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Majority of Australians believe in God, miracles

A new poll conducted has found that a majority of Australians believe in God or a similar universal spirit, miracles, heaven, life after death and angels.

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A new poll conducted has found that a majority of Australians believe in God or a similar universal spirit, miracles, heaven, life after death and angels.

The findings by a Nielsen poll showed that Aussies are willing to mix and match religious faith with belief in other phenomena.

The research showed that Australians are more religious, with 68% believing in God or a universal spirit, and 50% saying religion is important or very important in their lives.

But atheists and agnostics also had a strong showing in the national survey of 1000 respondents, taken early this week.

Almost one in four Australians (24%) do not believe in either God or a universal spirit, and 7% are not sure or say they "don't know'".

Women have more faith than men, with 56% saying they believe in God and 13% saying they believe in a universal spirit, compared with 43% and 11% of men, respectively.

Most people with faith hold it strongly, with 88% saying they were either absolutely or fairly certain in their belief.

Christianity, generally considered to be on the decline, was still the largest faith, with 64 % of believers nominating it as the religion they most identified with.

The next biggest was Buddhism, at 2%, followed by Hinduism and Islam, which each had 1% of believers.

Judaism accounted for less than half of 1% of believers.

But God is not the only thing Australians believe in. They place their faith in a range of other phenomena. For example, 63% believe in miracles, and 53% believe in life after death.

Angels are also popular, with 51% of respondents saying they believe in them, slightly more than the 49% who hold faith in psychic powers such as ESP.

While 56% of people believe in heaven, only 38% believe in hell, and belief in God is much more popular than faith in the devil, with only 37% of respondents believing in Satan.

The findings show women are much more likely to believe in God and other phenomena than men, with the exception of UFOs: while 34 % of Australians believe UFOs exist, men are more likely than women to do so.

Thirty-four % of Australians believe in UFOs and 22 % think witches exist.

Nearly half of the population believe in psychic powers such as extrasensory perception, while 41 % believe in astrology.

But the difference between the sexes is stark. Men (32 %) were almost twice as likely as women (17 %) to say they did not believe in God or a universal spirit, and women were far less likely than men to classify themselves as atheists - 12 % of women compared with 20 % of men.

The 50 % of the population classified as "Christian" were also asked about their specific beliefs in Jesus.

94% believed he was a real person who lived 2000 years ago. And although 91 % believed he was the Son of God, only 72 % think the mother of Jesus Christ was a virgin.

Nearly a quarter of us believe the biblical account of the origin of human beings over the Darwinian account taught in schools and universities.

Forty-two % of people believe in a wholly scientific explanation for the origins of life and 32 % believe in an evolutionary process "guided by God".

The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, said the poll results showed the religious instinct was universal.

'That faith is important or very important to at least half of the population is what we have always suspected - an 'iceberg effect' that people may not necessarily speak up about their faith but it is very significant to their lives," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted him as saying.

The fact that the Christian faith was in the clear majority among believers was "no cause for triumphalism".

"I would reflect rather on why this is not translating into church membership," he said.

There was no denying that increased numbers of people described themselves as non-believers, but this was no boon to the atheist cause, he said.

"'The decline of Christian faith does not lead to lack of religious belief; it just opens the way for superstition," he added.

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