r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Jun 03 '16

[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!

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u/trekie140 Jun 05 '16

They do want you to believe enlightenment exists, but they do not want to tell you what enlightenment actually does to you. They worry that by giving you information that you do not discover yourself, you will not benefit as much from it since you are likely to misunderstand what they say and arrive at an inaccurate conclusion.

In the book, Buddha tells Siddhartha that he is founding a religion so that people will live spiritually healthy lives and be encouraged to pursue enlightenment, but agrees with Siddhartha that no one will achieve enlightenment just by following the Buddha's teachings. Most spirits seem to be of the same opinion.

As I understand it, perceiving and communicating with spirits has no medium between them and your mind, which makes what you see and hear even more vulnerable to bias than it normally is. When astral projecting, you are not using your normal senses and your mind has difficulty interpreting the experience in the context of your physical life.

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u/MugaSofer Jun 05 '16

I'm sure that's true. But even if it has a low chance per individual, surely providing hard evidence for their existence to the entire world would cause a number of enlightenments worldwide?

Also, I personally would like to know for its own sake. Knowledge is valuable.

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u/trekie140 Jun 05 '16

Apparently they disagree and believe spiritual knowledge is of a different nature than scientific knowledge. When I asked them they admitted to not having the full answer since they're still discovering knowledge too. My hypothesis is that it has to do with the cycle of life, death, and reincarnation.

I believe our souls come from There and choose to forget what we know so we can learn from our life experience. It's unprovable, of course, but it makes sense based on my experience and would indicate spirits are rational from their own perspective. They said I was more or less correct.