One of the worldwide importance problems that crossed my busy mind this morning while puffing a cigarette was what is wrong with people and their sheepish believe in “psychics” and their supernatural ways of telling you what’s going on with your day, life, parents, work, health, boyfriend or dog. I mean, how many times do you hear people (I don’t even wanna say women) saying: “Oh wow, like, oh my God, my day went exactly like my daily horoscope predicted, I’ve heard it on the radio on my way to the fast-food I work at…” (or something similar). Therefore, I have proceeded with a little bit of research work just to come up with some interesting statistics about general human interest google searches and I found out - quite unexpectedly - that there are a number of 71,500,000 pages built around or that contain information about horoscopes, now, let’s assume that one average page gets a visit of one random person per day, plus it’s own administrator, that brings us to a rough amount of 150,000,000 people reading or requesting information on daily bases, at least!
That can only bring us to a sad conclusion: people usually read horoscopes, not because they think they’re funny, but because they take them seriously, despite the fact that basic common sense tells us that the whole thing is outrageously stupid and a total waste of time and brain energy! Oh, I’m not even gonna relate to the statistics about the gender of your typical horoscope addict, because that would make me, erm, misogynist, right?
Well, it’s just that women’s people’s ignorance is just too loud for others to be able to sleep well.
Dearest Ted,
Allow me to draw your attention to the social and cultural significance of horoscopes in today’s world. Let’s begin with the Chinese horoscopes, a cycle of 12 animals allocated to a person dependant on their year of birth. although today they are not used to make life altering decisions, they are used in social contexts, in that in many cultures (such as the Chinese culture) it is considered extremely rude to ask a person’s age, so instead they (the Chinese) ask what animal a person is. This is merely one example of where horoscopes can be applied to everyday social situations. Culturally, the Chinese horoscopes hold great power, as they speak of legends of the past, and give insight into the origins of a culture, a core to a set of beliefs if you will.
The western horoscopes are a similar concept. Based on the month of your birth, they tend to generalise about of aspects of daily life. When people read their horoscopes, they are reading generalisations that could and do apply to everyone. If there are contradictions, they are overlooked, as there are more statements that do apply to them, and they want to believe it. While this may be one-eyed, it gives people something to believe in, as with the Chinese horoscopes. It sparks human curiosity for the unknown. These days, everything seems to be explainable with science; but this is something so far beyond the realms of scientific study, it gives people a sense of just being able to believe, have faith as some may say. When generalisations come true, as they will do for the vast majority of people, they gain strength to believe, without them realising that they are in fact true for most people, regardless of their sign.
The key point to note though is that people will ultimately believe what they want to believe. They don’t want to think they are alone. Most people want to believe in a higher power, or a destined path. When words are used as they are in horoscopes, people hope. And hope leads them to biased judgments, lacking logic and reason. However, is it so wrong for them to hold onto such a strong force of hope and strength? Without hope, there is nothing.
And then you have the fact that people are naturally curious beings, and, as mentioned previously, horoscopes spark human curiosity. A curiosity to uncover, expose and explore the unknown. What greater unknown is there than the future? As such, some people reading the horoscopes may just be curious as to what they have to say, rather than actually believing them. They take little notice, but read them out of pure inquisitiveness.
Horoscopes hold a lot of culture, history and strength for a great number of people. For one person to come along and say that all of that should be forgotten, cast aside, seems somewhat ignorant to me. To just dismiss the concept itself as a waste of time, without looking into the connotations of such seems ludicrous. While horoscopes may not hold factual insight into the future as they claim, they are significant to people all over the world, in many different cultures for many different reasons. Perhaps the real question Ted, is not how or why these people are able to believe, but why you are so intent on stopping that?
Oh wow, isn’t this a long comment? No, it’s not that I am “so intent” on stopping that, I was just extremely surprised of the veeeery large amount of people that are “naturally curious beings”, meaning dumb. But yes, you are a kind person
haha, what a curious subject.
I have a friend astrologer and he has a saying:
“The stars predispose, the man decides.”
But then again he refferes to pure astrology, not the bull you get in your daily horoscope.
Well, I’d say “pure astrology” is a very speculative expression.
Thank you all for the comments though:D
Is nothing wrong with givin people the chance of belive in something!they can be motivate to do a thing if they are reading that they can realise something!if u dont wanna read the horoscope no one is willing to force you to do that!but u don t have the right to say the people are dumb only because they wanna belive in something!u know very good that i don t read the horoscope cause you know me for a lifetime but as i said u can t just consider all people dumb cause they don t have same ideas like you!you sound like CTP(CTP=one annoying jurnalist)!don t u dream at something?and if you have a dream and find the smallest clue that makes you think that it can get real sometimes don t you get closer of it???that s all i want to say…see ya soon dear friend!
all the bad writing that u can find in my comment, if there is some is because i got 3 hours of sleep and i usaually speak romanian and not english day by day!my apologies for those!
That’s okay about the misspelling, my point was meant to be rather ironic and a little sexist, yes, it is indeed wrong to believe that someone’s stupid because they don’t think like you do. Sorry buddy.
WHAT?
@melissa: I just find it funny how people believe in horoscopes.