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Spooky Number Of Americans Believe In Ghosts

Yes, I figured this one is true.
Any thoughts?

Spooky Number Of Americans Believe In Ghosts

Your mommy and daddy might have told you there are no such things as ghosts.

But nearly half the country thinks otherwise.

A HuffPost/YouGov poll shows that 45 percent of Americans believe in ghosts, or that the spirits of dead people can come back in certain places and situations.
The idea of ghosts as hopeful evidence of life after death goes all the way back to ancient Egypt, where it was commonly believed that death was merely a transition to some mysterious netherworld of another existence.

While skeptics deny the existence of ghosts, claiming there's no real evidence, polls and surveys have shown the public strongly disagrees.

Of the 1,000 adults interviewed Dec. 17-18, the HuffPost/YouGov poll revealed 45 percent believe in ghosts, or that the spirits of dead people can come back in certain places and situations. When asked if they believe there's a life after death, 64 percent responded Yes. While 59 percent of adults don't believe they've ever actually seen a ghost, 43 percent also don't think that ghosts or spirits can harm or interact with living people.

Read the rest here.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Lillie on February 4, 2013 at 9:30pm

It makes sense to me that people can believe in ghosts if they can believe in God.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on February 4, 2013 at 9:56pm

"The truth is like a lion. You don't have to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself."

St. Augustine, (born 354)

Oh! If he only knew!

Permalink Reply by Steph S. on February 4, 2013 at 10:00pm

Oh I love the quote Joan!

Permalink Reply by SteveInCO on February 4, 2013 at 11:48pm

I grew up non-religious. (Lucky me!) As such even as a kid I put ghosts, astrology, vampires, the easter bunny, santa claus, god, witches, etc. all into the same "bucket" mentally. Today it'd be labelled "woo," or "mystic shit," back then I'd probably have said it was "magic-like fiction." Took me a while to realize most people didn't put one particular item in that bucket but rather put it in the "this is non-fiction and hate the shit out anyone who doesn't agree" bucket (you get three guess which item in the list I am thinking of, and if you need the last two...).

Anyhow, having always grouped these things together, I am not terribly surprised to see others doing it. Now one might naively suppose witches, ghosts, demons, etc would not be believed in by Xians and look at a forty percent figure like this and call "bullshit--Xians believe different silly stuff than this" but the fact is many Xians believe these things DO exist, as allies or creatures of satan. I've even heard some opine that UFOs are real, i.e., they exist--but they aren't extraterrestrials (such is impossible according to these same Xians; humans are the only intelligent life in the universe--and these Xians do believe it's 13.7 billion years old and I forget how many billions of light years across), they are distractions sent by satan.

Permalink Reply by Chris Breman on February 5, 2013 at 6:26am

I remember that in the old testament are texts where the xtian god denounces other gods, ghosts, witches and whatever else you can find. Point is that the god never says that they don't exist, he just wants all the attention himself. So xtians believe in everything.