Bible Questions and Answers
Published 06/20/2013
I'm wondering how Christianity and horoscopes fit together? Is it a sin to believe in horoscopes and zodiac signs according to the Bible? Is it normal to subordinate your behavior to what you read in your horoscope?
Answer:
Orthodox view of star divination
The attitude of the Church towards astrology is unequivocally condemning, as well as towards all other pagan superstitions. First of all, the very concept of a predetermined future contradicts the Christian teaching about human freedom and responsibility for his life.
More about superstitions:
- About everyday superstitions
- Superstitions in the Church
- About fortune telling at Christmas
The attitude of the Orthodox Church to astrology
According to star forecasts and predictions, humans are simply puppets of inanimate astronomical objects. When a person is born, his personality traits are already determined by the “position of the moon.” An experienced astrologer, as follows from his own teachings, can identify a potential serial killer or drug dealer when they are not even an hour old.
Whether a person is good or evil, everything is already predetermined. The heavenly bodies endow some with nobility and selflessness, while others will turn out to be scandalous, vengeful egoists. Freedom of conscience does not exist.
But “character definition” is not enough, the stars do not let humanity out of their tenacious clutches for a minute, and do not give people a single day free from their influence. If, for example, a businessman wants to conclude a business agreement with a competing company, no matter how mutually beneficial his proposals may be, the negotiations are doomed to failure if Sagittarius is in an unfavorable combination with the moon this month.
So, people should not waste time on entrepreneurship courses, but rather go to a fortune teller or psychic for advice more often. Abilities and knowledge don’t really mean anything; the main thing is to catch the time when those born under the sign of Sagittarius simply cannot help but get rich.
How does the church view astrology?
All this goes completely against Christian anthropology. There is no predestination. God gave man reason and complete freedom. There are some innate inclinations of character, there is an environment in which a person grows, and which is not chosen, but what traits to develop in oneself, and what inclinations to fight, how to respond to the influence of the environment, is decided by the person himself. The choice between good and evil is made freely.
Important! People are responsible before God for all their actions. A person shapes both his life and his soul himself; shifting the blame to the stars will not work.
Astrologers about Christianity
Despite the apparent tolerance of astrology towards Christianity, all astrological teaching is imbued with a spirit of contempt for it. No matter how much astrologers publicly assure their listeners of their respect for the Church, their teachers, the authorities of astrology, have their own opinion on this matter:
“The supposedly unique life of Christ became a sacred symbol...” (C.G. Jung. On the formation of personality)
“What destroyed Job’s earthly paradise? Nature breaking the shackles. The poet here allows us to see how God turned into his other side, which is called the devil...” (K. G. Jung. Hymn to the Creator)
“The idea that the soul, during one short period of life in the body, can deserve either eternal heavenly bliss or eternal hellish torment, must be considered as the most diabolical means of instilling neuroses and the corrupting fear of death ever invented.” (D. Rudhyar. The need for a multi-level process-oriented psychology)
“Paul rejected the positive impulse of Christ into psychological escapism and emotional piety. The Christianity of Paul and most of the Church Fathers was a Jupiterian compensation for the Saturn function, destroyed by guilt, sin and repentance.” (Ibid.)
“The fact that humanity did not actually accept Christianity, or rather, distorted it in such a way that the comprehension of this great religion will begin (essentially anew) only in the era of Aquarius, is directly related to the described barrier between the subtle and dense worlds.
The church also contributed to the process of strengthening the black wall, cementing the cracks that appeared in it and proclaiming its own existence in the higher worlds.” (A. Underwater. Symbolic systems in the eras of Pisces and Aquarius).
G. Santo writes about the fulfillment of the Divine commandments: “Adam and Eve disobeyed the commandments of God and were expelled from Paradise. The umbilical cord was cut. Some people cannot even decide to take this necessary step towards freedom.” (G. Santo. Union of heaven and earth. Philosophy of astrology.) Only the astrologer is silent that this “necessary step towards freedom” deprives a person of communion with God and makes him a slave of the devil. A person is free to fulfill the commandments of God and be in communion with Him, or to fulfill the anti-commandments of Satan with the corresponding consequences. There is no third way.
In vain they will tell us that astrology is a science and has nothing to do with religion - you can’t hide an awl in a bag. The scientific nature of astrology is nothing more than a shell, and its internal, main part can without exaggeration be attributed to the branch of Satanism. And this is not a superficial conclusion; studying the books of famous authors, the “fathers” of astrology, who shaped its teaching, involuntarily leads to such an assessment of astrology.
“Instead of accepting the whole, the Church has separated itself from nature through rejection of the dark side of God. By claiming that some parts of us were demonic, she forced us to separate ourselves from those parts...Jesus in his message emphasized the acceptance of the whole. And until 600 AD, Christ and Satan were accepted as equal brothers, as two children of God.” (G. Santo. The Union of Heaven and Earth. Philosophy of Astrology.) - the author did not specify in which “message” and by whom it was “received.”
This is the kind of god astrologers believe in: hence the astrological acceptance of evil and giving it “official” status. By the way, astrologers write the word “Satan” exclusively with a capital letter. The actively accepted teaching of the Church unites a person with God, but with whom will the teaching of astrology unite a person? Comments, as they say, are unnecessary.
What does the Bible say about astrologers?
There are several places in the Old Testament where star divination is condemned. Particularly noteworthy are the words from the book of the prophet Isaiah, which specifically speak of people’s attempt, with the help of astrology, to avoid responsibility before God for their evil:
“Stay with your sorceries and with your many sorceries, which you have practiced from your youth; Maybe you’ll help yourself, maybe you’ll resist. You are tired of your many advice; Let the observers of the heavens and the astrologers and the foretellers of the new moons come forward and save you from what is about to happen to you. Here they are, like straw; the fire burned them; They did not deliver their souls from the flames...” (Isa. 47:12-14).
What else you need to know about the Bible:
- How to read the Bible correctly and where to start
- Biblical commandment “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image”
- Who is Judas Iscariot in the Bible
In the New Testament, pagan magicians, which include astrologers, are also condemned:
“The works of the flesh are known; they are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, "...", drunkenness, disorderly conduct and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19-21).
There is one place in the Gospel that astrologers love to refer to, claiming that it supposedly proves the correctness of their teaching. These are the passages that speak of the birth of the Savior. About how wise men from distant lands came to worship him, having seen “His star in the east.”
Star of Bethlehem
But that star could hardly really be an astronomical object. It was some very strange star that led the wise men all the way to the cave in Bethlehem, showing them the way. Since such routes completely contradict the physical and astronomical laws of the motion of stars, John Chrysostom was probably right when he suggested that the Magi saw an angel who took the form of a heavenly body.
And the meaning of this phenomenon was not to prove the truth of astrology, but, on the contrary, to lead people away from the false service of the stars to the knowledge of the True God. This is sung in the Christmas troparion: “Your Nativity, Christ Our God, has risen into the world, the light of reason. In it there are those who serve the stars, and by the star I learn to bow to You, the Sun of Truth.”
Astrological Geminis
Astrological twins, time twins (English astro-twins, time twins) - in astrology, people who have exactly the same astrological charts (horoscopes) at the moment of their birth. Two people would be considered perfect astrological twins if they were born at exactly the same point in time in exactly the same place.
Since the 20th century, studies of astrological twins have been undertaken to establish the influence of the moment of birth on the similarity in people's behavior. The experiment with astrological twins, begun in 1958 by English scientists and continuing to the present day, is considered one of the most convincing evidence of the falsity of astrology. Scientists studied more than 2,000 people born with an average interval of about 4.8 minutes, and tracked their future fate. According to astrology, such people should be close in profession, in mind, in habits, etc. Observations were made on health, occupation, marital status, level of intelligence, ability for music, art, sports, mathematics, languages, etc. d. In total, over a hundred parameters were taken into account. No similarities were found between the “temporal twins.” They turned out to be as different from each other as people born at different times under any other constellations.
What do the Church Fathers say about star divination?
Astrology was condemned by the most authoritative theologians of the Church, such as Basil the Great, John Chrysostom or St. Augustine and many others. They all wrote that man was created by God free and there can be no predestination.
For example, the Monk John of Damascus noted that if a person’s actions were determined by the movement of the stars, then the very concept of sin would be absurd:
“We, created free by the Creator, are masters of our affairs. And if we do everything due to the flow of the stars, then what we do, we do out of necessity. What happens out of necessity is neither virtue nor vice. And if we have neither virtue nor vice, then we are unworthy of either rewards or punishments, just as God will turn out to be unjust, giving blessings to some and sorrows to others.”
And Anthony the Great wrote that the legal concept of crime turns out to be meaningless if astrologers are right: “And why do judges honor doing good, but punish villainy. Then the thief and robber had no sin, and no one would catch them by the hand, since the arrangement of the stars encourages them to do so.
What the Bible Says About Astrology
Christianity and horoscopes
The question about belief in horoscopes in Christianity is one of the simplest questions. Yes, from the point of view of the Bible and faith in Jesus Christ, trusting horoscopes and not God is definitely a sin. It is both interesting and sad to note how much influence horoscopes and various psychics have had on Christian groups in the past. For example, during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, popes consulted astrologers whether they should go to war or not.
In any case, though, the whole idea of "Christian" leadership in war is problematic, to say the least. Today, turning to astrologers and psychics is not such a common practice in “Christian” groups. If you see such things in churches, rest assured that they are unacceptable from a biblical perspective!
How to expose astrology?
For a person who perceives rational arguments, exposing astrology is not difficult: it is enough to get acquainted with the statistics of the accuracy of its predictions. Here are the results of some work
Psychologist from the University of Michigan B. Silverman studied the influence of the zodiac sign corresponding to the birth of each spouse on the likelihood of their marriage or divorce. Data from 2,978 weddings and 478 divorces recorded in Michigan in 1967–1968 were used. The scientist compared real data with the predictions of two independent astrologers regarding favorable and unfavorable combinations of zodiac signs for married couples. It turned out that there was no coincidence between predictions and reality, so B. Silverman concluded: “The position of the Sun on the zodiac at the moment of birth does not affect the formation of personality.”
Astrologers claim that with the help of a horoscope it is possible to determine a person’s predisposition to a particular profession. If so, this promises significant economic benefits. This is probably why J. Bennett and J. Barth, economists from George Washington University, tried to find out whether the position of the planets relative to the zodiac signs affects the professional inclinations of people, in particular the frequency of young men enlisting in military service. The signs “ruled” by Mars were studied especially carefully. This study did not confirm astrological predictions. American physicist J. McJervey examined the distribution of birth dates of 17 thousand scientists and 6 thousand politicians in relation to zodiac signs. It also turned out to be completely random.
The quality of complex predictions of people's character by astrologers was also checked. For this purpose, Chicago psychologist J. McGrew turned to the Indiana Federation of Astrologers. Six experienced star reading specialists volunteered to participate in his experiments. At McGrew's request, 23 volunteers responded in writing to a questionnaire containing both astrological and traditional questions about their character traits, jobs, etc. The volunteers' time and place of birth were then reported to the astrologers and six members of a control group unfamiliar with astrology. After this, the characteristics of the volunteers indicated in the questionnaire were compared with the predictions of a group of astrologers and a control group. The result was the following: the predictions of the astrologers turned out to be no more accurate than the predictions of the members of the control group, and both of them did not correlate at all with the true qualities of the tested volunteers. The most curious thing is that the characteristics of the same volunteers, given by different astrologers, diverge greatly from each other.
It should be noted that it is not astrologers themselves who are testing the predictive power of “star reading”, but “outsiders”. Most scientists believe that astrology, as the prototype of all pseudosciences, is not at all interested in precisely substantiating its foundations. Scientists are not so much angry as they are upset: they simply do not understand how a pseudoscience like astrology can flourish in the most technologically advanced society in the entire history of mankind?
Professional scientists trying to find a rational grain in astrology believe that the most interesting results in this area were obtained by the Parisian statistician M. Gauquelin. Gauquelin studied archival data containing the date, time and place of birth of 41 thousand European inhabitants; among them are 16 thousand famous scientists, artists, writers, athletes, etc., as well as 25 thousand “ordinary” people. He compared the position of the planets and constellations at the time of a person’s birth with his personality type and occupation. It turned out that horoscopes are completely false: there is no connection between the character and activities of a person and his zodiac sign and the location of the planets at the time of birth. Therefore, Gauquelin classified astrology as a chimera. However, he managed to notice some interesting patterns that, as he believes, give him the right to consider his work the cornerstone of a new science - cosmobiology.
It turned out that for “ordinary” people the moments of birth do not depend on the configuration of the planets, but for famous people they do. Taking into account the patterns known to demographers in the frequency of births of people on different days of the year and at different times of day, Gauquelin established that outstanding representatives of their profession are born predominantly at a certain position of certain planets relative to the horizon. He showed that the position of the Sun, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto does not affect the profession, but the Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn do. Thus, in a group of 2088 famous athletes, many were born when Mars was rising or was near the upper culmination. For famous military men the same is true, but only in relation to Saturn.
Gauquelin's conclusions were repeatedly rechecked: some researchers partially confirmed them, others refuted them. Gauquelin himself is looking for the possibility of explaining the patterns he found at the level of genetic information, which, in his opinion, can be controlled by rhythms that are common both for biological objects and for the Universe. Well, searching is a noble cause; however, there are no serious results on this path yet.
