My pet topics are death rituals/funerary practices and beliefs about death and the afterlife, and I'm really into neurotheology and the cognitive processes behind dreams and NDE's. Liminal folklore will probably be the focus of my graduate studies.
Death and ghosts also have a strong influence...
I believe in small gods, not a creator of the universe God. Having an authoritarian God poses a lot of moral issues and causes a lot of social problems as well. Smaller gods (like patron deities, and even spirits of places and things) may be capricious, but they're fun, useful and much more...