Crazy people on the bus

I occasionally spot them when riding Metro, in downtown Seattle, to and from work. Today I heard a couple of unbalanced ladies expounding upon what I can only guess was astrology. They were talking about getting their "Solar Returns" done, or some such thing. I was imagining them getting their taxes audited by the sun...it was quite amusing. They were prattling on about being self taught as opposed to having a tutor, and something about Pluto being in alignment, or out of alignment, or maybe being Mickey's faithful dog. It was hard to keep track, to say the least.

They got me to thinking more generally about the connection between things like astrology and Mormonism (to any Mormons reading, I apologize in advance...you may want to skip this article). I was thinking about how no matter how much doctrine, teachings, and history may be behind a certain philosophy, if the core of the belief is built upon something too preposterous to possibly be true, it follows that NOTHING that comes after it can really be believed. Even if some of the teachings of these ways of thinking happen to be true, the reason for them being so wouldn't branch from the philosophy itself, but be because of some external reason that makes them true or right. Allow me to explain:

The core belief of Astrology contends that each person's behavior and personality can be predicted based on when in the year they were born, because of gravitational forces from planets within the solar system. Now, it takes at a minimum 9 months for our fastest interplanetary ships to travel the 49 million miles to our closest planetary neighbor, Mars. That is our CLOSEST neighbor. Our own moon has a much larger gravitational effect on earth than any of the other planets in the solar system. Astrology would be more believable if it were somehow based on the moon, as opposed to distant rocks that happen to also orbit the sun. I'm sure some of you astrology folks are going to try and tell me that the moon factors into the hocus pocus astrological equations as well, but sorry. Not buying it. A salt shaker across the delivery room from a mother giving birth has more gravitational impact on a new child than Jupiter or Saturn.

So as a result, when someone says, "Oh, you're an Ares. You must be --fill in the blank--", you can logically say, "Oh, you're into astrology. You must be an idiot." Because even if whatever they said happened to be true (which it probably is, since what is most likely said is so generic and flattering that you wish it to be true anyway), it wouldn't be because of astrology that it was so.

Now we come to Mormonism. Now being a Christian, I can appreciate the upright living style of the modern day Mormon. I haven't checked the crime statistics, but I would guess that Utah has some of the lowest crime in the country. Mormons that I have met have been very kind to their fellow man, and tend to stay away from evil vices of most sorts. They are pretty decent folk. That being said, the entire basis of their religion seems in my opinion to be a bad joke gone awry. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, was a troubled juvenile delinquent who wandered into the woods one day as a young boy, and came back claiming he talked to God. When people started believing him, he then claimed that God showed him a cave where there were a bunch of metal plates buried with ancient writing on them. He said God showed him how to translate them, but wouldn't let anyone down into the cave to have a look for themselves. He also wouldn't bring any of the plates up. He would just go down there alone, for hours, and come back up with some scrawlings of what he claimed were translations. He then put them all together in a book, and published it when he was about 20. That was the start of his church. No miracles, no proof of anything, just a troubled child claiming he had a chat with the Almighty and producing some papers from a cave.

As a result, everything that comes from the religion of Mormonism has to be looked at with the idea that the foundation of the religion comes unsubstantiated from a kid. Sure, Mormonism adopted a lot of what it is from the Bible, to bolster its credibility in my opinion (and probably because making up an entire religion is pretty hard for a youngster), but everything that strays from the Bible has its philosophy founded on good old Joe and his cave for one.

Anyway, that was what was going through my mind today when riding the bus. But I do have a tendency to rant.