Madam, - Ann C Ryan, a self-described astrologer (August 30th), recalls her childhood "brought up in an Ireland steeped in religious nonsense and fears".
I'm delighted for her that in rejecting this perceived nonsense she has managed, in her new role as an astrologer, to find a different set of nonsense beliefs to console her. - Yours, etc,
KYLE ANDERSON, Upper Newtownards Road, Belfast.
Madam, - Fr Paul Clayton-Lea (August 25th) invokes the words of GK Chesterton to blame the loss of belief in God for the rise of superstitious practices such as astrology.
Such a link does not stand up in my experience. Atheists like myself reject the claims of astrology and related practices on the same grounds as we reject belief in the existence of God and other supernatural agents: that is, lack of evidence. I would be prepared to lay a substantial wager with Fr Clayton-Lea that the vast majority of astrology followers also maintain a belief in the existence of God, both beliefs being located on the same superstitious, solipsistic continuum.
The best "bulwark of reason" against irrational and potentially dangerous belief systems is to demand good evidence. After all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Unfortunately for their adherents, both religion and astrology are long on the former and woefully short on the latter. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN CURRAN, Chapelizod, Dublin 20.
Madam, - I cannot entirely agree with Archbishop Sean Brady when he says: "I believe many Irish people have not so much rejected their faith as become distracted from their faith" (The Irish Times, August 23rd).
My sense is that, while people's faith is still deep and strong, and that they are therefore not "distracted" from it, what they have rejected is the institutional church, which has "failed to follow the example of him whom it constantly invokes - Jesus" (Hans Kung, 1978). It is the rejection of those who have so profoundly shattered the trust of the faithful, that has led, I believe, to the decline in the "external practice of faith" and the "culture of insecurity and fear" of which the Dr Brady speaks.
Instead of adopting the old Roman Catholic strategy of instilling fear of alternative philosophies of life, he would do better to focus his energies on the sense of alienation experienced by so many Catholics.
Regarding astrology, as this has engaged the minds of such people as Pythagoras, Plato, St Thomas Aquinas, Johannes Kepler and Carl Jung, among others, I feel he need not be too concerned about those who espouse it today. As succinctly described by Bill Sheeran (August 27th) serious contemporary astrology does not purport to provide control over one's future but rather to help people find meaning in their lives. - Yours, etc,
SHEILAGH YOUNG, The Coppins, Foxrock, Dublin 18.