麻豆约拍

For the first time, surveys last year showed that a majority of British adults now have 鈥榥o religion鈥�. Yet on social media, religious language is alive and well: hashtags like #PrayforLondon or #PrayforManchester invariably start trending on Twitter after terror attacks, and referring to people who have died as having 鈥済ained their angels wings鈥� or 鈥渇lying with the angels鈥� has become the norm online.

Jane Little examines what鈥檚 going on here: are people who have turned their backs on organized religion making up their own comforting set of beliefs (and copying them from each other), or has Britain become a nation of atheists who at difficult moments in life use religious language without meaning any of it?

In her quest, Jane meets non-religious people who retain strong and vividly expressed beliefs in the supernatural: people like Russell and Kerry, who lost their baby daughter Rubie Jane to meningitis, yet believe that she is still with them and sending them signs; Pat, who calls herself an atheist, but reports several hair-raising encounters with ghosts; and Rowan, who does not just believe in angels, but expresses a rock-solid conviction that they are around.

Helping Jane shed light on the strange paradox of non-believing believers will be experts including Tony Walter, who has made a particular study of 鈥渙nce-human angels鈥� 鈥� the idea, not taught by the Christian churches, that people become angels after they die.