waybread
Well-known member
BTW, on Epiphany, I suggest that skeptics read up on the 12 days of Christmas. Y'all know what the Epiphany commemorates, right?
What do you mean by "an entire cosmic period"?????? An astrological age? The species Homo sapiens didn't exist 490,000 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens and nothing resembling horoscopic astrology existed until late in the first or possibly second century BCE.
As you know, detailed calibration of the solar year in many ways predates Hipparchus (ca. 190-120 BCE) because of really ancient archaeological evidence of solstice-oriented cultures. (See my previous posts here on the henge builders.)
Further, horoscopic astrology of any description didn't even exist until about the 2nd century BCE, Schmidt's case for Eudoxus as the founder of horoscopic astrology notwithstanding. http://www.projecthindsight.com/ Eudoxus was another ancient Greek with zero surviving writings, known only second or third hand. Eudoxus lived c. 390 – c. 337 BC, but this doesn't much account for Berossus, the legendary transmitter of astrology to Greece who probably lived after 340 BCE - early 3rd century BCE. There's no evidence that Eudoxus was a practicing astrologer, either.
We've got a bit of a disconnect.
The astronomical signs were invented in Babylon, only ca. 500 BCE; and then to facilitate the forecasting eclipses. Not for all of the other uses to which astrologers subsequently put them. As you know, constellations are not the same as 30-degree signs; regardless of whether the signs are sidereal or tropical.
Right, so don't beat up on poor old Ptolemy. In his day, the two zodiacs were probably equal, plus or minus one degree. Moreover the idea that you can arbitrarily decide that someone was not a practicing astrologer and therefore blow off his credibility makes no sense at all.
The notion that these ancients could have even predicted a sidereal debate 2000 years later beggars the imagination.
Yes, it is so far off. So bleeping what? The tropical zodiac has been used successfully since late ancient times, by oodles of card-carrying traditional astrologers. The proof of the pudding....
It got deleted in the other thread, but another argument from antiquity concerning the ''abstract boundaries'' was this:
The sidereal boundaries were put forward by astrologers whose observations comprise entire cosmic periods. Historically, those astrologers have observed the heavens for twice as long as the age of the tropical zodiac today, but according to their statement - 245 times as long (490 000 years or more by some accounts). Their astrology was closely related to fixed stars and constellations, thus they attached 12 eponymous names to the signs.
What do you mean by "an entire cosmic period"?????? An astrological age? The species Homo sapiens didn't exist 490,000 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens and nothing resembling horoscopic astrology existed until late in the first or possibly second century BCE.
As you know, detailed calibration of the solar year in many ways predates Hipparchus (ca. 190-120 BCE) because of really ancient archaeological evidence of solstice-oriented cultures. (See my previous posts here on the henge builders.)
Further, horoscopic astrology of any description didn't even exist until about the 2nd century BCE, Schmidt's case for Eudoxus as the founder of horoscopic astrology notwithstanding. http://www.projecthindsight.com/ Eudoxus was another ancient Greek with zero surviving writings, known only second or third hand. Eudoxus lived c. 390 – c. 337 BC, but this doesn't much account for Berossus, the legendary transmitter of astrology to Greece who probably lived after 340 BCE - early 3rd century BCE. There's no evidence that Eudoxus was a practicing astrologer, either.
We've got a bit of a disconnect.
The astronomical signs were invented in Babylon, only ca. 500 BCE; and then to facilitate the forecasting eclipses. Not for all of the other uses to which astrologers subsequently put them. As you know, constellations are not the same as 30-degree signs; regardless of whether the signs are sidereal or tropical.
The sidereal astrologers (including the early Hellenistic astrologers) use the same zodiac +- a couple degrees.
The tropical boundaries were put forward by the astronomer Hipparchus of which there is no record to have practiced astrology.
Right, so don't beat up on poor old Ptolemy. In his day, the two zodiacs were probably equal, plus or minus one degree. Moreover the idea that you can arbitrarily decide that someone was not a practicing astrologer and therefore blow off his credibility makes no sense at all.
The notion that these ancients could have even predicted a sidereal debate 2000 years later beggars the imagination.
This zodiac is currently 23-25 degrees off from the sidereal zodiac that the ancient astrologers used.
Yes, it is so far off. So bleeping what? The tropical zodiac has been used successfully since late ancient times, by oodles of card-carrying traditional astrologers. The proof of the pudding....
Last edited: