It is fine to believe in God because by design it is an
unverifiable hypothesis. Science has given us an account of cosmology
(that does not depend on a divine creator). Anthropology has given us a
credible account of the birth and value of organised religion. Modern
neuroscience has illuminated us on scientific basis for the origin of
faith. But they don't offer proof that God doesn't exist (or for that
matter that he does). One could always say that it is what I believe in
and that is that.
All science can offer is an understanding of where
we are and how we got to be. And in our understanding, which by no
measure is complete, it is not certain that a God has to exist to create
the Big Bang, to create life on earth or to create intelligence. A
universe created without a God would be indistinguishable with a
universe with one. No self respecting scientist says that we know
everything about everything. But to say that we don't know 'x',
therefore God must exist is not a sound argument. It is exactly the same
thing as saying we don't know what causes epilepsy, therefore the devil
is causing it. (Now, I assume you don't believe that epilepsy is caused
by demonic possession... but who knows you might have a theory that
epilepsy may be caused by a brain anomaly but what caused the brain
anomaly - demon)
Be that as it may, you are free to believe in a
celestial teapot. I am not going to convert you, no matter how cogent my
arguments. Faith by definition is the belief in something beyond
reason. If there was irrefutable proof for the existence of something,
then one wouldn't be asked to "believe" in it. Nobody says do you
believe in gravity.
But astrology is a whole other thing. It is not
based on faith. In theory, it should be verifiable. And I don't mean
conduct a double-blind study and give astrologers horoscope charts and
personality test results and ask them to pick which chart belongs to
which person. Oh no! they did that and published it in Nature too. (It
didn't show that astrologers had better than random chance). And it can
also be shown that people "want to believe" especially when it comes to
personality profiles based on astrology or daily predictions (Forer
effect).
I don't mean that kind of science, valuable as it
may be. I mean the basis of astrology. Astrology is built on the notion
that the movement of celestial bodies affect the course of human events.
That the gravitational pull of the planets has a significant effect on
human destiny is scientific nonsense. Why? Because Physics. A nurse
standing 1 m from the mother during delivery exerts more gravitational
pull than Mars or Saturn.
Our ancestors believed that stars caused events and
it is in no way intriguing that they did so. It is a simple fallacy -
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. The star moved and the king died. Therefore
the star moving to this "constellation" caused adverse conditions for
the king.
It is intriguing that there is some correlation
between predictions and reality. Some of it could be attributed to
coincidence but not all. Some of it to confirmation bias but not all.
But there isn't anything that I have read or come across that provides
convincing proof or even convincing plausibility that astrology is built
on anything more than discredited pseudo-scientific concepts, like the
moon pulling on brain like on tides.
Now, I'd think the scientific approach would be to
say "My null hypothesis is astrology is not true". (as mentioned above
for 2 reasons - 1. our ancestors relied on astral movements to "make
sense" of the world and 2. the assumption of planets exerting
gravitational pull on events has no scientific standing). Now, if CERN
released results from supercollider tomorrow that showed that Jupiter is
benevolent and moon in the third house means you will be good with
words, the null hypothesis is falsified. I will stand in line with you
to get daily horoscope predictions. But until something like that
happens, my null hypothesis, as a scientist, is that astrology is hokum
and i will not base any of my life decisions on it (entirely or
partially or even a teeny tiny little bit).
Btw, I have been told by some to have an open mind. I
don't know how to tell them politely that someone believing in
something that has been the popular belief for 2000 years does not have a
more "open mind" than someone who stops to wonder, "wait a minute, why
do we believe this". My point being that one does not need an open mind
to follow what has been conventional wisdom; it takes one to question
the assumptions and conclusions.
