#STRask - What Should I Say to Someone Who Believes Zodiac Signs Determine Personality?

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Questions about how to respond to a family member who believes Zodiac signs determine personality and what to say to a co-worker who believes aliens created humans and put them on Earth 250,000 years ago.   How would you respond to a family member who believes Zodiac signs determine personality? What should I say to a co-worker who believes aliens created humans and put them on Earth about 250,000 years ago?

Welcome listeners. This is Amy Hall and I'm here with Greg Kockel and you're listening to the hashtag SDR Ask podcast. Well, Greg, in the last episode, we were talking about worldviews. So I'm going to continue now. I have some questions about people from various worldviews and responding to them. And the first one comes from Fayanne. How would you respond to a family member who believes zodiac signs determine personality? I don't run into this very often. So I'm not sure if I'm the best source, but I guess I'd want to ask, and sometimes, Amy, when we do these things, I just feel like a broken record, you know, coming back to

the basic two Colombo questions, you know, and in this case, well, clearly I'd want to know more about what they mean. How is it that Zodiac, what do you mean by that? Okay, how is it that zodiac signs, or it's not the sign, is it? It's the star cluster. No, I'm just role playing a little bit now. So I'd say, wait, so you mean the sign, you mean the star circumstance that a person is born under?

I'm not sure what you even mean by that. I understand the concept of zodiacs and you can get these things in the newspaper, but I'm not sure what you're getting at. That when a person is born, there's a certain configuration of stars in the sky that determine the personality. And another question I would ask, just for clarification, so when you're right at the end of that period for one type and you click over one second into the next period, because it's dates, right? So that, you know, 1159 on the end date of the one and then the next one is 101 of the new, the beginning of the new period of the whatever. Then that one little second makes all the difference in the personality.

That's what would have to follow it seemed to me. I mean, that would be a question I ask. But the other question is why, I'm not sure why you would think that. Help me to understand that. How is it, or why do you believe that the zodiacs or that the star system kind of, someone is born under, determines their behavior or their personality? To me that's a real critical question.

And I was, I had just thought of that other thing. What if you're right on the cusp between one period and another period, like Gemini and Sagittarius, and you just ought to leave the period for one into the other, then how is it that just that little accident of time, oh, by the way, what day would that work? Because time zones change. And so, I mean, maybe they have a provision for people that are half this and half that because they're kind of in the middle, I don't know. But these are questions

that occur to me. This doesn't make much sense to me. Now, sometimes things that don't make much sense in the details turn out to be true. But you know they're true for other reasons, and the other reasons are really good. And so you have these outliers, well, I don't know what to do about that, but I have good reason to believe this thing. I'd want to know what are the good reasons you have to believe this that you just explained to me. And by the way, I would need a lot more explanation. What do you mean by that kind of explanation? Before I ask the reasons why, because to me, this is wildly ambiguous, how this whole system even works, and I'd want them to explain that to me. I mean it's not very clever, I understand, it's not like, oh man, I got, that's great, this will silence this challenge.

No, a lot of times you don't have clever responses to silenced challenges, because people who are holding this view are holding it for a raft of reasons that have nothing to do with common sense or anything else. But at least you can get going and see what happens. And remember, the goal of these questions is just to put a stone in their shoe. It isn't necessarily to give them a very clear refutation of the view. Now, there are— oh, I have a series of booklets, I was just looking at it the other day from Zondervan that as the, it's the Zondervan guide to cults and the occult or something like that or false religions, something like that. Zondervan guide, their booklets and you have Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and Christian

science and whatever, but they also have one, I think, on astrology. Now I have it sitting there, but it's not here. So I haven't looked at it in a while, a long while, but nevertheless, that's a resource that's available. So if you, Zondervan Guide to Astrology, if somebody just looked that up, like at Amazon, they'll probably find the booklet in the series on that topic. Then you can buy the booklet by itself or you can get the whole series if you want it in your library. That might have some more things that can be done. I think it's always difficult for me to talk with people who have more of the kind of new

age beliefs. But I think— In this case, it's old age because it's condemned the old testament as it turns out. Yes. Well, this is a very old view. And of course, this is why God revealed He created the stars because He wanted to make it clear that it wasn't the stars who had power. He had power over them.

And they're just lights. They're not anything that has power over us. But I think we're going to be seeing more and more of this kind of thing because people We had power over them and they're just lights. They're not anything that has power over us. But I think we're going to be seeing more and more of this kind of thing because people are looking for meaning and they're looking for something beyond materialism. So I think we're going to have to deal with this more and more. And one thing I would say, I think there are a few things we need to keep in mind when we're talking to people who are saying things like this, and I think we need to, first of all, take them seriously

because we should never be mocking people. I mean, it's easy to think, oh, I can't believe you think this is so dumb. Like, what an idiot. Just make sure you're not doing that because one thing I think we can affirm in this situation is that, you know, I love it that you're looking for something bigger than yourself, that you're not just making yourself the ultimate authority and the creator. I really appreciate that because I think it's really important that we figure out what's

going on in the spiritual world and we connect with that, with the truth. So I'm just, I'm really glad to see that you're open to spiritual ideas. So you can start it that way and say, affirm them in what you can affirm them in. And I'm always looking for ways that we can point people towards God as better. So I have to think about this, but as you're asking questions, so maybe just keep this in mind, as you're asking questions and they're explaining how this works, you can maybe say, oh, well, I mean, do you think they're personal? Because I think God's personal and I think, I don't understand how impersonal, yeah,

thinking can create personality, I guess. But there are different ways to point to the beauty of God and the greatness of God. And if we can help them to see that, I think that's the best thing we can do. So be on the lookout for opportunities for that. But one thing I was thinking about, Greg, you were asking about what if you're on the cusp between the two. It was probably, I don't know, maybe it was a decade ago. It was several years ago.

And they said, oh, we've been getting this wrong. They changed all the dates. And I ended up changing. I don't even know if anyone's gone along with this. But somehow I read this article like, oh, that- All the horoscopes changed their dates? The article said, oh, they've been doing this wrong and the real dates are this. And so I changed, I don't even know what I am supposed to be now.

But I thought- According to that characterization. So maybe, Fehan, maybe you can look that up. Because that's something to ask, like, were you getting it wrong all that time? But you thought it made sense. But now, they're saying that was wrong. And I don't know if they've gone along with that and they've changed the dates. I haven't really looked into it. But it's just so arbitrary. Anyway, that- So there was a time, a long time ago, where it was more common when you're meeting somebody,

hey, what's your sign? You know, and that was just like, cool long time ago, where it was more common when you're meeting somebody, hey, what's your sign? You know, and that was just like cool. So people, when people would ask me after I became a Christian, I said, the sign of the cross. Okay, there you go. I said, no, what's zodiac time? I said, I don't have anything to do with that system. I'm not even in that system.

You know, that's mordor. I'm, I'm, I'm Narnia. Oh gosh. No, I don't say it that way. I wouldn't say it that way. But whatever. So, yeah, sign of the cross. I'm Narnia. Oh, gosh. No, I don't say it that way. I wouldn't say it that way. But whatever. So, yeah, sign of the cross.

All right. Here's a question from ICE. A coworker of mine recently sent me some clips of historian Billy Carson on Joe Rogan's podcast. He claims that humans are genetically modified aliens put on Earth about 250,000 years ago. How should I respond? Well, Billy Carson has had a rough year because he went on with Wesley Huff, who was a bonafide expert in the areas that Billy Carson was so pining about.

So... Textual criticism and that sort of thing. John Ligato Yeah, liberally and all kinds of things dealing with that. And, you know, he had his head handed to him in a very nice way by somebody who knew what he was talking about. And Westhoff was on Rogan, had got a chance to talk about that. This seems to indicate that Billy Carson had a shot at Rogan too.

He did. He was on before. Oh, that was before. Yeah, that's right. So, there's a, every fallacy has a legitimate angle to it, okay? When you fault something for its source, that's called the genetic fallacy. Oh, you're a Christian because you're born in America. Well that doesn't tell you anything about whether Christianity is true or false. Okay that's a legitimate fallacy but sometimes when somebody says consider the source it is a legitimate point. So when you have somebody that is you know going on and on about different things it turns out that

are not justified by the evidence and Billy Carson is an example of that. A lot of people were following Carson before the Wesley Huff thing. And I mean it was bad for Carson if anybody watched that particular interview, which I did. And then here's what I think. I think, why should I trust anything else he says with so much authority if his homework was so bad on the first, why should I trust the second? Now that's a fair thing and that is not, in my view, not the genetic fallacy. But there are other questions that come up about this, okay, because in order for human beings to be genetically modified, or I should say that

we were created by some extraterrestrial through genetic engineering, I think that's the right way to put it, genetically modified, so not quite the right term. You start with one set of genes and then you modify it to make something else. But in this case, I think the aliens were the ones who created this through genetic construction. I don't know what evidence, even in principle, somebody could come up with to demonstrate that human beings were made by aliens 250,000 years ago. Is that the number?

Yeah. I don't know. I'd be willing to ask. Now, I know that he, just from other things I've heard him say, Billy Carson, that he's into a lot of these archaeological things that seem to be evidence of aliens. All right? Okay, fair enough. But that doesn't give you aliens creating human beings. That's information. That isn't just artifacts of what may appear to be an alien visitation. This is information that you have to gather from somewhere, all right? So that's a serious difficulty. I'm not going to

believe that unless he gives me some solid information about that. And I don't think his, even his timing is not good. 250,000 years ago, I mean, what the evolutionists have done with the history of man takes us a lot further back than that. So I don't know why he picks 250,000 years. You had hominid creatures before that, that some might claim were human or pre-human or whatever. I don't hold to that whole scenario but nevertheless there's a legitimate question there. All right. The other one is and this is what some people don't

think much about this. I actually did a documentary. I've done two documentaries on UFOs. One was just recently about a year and a half or two years ago and hasn't come out yet. Not sure what the status of that is, but the one that was a number of years ago was called Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men, okay, and Hugh Ross's organization Reasons to Believe did it. And one of the big problems that we encounter is never mind the question of where the aliens came from That's a huge issue itself Not where they came from in terms of their creation and development, but where they came from in terms of location

We have massive problems with space travel and at this point dealing with this issue science fiction will not do You can't just invent a story about traveling through wormholes or something like that. You have to look at the physics. And the physics, I mean the problems of space travel are huge because of radiation and fuel. And once you get going further, you're exposed to more radiation, so you have to have more protection, and more protection makes you heavier, and then you need more fuel, and then more fuel slows you down more, so you have more radiation, and you have this catch-22 situation. Okay, that's a serious problem. But it's not just how do they get here. How do they find us? We are the pale blue dot, remember that? And there's,

the only thing that goes out in outer space is TV signals. And that didn't start happening until the 50s or early 50s, whatever, maybe late 40s. So, and they don't go out very fast. How do they transverse these massive distances to someplace where it's possible there could be some intelligent life that could even know we're here? I mean, nuclear explosions don't do that. That's a

huge problem. So you have the problem of where are the aliens from in two senses? How did they originate in biologically somewhere? How did they travel here over those massive distances? We knew the math on that. I mean, we know how far the closest star is or the closest star with any planets that even in principle might be habitable. And there are a lot of problems with any planet being habitable. This is what Jay Richards and Guillermo Gonzalez wrote about in Earth. Privilege planet. Privilege planet, thank you.

Because it just, the requirements are so incredible that it's hard to imagine any planet that can satisfy all the requirements for intelligent life. The physics of it, that's all. There's a book called Rare Earth that makes the same point. And this was written by, you know, just scientists that had no theological horse in the race, so to speak. So that's a real problem. How do they originate there? How do they know we're here? And then how do they get from there to here? These are huge. They all have to do with physics. Physics is the same. The entire universe around. And you can't play science fiction games to try to get over those hurdles. You got to have real stuff.

And I don't, frankly, I don't suspect Billy Carson has any real stuff regarding this. Yeah, you do have to ask for their reasons. I've never understood. I think this comes back to, again, people looking for a sense of meaning and a sense of something greater than themselves. But I've never really understood why aliens provide that. I think back to the movie Contact, and I remember watching that and Jodie Foster's character, she's so happy that there are all these aliens because she says, we're not alone.

And I thought, there are billions of people here on earth says, we're not alone. And I thought, you know, there are billions of people here on earth, you're already not alone. What are the aliens adding to meaning that people on earth aren't adding? That makes no sense to me. That had the potential of being a really intelligently done film about this question, because she saw the intelligent design in the communication from the alleged

alien and therefore is the rocket ship and they built the rocket ship and everything. But then when she's talking to her love interest who played by Matthew McConaughey in that movie, he was kind of the spiritual guy, although his Bible that he always carried around was a bunch of blank pages and he was writing in it. He was writing his own Bible. It was weird. In any event, though, she says, where's the evidence? I need reasons.

I need evidence. And yes, the evidence, the blueprint on every cell of her body was evidence. They never played that card. They could have. It just turned into something kind of stupid. But it was nicely done. The blueprint they sent her was evidence of them, but the blueprint in herself was not evidence.

Exactly, yeah, exactly. No one even suggested such a thing to her. Yeah. And so, and you also have Close Encounters, the movie with, what's the name? Close Encounters of the Third Kindness. Richard Dreyfuss. Richard Dreyfuss, yeah, and Steven Spielberg.

Magnificent, fun movie, great. But also conveyed this sense of the exalted sense of meaning and value to be contacted from these aliens and to go along with them. And that's what happened to Dreyfuss at the end of the movie. He climbs on board, leaves his family, and he's off to this wonderful place. It just goes to show, again, people are looking for something greater than themselves. They're looking for something outside of themselves, higher than themselves. We all have this longing, but aliens are less intimidating.

Demanding. Because, right, they're not our judge. They're not our creator. So I think in this case, again, I'm always looking for ways to point to God in the conversation. So you'd have to ask questions to find a way to do that because I doubt arguing against, well, I mean, maybe they, maybe, well, I don't know how far that will get you. Sometimes people, they hold on to this idea and they don't really have a lot of evidence already, but they're holding on to it for different reasons. They're looking for meaning.

One thing you could affirm in this is the idea that, well, I like that you recognize we need to be designed. You recognize we have a design. That's great. Right, right. So you recognize the need for a designer. I totally agree with you on that. The question is, who designed the aliens?

You've got to go back to something. There's got to be something that's higher than every alien that's created another alien. This Billy Carson point is called directed panspermia. It is a scientific concept that people have kicked around, but kick is the right word because it just kicks that can of ultimate origins just out the road a little bit or just out the galaxy a little bit. I was thinking back on the also the question of zodiacs zodiacs and people are taken with the stars when they could know the one who made the stars, the one who made the whole thing. Yeah.

Well, and that's something to point out, I think. The idea of design, I think, is a great way in to talk about God here and maybe even start there and say, hey, have you seen all the evidence for our design before you even take it to God? It's pretty amazing. You talk about that for a while and then say, but let's think about who originally designed, even if it is the case, the aliens designed us. Don't you think this points to an intelligent being? I mean, you already think that clearly. So there, maybe that's the way in here. Why not? God, this is another question. It seems, here's where Occam's Razor comes in.

And Occam's Razor basically says when you have two explanations, you choose the simpler one that is adequate for the job. And that's the phrase that a lot of people leave out. Choose the simple one. Adding God is just complicated. No, wait a minute, because the current explanations are not adequate. Adding God provides an adequate explanation. But when you, so that's a designer, but why do you want to go to designers out and about in some other galaxy, because you add all kinds of problems to it,

those that I just mentioned, that have to be resolved. Why isn't God himself a possible candidate in your own mind? What excludes God as creator of everything else from nothing else? Well, thank you so much, Feanne and Ice. We appreciate hearing from you. If you have a question, send it to us. You can use X, just add the hashtag strask and then you can also go to our website at str.org and all you need to do there is just go to our, the top of our any of

our page on our website and you'll see podcasts choose hashtag str ask and you'll find a link there to send us your question. We look forward to hearing from you. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kockel for Stand to Reason.