Environmental Ethics

Author(s): S M Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 74

tribals even now make promises to their spurious deities that they would burn such an such tract of forest several hundred hectares for getting boons.
Superstitious Astrology :
Astrologers and soothsayers articulate their prophesies in such a language that these will be construed true either way whether true or false. Influence of various planets on individuals got highly ritualised. Planets have balancing effects on each other as sun, moon etc. on earth as a whole but certainly not on a particular individual in a particular way. There is no rational whatso-ever that the planets can be propitiated and appeased by rituals to ward off the evil effect on a particular individual. Initially only seven planets were known and their good and bad effects on particular individual were propogated. Astronomical discoveries are now adding to the number of known planets. Astrologers have inculcated fear in gullible people about planets "RAHU” and "KATU” which do not exist at all. Births of individuals during a particular conjunction of stars and planets were interpreted ominous and otherwise. It is an extreme example of superstition that births of children were manipulated by caeserin operations to conform to a specific conjunction of stars and planets so that the children get destined to be senior officers, ministers etc. The fact is that in a labour room in a hospital where 3 or 4 or more children born at a same time, at same place (Latitude and Longitude) do not have same destinies. The scientific rational is chance genetic mutations and subsequent environment in which, children are brought up. There are examples of children brought up by monkeys or other animals behaving as such animals. Systematic astrology, palmistry etc. are based on collection of data of very large number of people born on particular date and time and possessing various symptoms or lines on palms etc. These data have been generalised. It is like any statistical prediction with probabilities of errors. By chance prediction, if cases of a few people materialise and then these people work as
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