With Christmas coming up and other dodgier religious days in its vicinity, some interesting statistics on mystical beliefs have been released by Nielsen and published by SMH. Australians…

Believe in - a god: 68%, life after death: 53%, Heaven: 56%, Hell: 38%, The Devil: 37%, angels: 51%, witches: 22%, UFOs: 34%, astrology: 41%, psychic powers such as ESP: 49%, miracles: 63%, Evolution: 42%.

Believe that- The Holy Book is the word of God: 34%, The Holy Book is literally true: 27%, The teachings of my religion have only one interpretation: 21%, There is – or seems to be – no god: 30%.

It’s troubling to think that such a generally-well-educated country is home to so many people with baseless beliefs. Some interesting comparisons to make are Hell/The Devil versus God’s existence, psychic powers over evolution and the appearance that more people believe that God wrote the bible than those who believe it’s correct. Australia’s official sheep count has now gone from 101 to 112 million - God help us all?

In Victoria, it is now legal for churches and religious organisations to be selective about who they employ based on if their beliefs blend with the organisations’. In the case of churches, this means that gays, divorcees and others that are a slap in the face of God might not be welcome to work there. The law did allow them the liberty in regards to religion but at the cost of ethnicity, age, disability, political beliefs, breastfeeding and appearance which the churches can no longer discriminate by.

News.com.au