The rise of militant atheism under Saturn in Sagittarius

From an astrological perspective, religion is a shared belief system and symbolized by Jupiter and Sagittarius.  A belief system is a collection of ideas that help us to find meaning in our lives.  When we find a group that shares our belief system, this becomes a religion.  From an astrological viewpoint, religion is a collection of small “t” truths – a truth that we create for ourselves.

From this perspective, atheism is just as much a shared belief system as any of the other religions that give meaning to the lives of humans – and the attempt to impose an atheistic world view on other humans is just as dangerous as the attempt to impose any other world view.  The idea that militant atheists never killed anyone has just been shattered.

The town of Chapel Hill where I live was the scene of the execution-style murder of three Islamic students by a white neighbor who called himself an “anti-theist.”  His Facebook page is full of pro-gun statements and rantings against all religions, including Christianity.  It is still unclear whether the victims were targeted because they were Muslim.

Sagittarius is associated with religion and theology along with long distance travel, foreign languages and culture, media – the expansion of the human experience through ideas and experiences.  The passage of Pluto through Sagittarius between 1995 and 2008 oversaw the spread of globalization and the transformation (Pluto) of all kinds of media with the rise of the Internet.  This was also the period that marked the rise of religious (Sagittarius) extremism (Pluto) and militancy – violence BY religion.

Now that Saturn is in Sagittarius the Celestial Taskmaster is challenging our ideas of religion and foreign cultures, and with it the rise of militant atheism – violence directed AGAINST religion.  This idea of militant atheism first appeared in the early Soviet Communist Party which, following a Marxist doctrine that opposes religion as the “opiate of the people” oversaw the development of the League of Militant Atheists and Society of the Godless.   These groups were formalized in 1929 as Saturn was finishing its trip through Sagittarius, calling for the extermination of religion “at the tip of the bayonet.”

A resurgence of militant atheism in the Soviet Union under Nikita Kruschev occurred in the late 1950s when Saturn next traveled through Sagittarius.

Saturn will be in Sagittarius through 2017, and as tensions between belief systems continue to increase I expect this idea of militant atheism to become a louder voice.