Essay on Astrology. Should It Be More Socially Accepted Like Religion?

Astrology has a rep for being considered as “childish” or “too vague” to be true. Non-believers believe that astrology doesn’t have enough credibility to follow all the way through as your guide through life. Astrology is the study of the stars, but in a religious way, it can follow under spirituality or Taoism. By going off their daily horoscope, non-believers think that it can be applied to anyone instead of someone under their specific star sign. There’s no difference with people accepting you can worship a God, but you’re wasting your time worshipping stars and constellations. It should be more accepted in society because it holds some truth. From predicting the horoscope to personality types based on their signs. 

Astrology vs Religion

The non-believers try to use it to argue that astrology is vague because of the personality trait of each sign. Even the same with compatibility with another sign. This reminds me of a story when I was with my ex-girlfriend of 3 months, she’s a Sagittarius and I’m an Aquarius. We had a conversation about compatibility with signs. She told me that she knows that we’ll be together for a long time because of how Sagittarius and Aquarius are highly compatible. 3 months later and I realized that was full of shit and a waste of my time. I met other people who are Sagittarius and I instantly connect with them with no problem. That got me intrigued to see why my ex and I didn’t connect like the other Sagittarius I met.

That’s when my best friend in the world, Google told me about decan signs. Each sign has 3 different personality types (decans). For example, I have two friends who are both Libras, the 8th sign in the zodiac, but their personalities are different with some similarities. It’s because of their birthday. The first friend is considered as a Libra Decan 1 since he was born between September 23rd to October 3rd whilst the second friend is considered as a Libra Decan 3 since she was born between October 14th and October 23rd. Libra Decan 1’s personality trait is a good impressionist, clever, great imagination, charismatic, and hard-workers.

Libra Decan 3’s personality trait is loyal, thirsty for knowledge, sociable, communicative, and energetic. Both fall into the personality traits based on their sign decan. Your decan type can change your compatibility with another sign. People get it confused that all signs have the exact same personality traits. They’re both right and wrong, each sign’s personality traits are different, yet they do still have similar traits. 

Another argument people make against astrology is about the horoscope. Now I will admit that most horoscopes are phony out here. From my personal experience, I encountered plenty of phony horoscopes and I was about to give up, but this one app really changed my perspective, The DailyHoroscope. The accuracy of the horoscope on this app made me believe I had a personal fortune teller. There was rarely a day when my predictions were wrong. Some tend to be delayed for another day or coincide on the same day. I make sure to check my horoscope every single morning and see how accurate it predicts what’s going to occur later in the day. Sometimes, the believers get anxious from their horoscope reading. In the Prophecy that Never Fails: On the Uses and Gratifications of Horoscope Reading, Weimann once said, “The fear of the future, the anxiety of ambiguity, the uneasy feeling of powerlessness and of being unable to control fate—all have been integral parts of human life throughout history” (4).

Religious people don’t believe that horoscopes hold any truth at all and is a taboo to use for guidance. It’s offensive to the teaching of their God. Me, as a guy who is spiritual with a religious foundation, begs to differ. I find it a taboo to believe that one form of guidance is a taboo compared to the other trying to come off as superior. They’re both equal in many other ways. One shouldn’t be praised and put on a nicely made pedestal in society while one is frowned upon because it’s too “vague”. Other religions can be just as “vague” as astrology, so what’s the big difference? Astrology pretty much ran so other religions such as Christianity, Islam, and more can walk.

Campion wrote an article titled “Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions”, he mentioned this about astrology, “Astrology is central to religious practice on account of the opportunity it presents to contact celestial deities, or to synchronize human affairs with eternal truths. The most important features of devotional astrology are the sacred calendars which were established up long ago in order to identify the most auspicious dates — and often — to perform religious rituals” (Campion). To add onto this, Edmonds said “When you take a careful look at all religions, the calendars we use, the days of the week, the months of the year… it is all based on astrology. So, this is not something new” (Edmonds). Without the calendars, days, months, and years, we would be lost without it because Astrology paved the way for it. 

Spiritual believers rely on the stars, signs, and our intuition to guide us through life and beyond. Other religions rely on their Gods, books of scriptures, and strict rules to abide by to guide through life and to the afterlife. There shouldn’t be such a huge separation that causes a whole war at each other for who they choose to believe. There’s no right or wrong way to follow for your specific belief. But it is a sin to be the gatekeeper to what is deemed acceptable to believe in society. All over social media, many people I’m close to see the slander that people talk about those who believe in astrology. I see people say that it’s an excuse to have toxic behavior, gives false hope, and inaccurate information. The same can be implied with Islam who uses Allah as their reasons to take extreme measures, Christians spread false hope and inaccurate information in the Bible to justify their feelings towards something. 

Conclusion

There’s so much hypocrisy when it comes to the topic about astrology and religion. Society holds certain religions to a higher standard and believes that some shouldn’t be taken as serious due to some unknown social norm that’s been setup. Astrology, spirituality, and horoscope readings are overlooked when they’re just as important as the other religions and beliefs. Astrology rooted everything so each religion can grow. Just look deep in its history, you’ll discover that there is some form of astrology in the religion. It’s time for society to accept the grandfather of the various belief systems in.

Work Cited

Campion, Nicholas. “Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions.” HuffPost. HuffPost, 1 Jul. 2012.

Chico, Eliseo. Lorenzo-Seva, Urbano. "Belief in Astrology Inventory: Development and Validation." Psychological Reports. Vol. 99, Issue 3, 2006, pp. 851-863.

Edmonds, Arlene. “Battle between astrology and religion still waged.” The Philadelphia Tribune. The Philadelphia Tribune. 26 Feb. 2016.

Hamilton, Margaret. “Who believes in astrology: Effect of favorableness of astrologically derived personality descriptions on acceptance of astrology.” ELSEVIER. Vol. 31, Issue 6, 15 Oct. 2001, Pg. 895-902

Weimann, Gabriel. "The Prophecy that Never Fails: On the Uses and Gratifications of Horoscope Reading." Sociological Inquiry. Vol. 52, Issue 4, 1982, pp. 274-290.