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 | Heaven and Hell |
| Supernatural entities other than God: Ghosts, Satan... |
| Ghosts |
| Astrology |
| Reincarnation |
| Bible stories |
Popular beliefs about the existence and importance and nature of God are in another essay.
Beliefs about Heaven and Hell:
| Item | American Population | Born again Christians | Ref. |
| Good works can earn a place in Heaven. | 53% | 34% | 3 |
| Good works don't earn a place in Heaven | 30% | 4 | |
| All who do not accept Christ as savior will go to Hell. | 39% | 5 | |
| A person's religious belief will not matter. | 45% | 5 | |
| Hell is not a place but a state of separation from God. | 37% | 6 | |
| Hell is a place where people are tormented. | 31% | 6 | |
| Believe in Heaven | 93%, 81% | 7, 25 | |
| Good or excellent chance of the polling subject going to Heaven | 69% | 7 | |
| Believe in Hell | 54%, 85%, 73%, 69% | 8, 7, 9, 25 | |
| There is a good or excellent chance they will go to Hell | 17%, 3%, 6% | 8, 7, 9 | |
| God will decide who goes to heaven or hell | 79% | 10 | |
| Good atheists will enter heaven. | 44% | 10 | |
| One must believe in God in order to be moral | 58% | 21 | |
| Belief in an afterlife (among Protestants) | 86% | 11 | |
| Belief in an afterlife (among Roman Catholics) | 83% | 11 | |
| Belief in an afterlife (among Jews) | 74% | 11 | |
| Belief in an afterlife (among adults with no religious affiliation) | 58% | 11 | |
| Hell is a real place | 85% * | 22 | |
| Hell is a figurative representation of eternal separation from God | 15% * | 22 | |
| A good person who isn't of your faith can get to heaven | 70% | 23 | |
| A good person who isn't of your faith cannot get to heaven | 23% | 23 |
* This is the result of a poll of visitors to the ChristianWebSite during 2003-SEP. It is probable that the vast majority of participants in the poll were Fundamentalist and other Evangelical Christians. 22
Beliefnet polls about Heaven and Hell:
Beliefnet is a multi-faith site. As such its visitors may well be weighted in favor of religious liberals and non-Christains.
| Beliefnet.com conducted a poll during 2006-MAY which asked "Have you personally known people you think will probably go
to Hell?" Results show the division in North America between those who believe that being relegate to Heaven or Hell is
dependent on one's beliefs, or behavior.
Results were:
| ||||||||||
| During 2007-JAN, Beliefnet.com conducted a similar poll asking: "Can good people outside your faith tradition attain
salvation as you understand it?" Five answers were provided. Results were:
The design of this poll is very heavily biased. This is surprising for a multi-faith web site like Beliefnet. They provide no answer to cover individuals who are sincere in their efforts to lead an ethical live, but have no belief in a deity. |
Beliefs about supernatural entities other than God:
Belief in Satan:
| Item | American Population | Born-again Christians | Ref. |
| Satan is an evil symbol, not a living entity (1997) * | 62% | 52% | 3 |
| Strongly believe that Satan is real (2001) | 27% | 4 | |
| Satan is real (2003) | 68% | 20 |
* For more poll data on belief about Satan, see our essay on Demons.
Ghosts:
| Item |
American Population |
Reference |
| Ghosts may exist (1999) | 48% | 15 |
| Ghosts definitely do not exist (1999) | 47% | 15 |
| Ghosts exist (2003) | 51% | 20 |
| Belief by women that ghosts exist (2003) | 58% | 20 |
| Belief by persons 25 to 29 years of age | 65% | 20 |
| Belief by persons over 64 | 27% | 20 |
Astrology:
| Item (2003) |
American population 20 |
| Believe in the accuracy of astrology | 31% |
| Belief by women | 36% |
| Belief by men | 25% |
| Belief by persons 25 to 29 years of age | 43% |
| Belief by persons over 64 | 17% |
Reincarnation:
| Item (2003) |
American population 20 |
| Believe in reincarnation | 27% |
| Belief by persons 25 to 29 years of age | 40% |
| Belief by persons over 64 | 14% |
Belief in the literal accuracy of Bible stories:
During 2007-DEC, The Barna Group asked a random sampling of 1,005 American adults what they believed about six popular Bible stories. 26 They were given two alternatives:
| That the stories were factually accurate, or |
| They were not actual fact but were designed to teach principles. |
Results were:
| 75% believe that the virgin birth is accurate. |
| 69% believe that Jesus actually changed water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana. |
| 68% believe that Jesus used five loaves of bread and two fish to feed five thousand men. |
| 64% believe in the flood of Noah and his ark. However, several groups did not regard it as a real event: Catholics, Atheists/Agnostics, Northeasterners, "upscale" adults (those college graduates with a family income over $75,000), and social/political liberals. |
| 56% believe in the devil having tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Among Atheists/Agnostics, this was believed by 8%. |
| 49% believe in the story of Sampson losing his physical strength when his hair was cut. |
| On average born-again Christians were 40 percentage points more likely to believe these stories than non-born again adults. |
| On average, those who considered themselves as political conservatives were 26 percentage points more likely to believe the stories as literally true. |
| Southerners and persons of lower earnings were more likely to treat the stories as literally true. |
References:
- Thomas C. Reeves, "The Empty Church: Does Organized Religion Matter Anymore?" Simon & Schuster: New York, NY (1998), Page. 64." Cited in http://www.adherents.com/Na_169.html under the topic "religious - modestly" Read reviews or order this book
- USA Today-CNN-Gallup poll for 1999-DEC, as reported in ReligionToday on 1999-DEC-29.
- "Angels are in; Devil & Holy Spirit are out," results of a survey conducted in 1997-JAN by Barna Research. Accuracy: within 3% points, 19 times out of 20. See: http://www.barna.org/PressAngels.htm
- "Religious beliefs vary widely by denomination," 2001-JUN-25, Barna Research Group, Ltd., at: http://www.barna.org/cgi-bin/
- MetroVoice of Central New York, newspaper, Jamesville NY, 1996-MAY
- Maranatha Christian Journal, 1997-APR-22
- Gallup Organization poll in 1994-DEC. Quoted in George Bishop, "What Americans really believe," Free Inquiry, 1999-Summer, Pages 38 to 42.
- 1965 Gallup Poll, described by Charisma. Online at: http://www.mcjonline.com/news/00/20000225e.htm
- Gallup Poll, described on 2000-JUN-7 by Charisma. Online at: http://www.mcjonline.com/news/00/20000225e.htm
- USA Today-CNN-Gallup poll for 1999-DEC, as reported in ReligionToday on 1999-DEC-29.
- 1999 Poll by the Survey Research Center at the University of California at Berkeley CA. Reported in the Globe and Mail (Toronto, ON) newspaper on 1999-OCT-9.
- Gallup Organization poll in 1994-DEC. Quoted in George Bishop, "What Americans really believe," Free Inquiry, 1999-Summer, Pages 38 to 42.
- International Social survey Program (ISSP), 1991 & 1993. Quoted in George Bishop, "What Americans really believe," Free Inquiry, 1999-Summer, Pages 38 to 42.
- "Answers to frequently asked questions," at: http://www.barna.org/PageStats.htm (link may be broken)
- T. Hargrove & G.H. Stempel III, "Poll indicates a haunted nation." Nando Times, 1999-OCT-27. Describes a poll by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University during 1999-SEP/OCT. Margin of error: 4%
- A poll conducted for Newsweek magazine in 1999-JUN.
- Millennium Study by Taylor Nelson Sofres Intersearch. Reviewed by Maranatha Christian Journal for 1999-DEC-13 at: http://www.mcjonline.com/news/news3707.htm Church attendance data at: http://www.intersearch.tnsofres.com/gia/US_Religion.pdf You can obtain a free software to read this type of file from Adobe.
- "The state of the church, 2000," Barna Research Group, Ltd., at: http://www.barna.org/cgi-bin/PagePressRelease.asp
- "How Americans See Themselves," results of a survey conducted in 1998-JAN. Accuracy: within 3% points, 19 times out of 20. See: http://www.barna.org/PressHowAmericansSeeThemselves.htm
- "Most Americans believe in ghosts: Survey shows 1/3 accept astrology, 1/4 reincarnation," WorldNetDaily, 2003-FEB-27. The data poll was collected by Harris Poll from 2003-JAN-21 to 27. 2,201 subjects. Margin of error 2%.
- "Views of a Changing World, June 2003," Pew Global Attitudes Project, at: www.people-press.org
- ChristianWebSite poll, 2003-SEP, at: http://www.christianwebsite.com/ It is probable that most of the visitors to this web site are conservative Christians.
- Beliefnet poll, 2006-JAN-03, at: http://www.beliefnet.com/ This is an Internet poll and thus may not be representative of the American population.
- "Easter Poll," by Ipsos News Center, at: http://www.ipsos-na.com/
- "Belief in God," Gallup Poll, data collected 2007-MAY 10-13; published 2007-JUN-14 at: http://www.galluppoll.com/. This is a temporary listing.
- "Americans Express Their Views of the Virgin Birth of Christ," he Barna Group, 2007-DEC-17, at: http://www.barna.org/
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Copyright © 1999 to 2007 by Ontario
Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 1999-MAY-13
Latest update: 2007-DEC-23
Author: B.A. Robinson
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