Re: OT: the Monkey Year (wasRe: Religion and Holidays)

On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 03:12:55PM +0100, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > You might also want to see what you work out to in Indian astrology.
> > It's similar to what is done in the West, but with the actual astronomical
> > positions of the constellations, rather then signposts based on where the
> > constellations used to be when the art was founded.
>
> Isn't that injecting an unhealthy amount of common sense into the discipline?
How, exactly, does it constitute *more* common sense to maintain that the
positions of stars many light-years away are actually relevant to the
goings-on here, rather than just a convenient reference point? :)

> Then you can do as one New Age groups I saw did, and redefine a Zodiacal Age
> as 2000 years, apparently just because it's a nice round number (should be
> 2160 years or so), and _still_ maintain it has some relevance to
> cosmic goings- on. The Gods apparently not only have a thing
> about the Earth's position in the galaxy, but also about base ten.
Of course they do!  Why do you think They created us with ten each of fingers
and toes?

> Hm, speaking of gods and stars, I should be nailing down the cosmology of the
> Meghean-Yargish coniverse in some more detail. I know they live on a spherical
> piece of stuff equipped with paraphernalia to convince the casual visitor from
> Earth it's a planet orbiting a sun somewhere well inside a disc-shaped galaxy,
> but I suspect their world is actually pretty much ptolemaean. I guess the
> Creator was making use of His sense of humour when He made it.
:)

-Mark

Reply