefs held by astrology are borrowed from the beliefs of philosophers from thousands of years ago about what those funny lights in the sky were, and how they might influence us. They don't admit the reality that they are balls of rock and gas so far away that their gravity doesn't even change our weight on a scale appreciably, let alone whether you will find money or love in the future.

Basically, astronomy studies celestial objects for what they really are. Astronomers gather data on these things, like brightness, distance, mass - real things. Astrology is a kind of mystical fortune-telling that supposes that magical forces are at work in the universe, and that is dying a slow cultural death.

Answer 8

scientists, or rather astronomers, don't interpret astrology. period.

there is no contradiction unless astronomers write daily horoscopes...

...thumbs down? for what?