Is Astrology Antithetical to Christianity?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ค. 2024
- Nate Craddock joins the podcast to discuss the early history of Christianity and its relationship with astrology.
Specifically, we focus on the question of whether astrology is somehow inherently antithetical to Christianity, especially in terms of the origins of the religion during the time of the Roman Empire.
Nate is a practicing astrologer, as well as an ordained Christian priest with a degree in divinity. You can find out more information about his work on his website:
soulfriendastrology.com
The jumping off point for our discussion was the work of a scholar named Nicola Denzey Lewis, and her 2013 book Cosmology and Fate in Gnosticism and Graeco-Roman Antiquity. Part of the purpose of the book is demonstrating how a number of influential early Christian texts framed the religion as a way to liberate yourself from astrology and fate.
amzn.to/2Mm88sQ
Astrology in the 1st century CE tended to be more deterministic and influenced by Stoic conceptualizations of fate, and to some extent Christianity may represent one of many religious or philosophical groups in the ancient world that offered an alternative, which may then explain part of its initial appeal to everyday individuals in the Roman Empire.
This then set up a sort of oppositional relationship between astrology and mainstream Christianity for a number of centuries, although it raises the question for us today of whether the two are inherently incompatible, or if there are ways that they can be reconciled?
Nate's answer to this question is emphatically "yes, they can be reconciled", and during the course of the discussion we ended up covering a lot of ground, and exploring a number of different historical and theological areas.
This episode represents an important followup to earlier episodes of the podcast discussing responses to religious criticisms of astrology, the role of astrology in the story of the Star of Bethlehem, as well as a brief digression about the purpose of finding the guardian spirit about 2 hours into the episode on finding the overall ruler of the birth chart.
This is episode 226 of The Astrology Podcast. For the audio version and full episode description see the podcast website:
theastrologypodcast.com/2019/1...
Don't forget to like and subscribe!
#TheAstrologyPodcast
Timestamps
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:10 Nate's background
00:03:15 Chris' background
00:04:50 Astrology and fate
00:06:40 Protestant Reformation
00:08:00 Stoicism
00:08:50 Determinism
00:10:40 Chart is like sheet music
00:12:00 Christianity and free will
00:15:15 Early Christianity
00:17:30 Christian issue with fate
00:18:56 The Bible's contrasting views
00:22:30 History of the Hebrew people
00:25:30 Phases of history of astrology
00:31:00 Divination and Christianity
00:35:50 Bible passages against planetary gods
00:40:35 Hellenistic astrology
00:42:26 New Testament era critiques
00:45:55 Providence and fate
00:51:17 Being a Christian frees you from fate
00:57:08 33 CE and thema mundi
00:58:00 St. Paul
01:00:05 Baptism
01:02:14 Astrology in book of Romans
01:04:00 Christian sects
01:05:25 Biblical Greek
01:07:50 Aversion to embodiment
01:18:50 Escape from astrological determinism
01:21:00 Appeal of early Christianity
01:24:45 Jesus cancelled death
01:27:35 Daimons and guardian angels
01:31:55 Nativity story is pro-astrology
01:42:50 Criticism of Paul's cosmology
01:43:22 Oscar Romero chart
01:45:02 Bringing healing to the whole world
01:46:10 Christianity and astrology serve each other
01:51:45 Created world is good
01:53:14 Integral worldview
01:55:27 Emergence theology
02:00:22 Is astrology antithetical to Christianity?
02:03:44 Closing remarks
As a christian who studies astrology I get asked how a christian could practice astrology and the answer is that I like to view it as god created the universe and arranged the sky specifically for each person in order for interpretation. If he didn’t want us to study it then why did he create the stars and planets and encourages us to look to the heavens for guidance
This.
Don't forget, it was THREE ASTROLOGERS who went looking for and FOUND the Christ Child. It was THEY who announced a great King was born. So... you can ask anyone who brings this up with you; "Where is the problem?"
If you’re Christian you should not believe in astrology because is demonic is witchcraft
Agree. I call it "God's Will written in the stars".
Side note: I am not religious in the traditional sense. I dont subscribe to any one religion but study them all and do believe in God.
@@cclmpr Support your claim besides a simple statement
Thank you for featuring this talk on your podcast Chris!!! I really appreciate the perspective that Nate presents here and I hope that more Christians will be encouraged to cultivate a more open mind to different viewpoints and tools to deepen their understanding of the world.
Thank you for this discussion, Chris...one of the most profound on the subject that I've come across. As an astrologer who was raised as a Christian (now a non-denominational Buddhist) and who has had this debate fairly often with non-believers and Christian clients, this has given me much food to chew on and digest for making a more coherent case for astrology's value to the faith-based community. I continue to learn so much from your programming...forever grateful!!
Such an illuminating talk, thank you for sharing! 🎃💀❤️
Im so grateful to the open conversation between people who are not from and of the traditional views. My grandfather was southern Baptist preacher so one way of what was true literally only was one concept and that was it..there wasn't a different way it ever could be.one answer period.
Does the S.B Church affirm Calvinism?
Fascinating! Really interesting podcast. Thank you both!
Ezekiels vision is of a wheel with a bull lion, angel and eagle. It’s obviously the 4 fixed signs of Taurus, Leo, Aquarius and scorpio. The 12 tribes, the 12 disciples, the seven spirits of god, the seven days of creation.
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11
Wow this is like taking the blindfold off.
Wish i was younger and had lots more energy so great even that you ve done it for me. Weird the way I was raised by bits and pieces that i had not a clue about. All i knew from tone was it must be terribly important. More important than the $. I resonated with religious radio stations by ear, voice by sound.
Capricorn on ninth. Saturn asc gemini uranus on asc. After that i was on my own with far left family leaving us outcast. The star of my life was a senior yoga woman in the 70 s. Til i was saved ? At least I became more of a saw with my own eyes. Doing is one thing, understanding where its coming from is icing on the cake. A lot of ground for sure. Thanks.
This was so informative and inspiring. An absolute treat. Thank you both.
Super super well done, so amazing! This was so interesting and communicated so nicely. I really enjoyed Nates input and perspective!! You should do a conversation about heaven/ hell, death, and life after death
Agreed!
I really loved this Chris Thank you for sharing
This is really interesting, thank you. I’m a green building consultant and tarot reader, who was raised in a conservative Christian family, whom I’m not on good speaking terms with at the moment due to politics. This provides me with some interesting context to consider while I’m taking space.
Excellent podcast! Congrats 👏
Thank you for this video 🙏🙏🙏
I had no idea that astrology was(is?) rejected by paganism! I am definitely not well researched in this area, but am still surprised that I've never stumbled upon this fact!
It is so interwoven the two, spirit the universe and God they are partnering with each other so clearly it is sad when not seen to be the same
Brilliant...
This was a good episode especially because this subject has come up inadvertently in other episodes where I was curious of an overall view. I’m making myself be more familiar with Greek and Roman myths where… I’m not seeing them being incompatible while also being “well…”
I can use an analogy because another podcast episode on astrology films (at least philosophically) reminded me of the movie Amelie where I wanted to watch it again on streaming where I couldn’t due to every business has decided to plus plus a minus plus of a division that’s multiplied by an equal that plus and minus a numeral. I’m not paying for paramount+ to watch a movie I own I can’t watch because don’t have an old DVD player. That same streaming issue can be applied to religion. A story, no matter how positive it’s intent, can turn to be divided among other stories to control it for some personal agenda. Even if I get a free stream I’ll have to deal with the hassle of gospel emails asking me for donations. Disney+ said the anime dc division of hbo max wants to take away my hamburgers! Meh, but when you get into human nature greek myths are really interesting. I’m surprised the Becca Tarnas episodes didn’t make me think of Amelie, I can say since it’s apparently becoming a controlled property by the original studio that the message of the movie relates to fate/destiny attitudes being flipped where the protagonist thinks they have one destiny while trying to fight to change it which was her actual destiny to begin with. Since I couldn’t watch it, I watched clips to remember it which lead to reviews where more “realists/materialists” hated it for its sort of magical view. If you think of any event, good or bad, and each causal event over time that had to happen for said event to happen you end up with a magical view; it’s unavoidable. It’s more well known now that the imagination of the psyche shapes perception more than reality so the movie just has a character with that imaginary volume turned up and through that perspective.
My point would be if astrology is true, the collapse of astrology and attempts to destroy astrology and astrologers are by astrological design up to planets/stars interpreted as demons. I’ve read some early gnostic texts and how Christianity became what it is now is only astonishing in the sense of ignoring archetypal behaviors of seeking power and control which happens everywhere, not just religiously. What pulled me more into myth was getting right into the origins of Libra wanting to personally see how the signs got their meaning where the Themis myth makes complete sense where (having my libra placements) I realized how much influence that influence is. Virgo was interesting to dive into where I need to more because there’s a big discrepancy with ancient and modern other than the symbol. Agriculture, sure. But it doesn’t take long to turn to raunchy sex in a field… Mercury, absolutely fits. Jupiter doesn’t fit Zeus. Mars, fits. Aries, fits. Scorpio, I’m wondering if Athena fits the scorpio myth more than the bdsm arachnid modern interpretation. Just in the sense that scorpio and aries you’d have the duality of what mars represents.
What pulled my attention to Christianity is pondering if the myth of the fallen angels with the whole “giants” myth is related to demonizing both astrology and Greek/Roman mythology. Not completely, it just moved that way. Another interesting thing not mentioned in this episode is angels appeared as mixtures of zodiacal signs. Angels with 3 faces. a human face, bull, and lion. When Christian’s became more radicalized you may see an ideological war. Of course, the many cases of Christian genocides both racial and ideological. While saying this, it wouldn’t be far fetched that astrologers in that era could equally be guilty of the same behaviors that triggered these revolts.
It’s so easy to make archetypal connections with Christian myth where they are, to me, compatible. It’s a fair question to ask if Christian’s can either convert to partial astrology beliefs or live peacefully with it while also knowing there’s another psychological mechanic at play where it’s both unlikely and set up for a conflict. You’ll just always have those weird fundamentalists and aggression will grow as more people turn to astrology instead of Christian sects. If those are convinced to join astrology you’d just see astrology corrupted further. lol
To me, the reason astrology is picking up, is the broad “inclusion” and people want to feel purpose. At least a perspective. Some fall into astronomical probability like gaming the system for self gain; there’s a myth for that. Many, actually. To close, a funny continuation of a comment where a friend who’s a psychiatrist tried to get me to read 50 Shades because she had to read it for work related to patients; she randomly mailed me a Jungian book studying this which backfired in the sense that it related masochism as part of spiritual practice up to a more modern era of the development of psychology. Christian’s would re-enact the passion of the Christ by being flagellated. Freud deeming it a disorder took something not that noticeably terrible to people enjoying being handcuffed with their head in a used toilet, etc. deem an archetypal expression unacceptable it will rear its head as a psychological disorder devoid of meaning to the individual which becomes destructive. The flagellation was related to being humble, humility, and accepting fate over egos impulsive illusions of control.
Anyways, what I found interesting about libra wasn’t just that it’s an archetype that’s probably known better than the others because of the Justice system… the actual archetype.. I kind of rolled my eyes. “Libra doesn’t make decisions..” apparently that’s mostly what they do while others don’t. They just don’t carry out the judgment. No wonder the world is messed up. (🤪 joking. 40/60 ratio though) the one sign (god/ess) there just to make the proper decision, no one wants to wait or present the case so.. just bypass it and send out drones accidentally killing children. 👍
It’ll be fun sorting this myth vs modern archetype out with each sign. Virgo: innocent virgin. Myth: kind of raunchy and threatened Zeus by saying she’d wiping out human life on earth. 🤔
Fun stuff.
What is the name of the author who you mention “Disney?” Who wrote about Paul?
Check out the devils pulpit by Robert Taylor
Nowhere in Christianity is the whole body or sexuality negative, but certain types of sexuality certainty are
Too bad Jordan Maxwell passed away. He would've been great for discussing the topic of "Astrotheology."
Read the devils pulpit by Robert Taylor
the planets play a role like in a game both good and evil and the creation of this world is evil, we see it in the way we were created how the human body is of faulty.
3hours and no mention of the parallels between the Sun/Son of God or the 12 tribes, 12 apostles, 12 signs? There’s tons of this through out the bible. -Christian Flat Earther beginner astrologer
Only God knows about your future not astrology
Well yeah. Astrology isn't a living, knowing thing.
Which God in particular?
1:50:25 once you go down this path of mental gymnastics you loose a lot of credibility, dont seek the approval of men.