Tuesday 14 April 2009

The ghosts are coming!

Quick! Someone skip around in a circle while saying "Bailey!" three times or whatever you need to do to call Jennifer Love Hewitt! As Maya would say, we've got ghosts all up and through.
The majority of Britons believe in heaven and life after death, new research suggests.

The survey of 2,060 people showed 55% believe in heaven, while 53% believe in life after death and 70% believe in the human soul.

The study was carried out between October and November last year for the public theology think tank Theos.

It also suggested that nearly four in 10 people, 39%, believe in ghosts and 27% believe in reincarnation.

A further 22% believe in astrology or horoscopes and 15% believe in fortune telling or Tarot.

The think tank said the findings were "especially striking" when compared to the 1950s.

Then only 10% of the public told Gallup that they believed in ghosts and just 2% thought they had seen one.

I tend not to rule out supernatural encounters. Life is weird and mysterious, and just because we have not yet come to terms with something doesn't mean it's not going to jump out and yell at us sometimes.

I feel less certain, if that's possible, about heaven and hell. (The study, though, seems not to reflect the "if there's a heaven, surely there must be the opposite" belief of Christian religion.) Surely, even the most evil could be made infinitely more productive if they didn't just stand around permanently engulfed in flames wailing, moaning, gnashing teeth and whatnot. And if this is in fact just a metaphor, and we'll each experience our own personal hells, then mine would be a permanent loop of Samuel L Jackson films, Celine Dion and Enrique Iglesias duets on the radio and only celery and yogurt to eat. Just thinking about it is making me want to pray to someone.

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