I read a commentary on a study released by Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion (conducted by Gallup).  This statement intrigued me:  "It ...shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians."  This morning, I also saw that Ian Punnett blogged about the study this weekend, though he spoke to the political aspect of the study (which I really didn't connect...I thought it was a study on religion, but the two are always connected, I suppose.)

The study commentary I read was Look Who's Irrational Now by Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, a regular writer in the Houses of Worship feature in the Wall Street Journal.  Here is the excerpt I am referring to:

"What Americans Really Believe," a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.

The Gallup Organization, under contract to Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion, asked American adults a series of questions to gauge credulity. Do dreams foretell the future? Did ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis exist? Can places be haunted? Is it possible to communicate with the dead? Will creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster someday be discovered by science?

The answers were added up to create an index of belief in occult and the paranormal. While 31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in these things, only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once a week did.

Even among Christians, there were disparities. While 36% of those belonging to the United Church of Christ, Sen. Barack Obama's former denomination, expressed strong beliefs in the paranormal, only 14% of those belonging to the Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin's former denomination, did. In fact, the more traditional and evangelical the respondent, the less likely he was to believe in, for instance, the possibility of communicating with people who are dead.

Ms. Hemingway is a Christian, but is not an evangelical.  In my experience, she really tries to report on religion very accurately.  She also writes at a forum where journalists discuss how religion is reported in print.