Astrology - Believe it or not?

The first real condemnation of astrology by the church comes in the Council of Laodicea between 364-67 C.E.; it makes a distinction between mathematici and astrologi, implying a need to separate the real astrologers from the frauds based on horoscopic calculation methods. (6) Here we see the beginnings of the branching of science, because of the need to investigate truths about physicality while not challenging dogmatic beliefs. The primary condemnation that arose eventually from the Christian perspective was in terms of astrology's implication of fate and that astrology was incompatible with Christian doctrines of free will and moral autonomy (7) in the judicial aspect of astrology, or the exact prediction of human behavior. This also would appeal to those with little power, as it gave them hope of liberation from their situation rather than being born under a "bad sign or star". But we have already determined that the pagan idea was communication with the spirit or the attempt to divine messages from it, not define it as unalterable fated circumstance. It is the psychological implication of the locus of control that is what truly incites this incompatibility and contains the objectionable power, not the technique.