"... until the first breath is inhaled and exhaled,..."

Isn't that just an off-the-cuff guess? It seems to me that answers like that are precisely how the entire 'theology' of belief systems, religious OR astrological, are developed. Someone confronts a puzzle in the schema and chews on it and comes up with a plausible, poetic, but non-testable reply.....and if they have any influence, or bother to weave it into the rest of the concepts cleverly enough, it eventually gains nodding credence by others.

The history of mankind is **FULL** of elaborate, competing systems for explaining and predicting how life works and the rules and formulas for dealing with it. Some of them directly contradict many of the others....some are just 'awkward' to correlate...(like competing versions of Christianity).

   When I hear that astrology is thousands of years old, and that I should not presume to judge anything that I "have not personally studied in detail", I shake my head in frustration at the presumption that I cannot see basic, fundamental flaws in those admonishments. That is, even **IF** astrology happened to BE accurate, it cannot be supported using the notion that "many clever people for years have worked it out and agree on the basics". Like Tarot, Ouija boards, Crystal Balls and various religions....you just believe and accept because you feel like it.
   If I began preaching and teaching that Irish Elves living in secret underground passages really controlled most of our lives, and got a BUNCH of followers and wrote some sacred texts with elaborate detail, based on personal visits from the Supreme Elf....you would use exactly the same arguments to explain why you shouldn't believe me that I employ to doubt and question other belief systems!

Explaining why you think certain metaphysical concepts are 'valid' to others implicitly suggests that others ought to believe them also. There's no way around it....if you go beyond saying it is 'just fun and an interesting game', you are telling me that I am either stubborn, lacking in understanding, brainwashed, or locked into some purely arbitrary competing notion of how things work.

In fact, I have studied the basics of "how stuff works, and how you can tell IF you are using the right methods" for almost 50 years...and under very close scrutiny by some pretty high-powered experts for about 12-14 of those years.
   That is why I almost NEVER say "you are 'wrong' in your conclusions", but merely say "you have claimed more than you can defend reasonably".
   I SEE why the history of the race is full of 'beliefs'...it is in our nature to want answers, and my attitude gives fewer 'secure' answers. It is in many ways easier to just pick a comfortable set of premises and navigate in a smaller pond with a clear formula, rather than be told "we can't really answer that kind of question, and maybe will never be able to!"

....*shrug*...it just doesn't bother me to 'not know' a lot of stuff.....there's SO very much that can be learned that I can't be sidetracked into a lot of areas that require 'belief' before 'proof'.......and I'm sorry to report that 'proof' is a hard, technical concept that is pretty inflexible, and is NOT some arbitrary set of guidelines that applies differently when someone doesn't like challenges to their favorite notions. It is so very important to be totally aware of the difference between 'valid' and 'true' and the implications of claims about either.


ah, well....there I go again...*smile*...............I suppose I did this once again mostly to help myself clarify my own position....in a forum like this, most will skim over it and either ignore or pick out some line to object to.

It ain't easy, folks, to wrestle with 5-6 lines of thought at once...and issues like this HAVE that many to consider!

no easy way to stop, either............so.................

∞