The Atheist Blogger

Way back in July, I responded to a tweet at showed up in my TweetDeck search that looks for mentions of words like “atheist”, “agnostic”, “skeptic”, etc. The tweet in question was from an astrologer on Twitter who I hadn’t come across before.

How deep a thinker is a skeptic, for the rest of the intellectual world to ever take notice of, when he MOCKS ALL people’s beliefs? – @edaugusts

Well evidently this was untrue; skeptics do not mock all beliefs, they challenge beliefs that have no evidence or explanation behind them. On the occasion we do mock (and I’m not denying this), we do it to beliefs that have consistently failed test after test. Beliefs like astrology, homeopathy, and applied kinesiology are openly mocked because they simply do not stand up to the rigorous tests that skeptics put them through. The tests aren’t impossible either; they are set up to test the exact claims that the belief makes, and if the belief was true, the test should be passed easily.

Knowing this, I sent a reply back to the astrologer:

Skeptics don’t embrace astrology because there is no evidence to suggest it works. In fact the evidence shows the exact opposite. – @ah8r

Angry reply after angry reply came back, attacking me for my atheism (saying I couldn’t find purpose in life), insulting the JREF and James Randi (although he curiously didn’t respond to my point about the JREF tests being set up and agreed to by the claimant), and generally acting like he had all the answers with none of the responsibility for burden of proof. Here are a few more of his tweets:

It does not take a genius to see that NO ONE would EVER be able to convince a devout skeptic like Randi about ANYTHING! – @edaugusts

Well nobody is trying to convince Randi; they are trying to pass the requirements (which are written in plain English) of the JREF $1,000,000 Challenge. The claimant contacts the JREF, and agrees to a test that would demonstrate the claimant’s powers. In all cases, the claimant comes up with the test, and the JREF come up with conditions that the test much adhere to in order to be fair. Mentioning Randi’s skepticism is nothing but a red herring.

Did you know James Randi (JREF) attacks many other targets, such as alternative medicine: http://cli.gs/YsNAUt – @edaugusts

Followed closely by another red herring. Just because the JREF attacks alternative medicine doesn’t mean their test for such pseudo-scientific claims is somehow flawed. The JREF was involved with the BBC a few years back to test Homeopathy. The BBC were the claimants (as an experiment) and helped set up the test, which failed miserably. The entire case is still documented at the BBC website, and the Horizon programme is probably still online somewhere.

To cut a long story short, I requested that he do a reading of my chart, since he said that such a reading would change my mind entirely. What follows are select parts of his finished reading (mainly because the thing is far too long to post here entirely), with comments interlaced from me. You can read the entire reading here.

This chart-work came up as a sort of ‘challenge’ on a Twitter thread a few days ago. The chart belongs to a young man who calls himself  ‘AtheistBlogger’.  He attracted my attention by making a wild comment on Twitter:  “Astrology is crap,” which seemed a scary-kind of blanket statement to apply to such a well-researched and ancient subject of inquiry.

Whoaaa there! I never said any such thing! As you saw at the beginning of this post, my “wild comment” that first attracted his attention was that skeptics didn’t embrace astrology since there was no evidence of it working, and that all the evidence shows the complete opposite. A much more eloquent (and honestly skeptical) way of telling him that astrology simply doesn’t work. At this point, I was quite taken aback, and what is most interesting is that the astrologer built up a characterization of me from the way he interpreted my tweets. What I see as honest skepticism; references to studies that have debunked astrology, he sees as aggressiveness and close-mindedness. This actually helped me out a lot, because his reading was skewed off course by his own bias, and he ended up reading this characterization of me into the entire thing.

His chart is an amazing ’stand out’ in the incredibly bad aspects it forms to MY personal chart, which really is a wonderful validation of Astrology — I’m so glad he appeared in the cross-hairs for this encounter — because his chart PROVES Astrology through the definition of its many significant comparison aspects with my own chart.   After all,  it wasn’t anyone who got into this dispute about Astrology in Twitter except him — and me!

The obvious irony in the above statement is that if Astrology was true, and my chart “proved” this, I would have no choice but to accept it, and we would no longer be enemies. Heck, I’d probably hire him to do more readings; knowing the future is important! Of course, this would cause a contradiction with his following statement:

You NEVER see this line-up of powerfully negative aspects between friends.  Maybe two enemies who meet in a killing field to cut holes in each other, but never friends!

He’s set up his position so that he cannot possibly lose though, since he again reverses his decision to allow for possible “understanding”:

There is, however, a ghost of a chance of some ultimate kind of limited understanding arising between us, based on his Libra Moon in a (weak)  5 degree trine to my Gemini Sun and his Gemini Venus being conjunct my Sun.

So, I deny Astrology, he wins. I accept Astrology, he wins (via a loophole). Of course, all this relies on friendships being predetermined by where and when you were born, something that is so astronomically bizarre that I doubt any astrologer would be able to demonstrate a good naturalistic method of how it works. But of course, they aren’t interested in demonstrating how it works; they just delude themselves into thinking that because people find it accurate in places, it must be true. However they fail to realise that their “predictions” are often so vague that they cover almost all bases.

Ed starts his reading in a truly skeptical sense though:

At first I wondered if he would give me his actual chart data, or use the birth date of some well-known public figure so that he could make fun of me afterwords for describing him using a chart belonging to some rap singer or football player!  I suspected a ruse, because that sort of thing has been done in the past on USENET sites, where skeptics used to gather before Google archiving put an end to their most rampant abuses.   But after looking at the chart for a few minutes, I wrote a message on Twitter stating that AtheistBlogger had been good as his word, and sent me his true birth data. How did I know? Because the major positions and aspects portray the person who came forward on Twitter.

Ok, he started out skeptical, but then deteriorated into a conclusion based entirely on faulty reasoning and…well…faith. As I previously showed, my attitude coming across on Twitter was pure skepticism; I challenged him in a polite manner, responded to his points, etc. I was met with anger, attacks on my disbelief, and just general insults on skepticism. I’m confused as to why skeptics giving wrong data is a “rampant abuse” though; surely if Astrology worked so well, you would easily be able to tell wrong birth data straight away? It’s a test; it might be sneaky, but at the end of the day, if the claim is that it can tell you information about a person just by birth data, then a test of giving the “wrong” birth data should still return information about the person it actually belongs to, rather than the person giving the information.

The Jupiter-Neptune aspect shows, surprisingly enough,  an actual connection with religion, a familiarity with it. Perhaps as a child he was coaxed to learn the Bible from a parent or grandparent who hoped to indoctrinate the child in that system of beliefs.   He didn’t reckon on AtheistBlogger disliking authority — other than himself!  — and challenging any such teachings.

The word “perhaps” doesn’t give me much confidence here. Yes, I have a “familiarity” with religion, but then you’d be hard pushed to find someone (even an atheist) who doesn’t. The vast majority of atheists were once religious. However, as a child I wasn’t indoctrinated by anyone. My mother was somewhat religious, but didn’t force me to read the Bible at all. We went to church rarely, usually only for harvest festivals or when some form of concert was on. My father wasn’t religious at all.

There is nothing at peace and rest in this square between Mars and Pluto. It causes a person to be unjustifiably wrathful, scornful, severe, and possibly violent against anyone who doesn’t share his personal opinions.   It invites violence in its turn, so as a child, AtheistBlogger may have had more than his share of personal challenges — wins — and losses.  It is as if at some point in his young life, he has already, or soon will, witness violence of a kind usually only seen in war.   He may even be at the center of an episode of some kind of violence!

Violent? Moi? I don’t think there has ever been a more absurd accusation. The closest I get to violence is killing aliens and Nazi’s on video games, and in the “real world”, I don’t get into fights, feel compelled to strike anyone, or do anything that could be considered “violent” by any sane individual. Anyone who knows my views will be aware that I am for a completely open free speech society, one where any view may be shared by anyone. Yes, that means even astrologers can peddle their ideas about the stars, as long as I (and anyone else) gets the right to call them out on their claims, and challenge their views. Again, Ed finishes this prediction with a lot of unsure language, nothing certain, so that he can claim he is correct either way.

His sibling(s) probably include a brother, shown by Mars (male) in the 3rd House (siblings).  He has at least twice the chance of having a brother than he does a sister…  If he does have a sister, which is not as likely, she will be more aggressive and a source of possible trouble to him than most sisters, since Mars marks-her-out.  In any case, there will be rivalries with this sibling over inheritance or other worries.  He or she may have a sporty affable nature, but be prone to accidents and dangers (Mars square Pluto).  He may lose a sibling because of Mars being in that house, that sign, and the way it relates to the other planets.  Traveling abroad for said brother, and/or driving in the same car with this brother, may be dangerous (square both Jupiter and Pluto).

I really did have to laugh at this part. I have one sister, and one half-sister (on my father’s side). Quite amusing for a claim that I have at least “twice the chance of having a brother than a sister”. Both my sisters are no trouble for me at all; they aren’t aggressive at all. Likewise, there isn’t any sibling rivalry in my family; my sister is into history and archaeology, subjects I dislike completely (she dislikes Computer Science in return)! Neither are prone to accidents, and I honestly cannot remember the last time my sister was rushed to Hospital, but if memory serves correctly, she was 5 (she’s now 19). I’ve broken both my hand and my finger in various accidents, my sister hasn’t broken anything.

Writing or teaching could certainly be good careers for AtheistBlogger,  and Jupiter and Mercury together also promise travel, so a Grand Tour is indicated. The  mind is adept at languages, indeed all symbol-systems veritably fall before him.

Writing or teaching are possible careers for me, so good work there. However the only languages I am “adept” at are English and various (English-based) programming languages. I had to take French and Spanish at school, and I failed miserably at them. I just don’t do foreign languages, let alone symbol-systems.

But he is an avid learner.  Libra Moon, well-aspected, makes him know how to behave among the fair and beautiful.  His Mercury conjunct Jupiter shows he learns farther and wider than most people.  He loves learning and is enthusiastic about information and news.

Finally…something I can actually relate to. Astrology makes a hit! Shame about all the other misses, but heck, if I only remember this thing, I can join the ranks of people who claim Astrology “works” for them.

He has ideas about becoming famous by challenging people’s beliefs.  This is basically a ’sales’ idea.  Various sales activities, not just atheism, would be appreciated by the general public and may be of interest to him.

Meh…not really. I have ideas about becoming famous by creating new internet technologies for people to use, but I doubt it’ll involve challenging people’s beliefs. I’d hate being in a “sales activities” position though; I’d much rather be the guy coding or leading the product than the person who has to sell it at the end.

The rest of the reading deals with potential fortune, relationship predictions, and various things about me dying in car crashes (apparently, I’d best use public transport…). Suffice to say, there are probably a lot of people who could relate to it better than I can. If you have more than one brother, speak fluent foreign languages, used to be religious, and like learning, please let me know.

It was a very interesting experience having my chart drawn up though. I’ll have to get it done more in future and compare the results. Who knows, perhaps if we eliminate the bias of reading into my tweets, it might turn out as an accurate representation of…me! I somehow doubt it though; for all the hits Ed got (and admittedly, there were some), he got at least 4-5 times as many misses, and that’s excluding all the vague generalizations that could literally apply to 90% of the population.