How the god you worship influences the spirits you see

If you will have ever seen a ghost, you will have something in common with it 18 percent of Americans.

But since there may be evidence for it our brains are programmed to see ghoststhe apparitions we see are often different.

Historians who research and catalog ghost encounters over time will let you know that ghosts are available all shapes and forms. Some haunt people, appearing in dreams or appearing at unexpected times. Others haunt a particular place and are able to scare every passer-by. Some of them are spit-up images of people that were once real people. There are also noisy and troublesome poltergeists that appear as uncontrollable supernatural forces as a substitute of humans.

What could explain such discrepancies? Do some people see ghosts more often than others? It seems that our religious background may play a job.

Religion can alleviate one fear

Some say that religion evolved as a tool for managing terrorism, a convenient strategy to remove uncertainty around probably the most terrible things we will imagine: death.

Almost every religion explains what happens to us after death, ensuring that death is just not the tip. And there may be indeed evidence that these are very religious people don't be afraid of death as much as others.

Protestants, Catholics and Muslims imagine within the day of resurrection and judgment when our souls might be directed to heaven (“Janna” within the case of Muslims) or hell based on our good deeds (or bad deeds) during our time on Earth. Catholics also imagine in a transitory center called purgatory, where people not quite worthy of heaven but too good for hell will pay off their dues before receiving a ticket to paradise.

Buddhists and Hindus imagine within the cycle of death and reincarnation, which might ultimately end in an enduring spiritual state, provided you play your cards right in each subsequent life. Even the Jewish faith, which doesn't really concentrate on the afterlife, assumes that there may be an afterlife.

By following a transparent algorithm, worshipers can put themselves on top of things: they know what they should do to be sure that good things occur to them, moderately than bad things, after their big nap.

Tormented souls and sinister demons

But there's a catch.

Religion's talent for alleviating our fear of death could have had the perverse effect of constructing us more more likely to turn into anxious when faced with ghosts, ghosts, and other supernatural beings. However, this will likely rely upon how religious you’re.

All available evidence suggests that those that describe themselves as believers – but don’t attend church commonly – are twice as more likely to imagine in ghosts as those that hold two extreme religious beliefs: non-believers and deeply devout believers.

Since most religions are populated by a formidable cadre of prophets, gods, spirits, angels and miracles, the principles of spiritual faith can shape what you see. They can determine whether a visitor from the spirit world is a welcome or uninvited guest, and influence who you’re thinking that you’re meeting.

For exampleIn medieval Catholic Europe, ghosts were believed to be the tormented souls of individuals suffering for his or her sins in purgatory. However, in the course of the Protestant Reformation, because most Protestants believed that souls immediately went to heaven or hell, paranormal phenomena were believed to be the work of angels, demons, or other decidedly non-human supernatural beings.

While most Protestant sects today are largely silent on the existence of spirits, Catholic theology stays susceptible to the existence of ghosts. Catholics typically imagine that God can allow deceased people to go to their counterparts on Earth, however the Church has traditionally condemned occult activities comparable to sessions and Ouija boards.

In some religions, comparable to Voodoo, ghosts and ghosts play a key role. Religions comparable to Buddhism and Hinduism support belief in spirits, but spirits play only a minor role in the faith itself. For Hindusghosts are the souls of people that have suffered a violent death or individuals who haven’t been subjected to the correct and required death rituals. Buddhist spirits they’re reincarnated individuals who can sort out bad karma.

Muslims don’t imagine that dead people can come back as ghosts, so if a Muslim thinks he has encountered a ghost, it’s believed so the work of Jinn – beings with a mix of spiritual and physical properties whose intentions could also be malevolent or benevolent, depending on the situation. There are another religions, comparable to Jehovah's Witnesses, that also imagine that ghosts are demons in disguise moderately than the souls of dead people.

Jews typically discourage occult activities aimed toward contacting the dead, and this appears to be the case less consensus inside Judaism on the status of spirits. However, Jewish oral traditions contain stories about evil spirits (Low-cut trousers) and benevolent, helpful spirits (Ibburs), who attempt to interfere in human affairs.

It seems that individuals of various eras, religions and cultures have at all times been inquisitive about the spiritual world that exists backstage of death.

Together this speaks to how thoughts, fears and visions of death are an integral a part of human life.