Gadgets For the Ghosthunter

Zothecula sent us a sad story about the gadgetry scammers use to take money from people who believe in the pretend: "In a survey conducted by CBS News in 2005, it was found that 48 percent of Americans believed in ghosts. Other surveys have put the number at anywhere from around 20 to over 50 percent. While such figures certainly don't imply that ghosts are real, they do suggest that belief in them is relatively common. When someone does suspect that a ghost is present in their home or business, they will sometimes call in "experts" to ascertain if that is, in fact, the case... and what sort of gear do these ghost hunters use to detect said spirits?"

Re:PKE meter

[Locke2005]

And whatever you do, don't cross the streams. It would be bad. Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

Obligatory "Bullshit!"

[JohnnyBGod]

Here's Penn & Teller's take on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09eBzjxlu1s [youtube.com]

Re:Religion

[gstoddart]

Many forms of Buddhism believe that the rebirth of those with especially bad karma leads to existence among the living as a ghost. In spite of some recent Western attempts to proclaim a "Buddhism without beliefs" (little more than an attempt to rewrite the whole religion so that it doesn't make us uncomfortable)

If by Western attempts you mean well-known scholars like The Dalai Lama and Thicht Naht Hahn? Or Shunryu Suzuki or Pema Chodron?

Buddha was fairly clear about the fact that it's not intended to be a religion, and that he wasn't some supreme being. He was mortal, and expounded things that mortals should do. The pre-existing gods where Buddhism moved to didn't need to be purged wholesale, and have been incorporated/kept in many places.

Buddhism does not have a requirement in beliefe of a supernatural being, a creator god, or deification the the Buddha. Western Buddhists might differ from Buddhists from Thailand or Sri Lanka, but fundamentally, it hasn't been "rewritten" to appease us. It's fairly malleable to begin with, and if you step away from a specific cultural context, none of that is required for the rest of it.

Re:Religion

[Wyatt Earp]

Islam views ghosts and ghost sightings as pre-Islamic superstition

It is a "corrupt belief to think we will become ghosts after death. After death what will happen, will be exactly what is told by Qur'an and Ahadith."

http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?26432-Muslim-view-on-ghosts [sunniforum.com]

However they believe in Jinn.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinn [wikipedia.org]