[Avodah] The Science Of Astrology

[Micha Berger]

On Sat, Sep 07, 2019 at 10:03:12PM +0000, Jay F. Shachter via Avodah wrote:
> > Astrology was taken as science for centuries beyond their day.  The
> > IE, a rationalist, was an astrologer because in his world there was
> > no contradiction between the two.
> 
> The idea that nearly all of our Sages believed in something for which
> there is zero empirical support, bothers me greatly...

Why do you assume Chazal invented science?

Believing te world works some way because it's consistent with "common
sense" and is philosophically coherent is normal Natural Philosophy,
and thus all I would expect from anyone who lived before the invention
of the Scientific Method.

I put "common sense" in scare quotes because something what we think
it obviously true is simply accepted truth in our locale. It is hard to
wipe the mind clean enough to really consider things things with a true
clean slate.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   exactly the right measure of himself,  and
Author: Widen Your Tent      holds a just balance between what he can
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham