Ophiuchus: 13th Zodiac Sign

Is she hot??

come now segovius, even I wonder why so many people believe in Astrology

then who cares what she believes

anyway, i was wondering what the point of this thread was? What do you think of this connection? I believe that Ophiuchus holds a key to understanding the development of the story of the Christian apostle Paul, Pol or Apollonius. Also the writings of Josephus hold keys to understanding our baldy friend.

What were you arguing about with this hot-chick?

hmm, a fundamentalist astrologer

isn't the problem that everyone is fundamentalist and fluid at the same time? Perhaps they are imagined distinctions used to attack an idea if you dont agree with it. Could you accuse someone of rigidly sticking to fluid thinking all the time? Maybe you could accuse bush and blair of being fluidly fundamentalist?

We do not have differents personalities, unless you suffer a rare form of schizophrenia.

It's just that our personality has differents faces, and that some poeple are very good to show the face they want. Some other are very rigid, and can only display one particular face. Some other are fluid and can show many of them. In a sense great actors are very fluid

sorry, im going to have to bore you for a minute, and expose my fundamentalist personality disorder, but in relation to the topic that was started, and seeing as one day I am going to extract this information from you before I die, it might as well be today -

It will help if I label my ideas as [fundamentalist] or [fluid] so as we dont get confused.

[fundamentalist]
Paul - imaginary character. Literalist account a pile of steaming dog-turd. Never happened in history, account derived from many sources including astrology(Ophiuchus), Orphism (Apollo and Apollonius) and Josephus
[/end fundamentalist]

[fluid]
Paul - metaphorical account of the struggle of oneself as one decides whether to embrace the teachings of 'gnosis' having had glimpses of the visions of the inner-self through realization of the Christ, or to reject the visions and rebel against making the choice to operate in unision with the conscious self. Describes the breakdown of resistance to knowledge from a faith based starting point. Eventually realising that both Jesus and Paul are metaphorical states of the same person - which is why some scholars attribute many things and sources to both these characters - which in a literal sense cannot be true, but in a metaphorical sense describe truthfully the journey from ignorance to knowledge.
[/end fluid]

I was choosing the medical description of personality. Here multiple personalities is a psychiatric disorder.

For the rest I agree with you. We are full of contradictions by essence.

stupid french fundie think fluidly dear boy!

In a sexual point of vue, in order to reach the fluid, you have to be rigid

ive found a few Nasrudin stories. Love this one

Nasrudin was at a football game. He had been shouting until half-time, and felt thirsty.
'I'm going to get a drink of water,' he told his friend.
'And one for me,' said the friend.
In a few minutes Nasrudin came back.
'I tried to have a drink of water for you, but I found, after I had had my own drink, that you were not thirsty after all.'

Then you'll be obliged to make "baby, what's your sign?" jokes as often as you can.

There's "astrology" you find in tabloids and magazines, Blackpool or Coney Island etc.. where the entire population is arbitarily divided into 12 approximately equal size groups .... well..that's quite obviously a 100% "steaming pile" as you put it. Then there's personal readings by astrologers who get into far more "precision" (whatever the appropriate term is).. such as time of birth (the more accurate the better, preferably to the exact minute), exact latitude and longitude of location at birth...(preferably to the exact minute), etc. I have no clue whether any of this is any more "valid" than what you read in the tabloids.. but I had a personal reading done once and I was quite amazed at how accurately I was "read", such as details of my past that nobody could have known, etc. I almost felt as if I had been set up! But I put it more down to the intuitive ability of the reader, than anything that could be attributed to some hocus pocus new-agey pseudoscience.

I don't have any idea if this extra "accuracy" is any more significant than the tabloid approach....to be generous, perhaps it could be given a 95% on the "steaming dog-turd" scale? Could there be anything of value, re. the art of astrology, within that 5%?

However, a huge amount of people believe in it. Even US presidents have employed astrologers, as have royalty, prime ministers and military leaders of numerous countries. I'm not suggesting for a solitary second that this makes it any more real, but it is amazing just how many people implicitly believe in baseless myth, with little or no scientific validation or proof. How many people believe in the concept of a virgin birth? Billions! or milk flowing from the nostrils of a Hindu elephant statue? or a human walking on water, or the "ability" of a lama to levitate, or a yogi to bilocate? How many people believe that 3 skyscrapers could collapse, unaided by any force other than gravity, into their own footprints with perfect symmetry, at freefall acceleration?

It's hardly a wonder that astrologers, religious honchos, and an army of snake-oil salesmen and merchants of myth are raking in the dough, when the scientific literacy/general knowledge of the general public is so embarassingly inept that, for example, only 13% of Americans aged 18-24 can find Iraq on a map despite the fact there's been a war raging there for 3 years.


That screws things up somewhat. How does/did that effect the periods covered by Scorpio and Sagittarius? How come the sudden assymetry, with unequal divisions at the end of the calendar year? How does this fit into the system as derived from the precession of the equinoxes?

well, it means that alot of people are wandering around believing in the wrong star-sign if you're that way disposed. People claiming to be astrologers are reading the wrong information about people, so the fact that some people claim Astrology is 'real' is probably a load of BS, unless they're reading from the 13 zodaic hymn sheet. Never mind the fact that because of precession, the actual zodiac has shifted somewhat from its historical origins, meaning Leo's arent Leo's, Librans aren't Librans, and Ophiuchians aren't anyone. For instance, in the year 2006, the sun enters leo on the 11th August and leaves on the 16th September, but officially, the sign of Leo is from July 23rd to August 24th.

Then there are all the astronomical bodies that weren't known about when these astrological systems were devised - as segovius says, and the fact that although there are roughly 30 days +/- 1 for each sign, a quick check on StarryNight, shows that the length of time the sun spends in each zodiac is a very rough approximate of the reality in the sky.

Anyway, a 13 month calendar was used in the ancient world, and the year was divided up into 13 months of 28 days, which gives 364, with one day reserved as the special day of God.

Why we have 12 months now, I dont actually know - strangely! but it sure divides up well to give us 3 months of 4 quarters - so I suspect it has something to do with a change of religious thought somewhere in history. 12 has alot more symmetry than 13, so as symmetry is one of the 'signs' of order and thus God, 12 is more godly than 13 -Maybe from the people who later come to worship the cross symbology - Followers of Tammuz-

Hey, just had a quick look on starrynight, and infact there is a huge gathering of planets around the sun on...wait for it......11h:11m:11s on 11/11/2006. In Libra as well - the sign associated with "Balance and Judgement" - Spooky! Must mean the end of the world!

I just had a quick look up my birthdate. I have believed that my star-sign was Libra for the last 30 years, but in actual fact, on my birthdate, the sun is very clearly in Virgo...and virtually on top of Uranus.

Maybe Astrology is right afterall. \

Interestingly, when I was at school, athough I didn't know anything about astrology I did notice a few coincidences about the people in our school year.

At our school, we were divided up by academic success into three groups, top, middle and the politically correct Special Requirements.

Obviously I was in top group - but one thing that struck me was that most of us in top group were born between September and December of 1975

My friends in middle, were born on average between April and August 1976

And strangely, people I have never really got on well with, were always born Jan,Feb and March. Infact people born in February - i have a high tendancy fall out with.

Interestingly, although it might sound a bit odd, quite of a few of my best friends at school were Christians, and seem to have been born in April and May.

My birth date is 2/23/82, what's my real sign? So far, I've thought it was Pisces.

Thanks. Cool graphic.

This whole discussion is very interesting. I have always been interested in Astrology, but not enough to seriously believe in it. I am also very interested in psychics. I had an interesting experience with one once and I would love to go to another one. I was told once that all psychics do is read your personality and they are very good at it. The more you talk to them the more they can learn about you and then give you advice/guess at what your future might entail.

MarcUK, do you mind looking up my sign? My birthday is November 1, 1988. According to the general grouping, I'm a Scorpio.

yes, i think psychics are really uber-smart psychologists that didn't formally take the profession - to some extent. Also, when I was looking up toxoplasmosis the other day, i came across a few really little known cool things, that show that some physical traits express emotional states, perhaps they know this aswell. - I wouldnt go showing your hands to people you might want to keep things secret from

Anyway, having consulted the Oracle at Delphi, I see that you are really a few degrees to the Libran side of the boundary between Libra and Virgo.

As a general rule, most people's star-signs are about 1 sign out. Look to the previous sign for the correct one. It takes about 2000 years to shift by one sign, so that pretty much covers everyone here, except maybe unless segovius is one of those wise old gits thats lives over 2000 years.

Thanks MarcUK. Maybe you aren't as much of a jerk as a lot of people believe here on AI.

I wonder who could probably think that

Segovius, I have a question for you. I could just read PO and get my answer, but that would require a lot more reading than if I just ask you. Where do you stand religiously? I have read some of your threads in PO and I generally agree with you point of view. Same question for you MarcUK.

[nasrudin]
In front of the toilet
[/nasrudin]

Ok, way to dodge the question. You don't really have to answer if you don't want to. I was just wondering. It would be interesting to find someone who agrees with me on my views about religion.

so whats your view then?

Thanks. I do agree with you a lot. Especially on the "it's between god and you" bit. I can't stand organized religion. The concept is alright, it's just the people it creates that I have a hard time putting up with. Their literal translation of the bible as direct truth from god irks me some too. I don't believe that god wrote the bible through the disciples. I believe that Jesus was a just a cool guy and he was able to do some pretty cool things, and his followers were just witnesses and their accounts are not necessarily accurate. When I told one of my very religious christian friends she tried to convince that if Jesus was not god then he was a demon, because he was telling people that he was god. I find that ridiculous.