Astrology is bullshit. Astrology is bullshit. Astrology is bullshit.

Many of you have probably heard of the recent changes to the Zodiac. Some of you have birthdays that now probably fall under a different sign. Why is this? Why must the zodiac change?

Let’s take a brief look at the history of astrology. Traditionally, astrology is a type of ancient personality analysis based on the notion that that the movement and positions of stars and planets at the time of your birth can influence your character. For some reason, the moon and the sun itself have no effect, as do comets, asteroids, other planets in other solar systems, and even the god-damn planet you were born on. Go figure.

Astrology should never be confused with astronomy, which is the scientific study of the orbits, positions and composition of objects in space and has absolutely zero to do with any effect on humans whatsoever (unless they find an asteroid that's on course to wipe us all out).

Astrology is classed as a ‘new age’ philosophy, despite the fact that its roots go back as far as 3000 years ago. You see, back then, humans had no idea that the little specks of light in the night sky are actually huge balls of rock and burning gas and that our Earth is just a grain of sand in the cosmic beach that is our universe. These were the days when we thought the world was flat and that the stars were spirit guardians. We believed that the Earth and the stars were made specifically for us, so then it’s understandable that ancient civilizations saw a connection between the stars and the destiny of an individual, because we thought we were the centre of the universe.

Narcissistic assholes.

Of course, since those times, we now know that our planet is one of eight orbiting around our sun, which is a star, just like the thousands you see in the sky at night. So how can these far away worlds possibly influence our personalities, considering that the nearest one (Mars) is over 35 million kilometres away?

Funnily enough, astrologers all disagree with each other when it comes to this. Some say it’s gravity, which would be bullshit because the planet you’re standing on would have an overwhelmingly stronger influence on you. Hell, even the midwife pulling you out of the womb would have her own gravity which would be stronger than anything in the sky at the time.

Especially if she looked like this.

The reality is that stars and planets couldn’t give a fuck about you, really. If none of us were here, the stars and planets would still go on their merry way orbiting each other and they’d be none the wiser.

What’s worse for the astrologers is that the signs don’t even stay the same over thousands of years! When the 12 astrological signs were first named, it turned out there were actually 13 of them. The problem was that dividing 13 signs into 12 months was very tricky and wasn’t popular originally. Also, due to the way the Earth wobbles as it spins on its axis and orbits our sun, the constellations as seen from our perspective shift gradually over a 12,000 year cycle. This means that every couple thousand years or so, the astrological signs slowly shift forward. Aquarius becomes Pisces, Pisces becomes Aries, etc.

...Which brings us to the present day. Astrologers are now re-adding the 13^th sign to the zodiac. Its name is Ophiucus (pronounced “off-YOU-cus”).  This caused all sorts of uproar over people not wanting to be other zodiacal signs, and astrologers were quick to reassure them that it only applies to babies born after this date, which is kind of like McDonalds claiming that from now on, French fries are to be called “happy fries” only by people born after 1990.

I still call them "breakfast".

There’s one aspect of astrology that bothers me more than anything else. It’s very anti-individualistic. It’s just another way of grouping people into ‘us and them’, and promotes intolerance based on some imaginary branding that has no relevance in the real world. Astrologers openly state which star signs are 'compatible' with each other. Ever wonder where they pull this bullshit from?

Apparently it has something to do with each star sign representing one of the four elements (earth, fire, wind, water). For instance, an air sign is compatible with a fire sign (because they’re smart enough to know that fire needs air to live). What this has to do with personalities and the stars beats the shit out of me.

This Ophiucus sign will supposedly complicate things since whichever element it’s grouped with will be represented by 5 signs instead of 4. No doubt the astrologers will give this a new age explanation that will make as much sense as an anvil for a parachute.

Back to my point, people that believe in astrology will then look for other people with star signs that are ‘compatible’ with their own. Now apart from unnecessarily limiting their selection criteria, isn’t this just another form of discrimination? For instance, how often have you heard people say something like “I haven’t met a Taurus that I get along with”? Well read it again and replace the star sign with an ethnic slur, and see how racist it sounds.

Astrology creates useless and completely untrue generalizations of people based on nothing but ancient beliefs which have been proven wrong way back as 400 years ago. You might be convinced that your daily horoscope as seen in the paper (or more likely, on an iPhone app) tends to hold some truth, but let’s take a closer look at some.

Here’s one for “Aries”.

“Work, achievement and ambition mean a lot to you now. Whether at work or at home, you could be most persuasive with others and eloquent in speech and communication.”

First of all, who the hell doesn’t care about work, achievement and ambition??  Secondly, anyone can be persuasive with others if they are confident enough. You don’t need special star powers in order to do that.

“Chatting with friends this morning gets your day off to a pleasant start.”

... Is this something you should really be surprised about?

“A good conversation with those you love is possible.”

Possible?? You don’t say!

“Tonight you decide to try something new."

Now that’s an interesting one... Wouldn’t reading this already inspire you to do something new? This isn’t a prediction as much as a suggestion.

The reality is that every astrological horoscope is ridiculously vague for a reason. Astrologers purposely do this so that more people can believe that their predictions have come true. Something like “you will experience a challenge today”, could mean anything. We all experience challenges of all kinds every day of our lives.

As a species, we have a sense of ‘belonging’. This is what astrology caters to. We are social animals and it’s no surprise that we are so willing to believe something that connects us to the stars, but I’m not here to tell you that we’re not. We actually are connected to the stars in a very real and ultimately more profound way.

Since the beginning of the universe, stars have died and been born. When a star dies, it releases millions of tonnes of dust into space where it drifts until it orbits another newborn star. This dust eventually clumps together and accumulates into balls, getting larger and larger until eventually they become planets. This is how our planet was born over 4 billion years ago. As a result, everything on this planet – every atom that your body is made of – was created inside a star.

We are stardust. All of us. 

This may not tell us much about our future, but it says a lot about our past, and has the power to make people realize that we share a lot more in common than we think, instead of being grouped into arbitrary astrological signs that have no real connection with reality.

For more information, have a look at the videos below.

Here is an astrology experiment. Students are each given an astrological reading based on where and when they are born, and they see how accurate it is.

Below is a video by the late Carl Sagan, a highly respected astronomer in which he explains the difference between astronomy and astrology.