What / Who gave the Planets...... (2nd Time)?

Question

Their Characteristics? yes i know that it's a weird question but think about it a little ..... who made mercury the Planet of communication? who made Venus the Planet of love and sexuality? all what we (humans) did is naming them . So if Mercury was named Venus and Vice Versa would that change their characteristics ?

p.s : This is the second time i ask this question , 1st time nobody gave an answer.

Answer 1

This IS a great question!  Missed it before.  

I have a question that isn't receiving responses either:  Please check mine out too:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 2

Good question. Names of the planets was based on ancient mythology. Now the naming body is The International Astronomical Union.

In Roman mythology Mercury is the god of commerce, travel and thievery, the Roman counterpart of the Greek god Hermes, the messenger of the Gods. The planet probably received this name because it moves so quickly across the sky.

Color and brightness makes a difference too. Mars (Greek: Ares) is the god of War. The planet probably got this name due to its red color; Mars is sometimes referred to as the Red Planet. (An interesting side note: the Roman god Mars was a god of agriculture before becoming associated with the Greek Ares; those in favor of colonizing and terraforming Mars may prefer this symbolism.) The name of the month March derives from Mars.

Venus (Greek: Aphrodite; Babylonian: Ishtar) is the goddess of love and beauty. The planet is so named probably because it is the brightest  of the planets known to the ancients. (With a few exceptions, the surface features on Venus are named for female figures.) It is the brightest object in the sky except for the Sun and the Moon.

Jupiter's satellites are named for other figures in the life of Zeus (mostly his numerous lovers).

The naming of Pluto is a story by itself. Early suggestions of the name of the new planet were: Atlas, Zymal, Artemis, Perseus, Vulcan, Tantalus, Idana, Cronus. The New York Times suggested Minerva, reporters suggested Osiris, Bacchus, Apollo, Erebus. Many people suggested the planet be named Lowell. The staff of the Flagstaff observatory, where Pluto was discovered, suggested Cronus, Minerva, and Pluto. A few months later the planet was officially named Pluto. The name Pluto was originally suggested by Venetia Burney, an 11-year-old schoolgirl in Oxford, England.

There is no way to detect or measure any effect that the planets have. Simply they are just too far.

Edit: If you want to know why astrology can't work, based on science and astrologer's rules, then this is the link.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/ast...

Answer 3

if u read vedic astrology all ur doubts would b cleared .u should have grip on sanskrit language too .in that evry planets characters are symbolised by their names .for ex" mercury is called 'budha ' means 'buddhi kaaraka' .buddhi means intellegence,worldly knowledge,communication and several other meanings that come through 'vyuth patthi' means in another way 'derivative., for moon - chandrama-chandramaa manaso jaataha -means moon is nothing but mind .mind is called manasa  in sanskrit..astrology is devided in to many sections..jnana ,ganitha,jijnasa,phala,samhitha etc..jnana is knowledge,ganitha is mathematics,jijnaasa is inquisitive ness,phala is predictions and muhurtha means elction of auspicious timings etc..when u go through 'jijnasa and jnaana sections u will get all answers for ur  questions and more.it is too difficult to answer them in small words and briefly,,why mercury got that name? who discovered its qualities,

? why mercury is governing  only the 3 constellations  aaslesha,jyesta,and revathi.? why the 3rd sign gemini is given to mercury? etc..all are answered. u can call mercury by venus name or by any other name.if mr.cerberus is called by other name is his qualities or his personality going to change? are going to get any benefit out of it? let hem as they are..but i appreciate ur inquisitive ness.u get much information in vedas,samhithas,asthadasa puranas,uttara kaalamritham ,saaraavali,brihat parasara hora..etc..ancient books in sanskrit.

Answer 4

I tried to answer your first post....couldn't figure out why I was blocked out of it....?

Now that I know I can submit an answer to this one - I will soon edit my answer....hold on a bit...

here's a decent link with a little information:

http://www.thedestinyfinder.com/origin.h...

here's one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Histor...

...and one more for you:

http://www.tagate.com/horoscope/country/...

Okay (pshew -*wiping brow) - lol!

Now for my actual answer (also for the second time - LOL)...

I think astrology is so old that there isn't really anyone left who can really say when, where, how or who thought of it....I actually think it was a collaberative effort of the masses in search of knowledge when first starting to map out the stars...I think through (maybe a trial and error type basis) mapping and learning - the general beliefs of the cuture and people at the time kind of trickled into the zodiac aspects and so on...and through time, they keep being 'adjusted' to suit the needs of society....We forget also that there is also the possibility that the original people's of this Earth (civilized) may have in fact been more in tune/touch with mysticism and even may have been able to use that questionable hidden part of the human brain that kind of lays dormant today.....maybe we are not as smart or as intelligent as our ancestors were...maybe this is a good thing also...sometimes it's better not to know...until we are ready anyways, to handle the information...who knows really? It's sort of like Stonehenge....no one really knows for sure....

Hope that made some kind of sense to you...lol! ;)

***EDIT***

Well, I think a lot of the information has been handed down through the times...again being readjusted to fit or suit the general society (of course)....I don't think there is any doubt that some of the information has beed added to, changed or even bits of it lost through time....I would think especially through the first original Holy wars.  It is almost a sense of faith (I think, though some will disagree with me...)...if it works for you then great...if it doesn't then that's okay too. Just because something works great for some doesn't mean it has to for all - everyone's different.

And just to clarify - I do not mean 'faith' in regards to an actual religious belief but rather faith that the information we can research is as accurate as possible...therefore allowing astrologers to map out birth charts and even help others to understand the meanings of this information....

Hope that made some kind of sense - lol

***I think you make a valid point...that was why I put 'faith' in my answer...lol...I think a lot of it - astrologers are still learning and evolving with the times...we can theorise all we want and maybe a lot of it just theories...which doesn't really confirm whether they are either right or wrong...I think we just have to kind of go with our 'gut' instincts on some of it....but if we don't express them to fellow astrologers to mull things over a bit then who will ever think any differently? I think it takes a great deal of colaborative effort to get a good general understanding of the possible effects of the planets you were referring to - we have new planets that are accountable in astrology where the original astrologers had no use for or concept of...again I think it takes a good deal of study and involvement from fellow astrologers to get a good base of the possible effects and characteristics.....

***about your topic on 'names' we could also agrue this on the color 'blue' otherwise we could change it and say the sky is gray....or an orange may not actually be orange and so on....its an endless argument that may never be resolved.....

****Through many, many, many (and many more), years of observation.....It is true that Egyptians actually had workers who did nothing but observe the night sky and record the movements of the stars and planets.....I would also think that they had other workers who kept other daily records (though lost now) so they could go through and compare events and such with their observations of planetary movement as well....Again, a colaberative effort of the people (for example) in that area at that time working together to find some kind of meaning behind the things they could observe......I don't think it was ever done by just one or few people....there are all types of astrology and zodiacs all around the world if you really want to start digging to study those also! They are really interesting to read about (when you can find good reliable information on them!)....and they all seem to have a common system amongst them which I find fscinating - It amazes me that what one culture or civilization has said about one planet another from the other side of the world has said something very similar if not the same about the same planet....pretty interesting (for me anyway). We can also see the same kind of thing through old world beliefs and religions before the birth of Christ - I also find this fascinating to research.

Answer 5

Sorry, was at work so couldn't answer.

The characteristics of the planets in astrology are derived from the mythology surrounding the gods each planet is named after. They have changed and morphed a bit from their original context, but are essentially the same stories originally created by the Romans, and hence (since so much of Roman mythology is borrowed from Greek), the Greeks.

Jupiter, for example, is the mythological name for the Roman god by the same name, or sometimes called Jove (as in "by Jove"); Jupiter was the father God, similar to Zeus in Greek mythology. Jupiter was the one from whom all blessings flowed, according to the ancients, and thus, when we in the astrological community refer to Jupiter, we speak of expansion, blessings, and good luck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_(my...

This is a bit simplistic, understand, but you get the idea. And there's way too much on this to write here. But a little look into the mythological stories of each of the planetary rulers will give you a glimpse as to where those original characteristics came from.

Many modern astrological writings are based on the findings of Ptolemy, who in turn, recorded characteristics of each planet from the mythology surrounding their god name-sake.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy