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?"

Comments

Religion

[Anonymous Coward]

All religious people believe in ghosts.

Re:Religion

[Anonymous Coward]

All religious people believe in ghosts.

I don't about that but you touched on an interesting point: why is this a scam? How is this any different than preachers asking for money to help you "soul" so that you don't end up in "damnation"?

They're both make believe.

Why is selling stuff to a ghost hunter "ripping stupid people off"; whereas, selling Bibles, crosses, mats, or whatever to help people get into Heaven not a rip-off?

If folks believe in ghosts and want to buy this stuff for their own brand of spirituality, I don't see any problem.

If we're going to protect people from being taken advantage of, then we need to go after Joel Osteen and that Rick Warren guy for selling hope and ways to get to the man in the sky - and every other preacher who preaches about God and every other myth.

Re:Religion

[Anonymous Coward]

48% believe in ghost. 95% believe in a God that they can't see either. Both are ignorant, but yet allowed to vote and run for office.

Only Thing needed

[Sonny Yatsen]

Ghosthunters don't need gadgets. The only thing they need is the desire and ability to separate idiots from their money.

"gadgetry"?

[grub]

about the gadgetry scammers use to take money from people who believe in the pretend:

It's called a "collection plate."

Re:I like that Show (GH and GHI)

[CohibaVancouver]

I'll keep fast-forwarding through each episode, just in case they do stumble upon something.

If they do actually stumble upon something real and get real evidence you don't need to wait for it on the show - It will be front-page news on every newspaper and news site in the world.

Re:I like that Show (GH and GHI)

[Locke2005]

Ghost Hunters is just like Monster Hunters -- don't you think if they found concrete proof of the existence of something unusual that news of it would leak out BEFORE they aired the episode???

Funny thing ...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

If the word "Ghost" in the article were replaced by "god", the article would still be correct, but it would have never been posted.

If I say "Ghosts aren't real", I get moderated informative. If I post "That particular Ghost you call god isn't real", I get moderated troll.

Irrational, isn't it?

Re:One reason people believe...

[cojsl]

Agreed. When someone "experiences something weird", there is an explanation. But that explanation may be beyond our current limited understanding of the workings of our universe and reality. It seems to be arrogant to claim that "ghosts" don't exist, when some limited cases may be phenomena beyond our current ability to measure and explain. Before the discovery of bacteria, we could sense and measure their effects, but were unable to explain the mechanism. This didn't mean that bacteria didn't exist though.