Everyone Goes to Heaven!!
A new poll answers one of my biggest questions about religious belief in the real world.
The answer was a lot simpler than I imagined; they DON’T think that:
For example, 70 percent of Americans affiliated with a religion or denomination said they agreed that “many religions can lead to eternal life,” including majorities among Protestants and Catholics. Among evangelical Christians, 57 percent agreed with the statement, and among Catholics, 79 percent did.
Among minority faiths, more than 80 percent of Jews, Hindus and Buddhists agreed with the statement, and more than half of Muslims did.
Of course my first reaction, as an atheist, was “Ah yes, so it doesn’t matter what god you believe in, but you MUST believe in one or many, not religious is not an option.”
Wrong again, as it turns out:
Previous surveys have shown that Americans think a majority of their countrymen and women will go to heaven, and that the circle is wide, embracing minorities like Jews, Muslims and atheists. But the Pew survey goes further, showing that such views are held by those within major branches of Christianity and minority faiths, too.
I can’t pretend to get into the head of someone who says they believe people of other religions or no religion also get to go to heaven, and I assume rationales may vary, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the thought process were something like this:
A- God is Good, God loves us, God is fair.
B- The good people go to Heaven, the bad people don’t (or go to Hell).
C- I know people who are very good but don’t believe in God/ believe in a different God.
D- Ergo, God will work it out so all good people, regardless of religion, can go to Heaven.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading the whole article, it’s very interesting. Other things stood out to me. For instance, one out of every 5 people who described themselves as “atheist” also say they believe in a god, which tells me that one out of every five self-described atheists needs a dictionary.
Other tidbits; a majority of Americans favor spending more money on the poor (even if that means a greater debt), stricter environmental standards (even if it costs money) and diplomacy over military action. I wonder what majority would say that those are liberal policies. Probably almost all of them. Despite this, only 26% of people called themselves liberal. People can be funny that way.
[UPDATE]: Looking at the original study other interesting things come through. For instance, though only 20% of people “unaffiliated” with any denomination say they don’t believe in God, the same can be said for 19% of Buddhists and 10% of Jews. So people who do not self-identify as atheist actually would fit in that group (and conveniently replace the lunkheads who think you can be an atheist and believe in god). Some forms of Buddhism are considered philosophy and not religion and Jews often self-identify as such out of ethnic, historical and cultural ties, not necessarily out of religious belief. Very interesting also was that 5% of Muslims also have no belief in a god, which makes me wonder whether being a Muslim is also susceptible to the same treatment as Judaism, as a cultural signal and nothing more.
this whole survey is very strange. I can’t believe so many educated people are religious, and believe in demons, angels, miracles. I wonder how the questions are worded, and if there are other people present to hear their answers. or is it private. Maybe people are ashamed to admit outloud they don’t believe in god, to an interviewer, family who might criticize them, or even to themselves. And if 20 percent of atheists say they believe, then these results are invalid and ridiculous. The study methodology must be at fault here! Strong religious beliefs correlate with conservative political policies, and are related to basic ideas of human nature, such as are people generally deserving or non deserving of help in life, and is extreme punishment of crimes ok? Maybe this is why the U.S is so backward socially compared to Europe, Canada, etc, –2 examples being that so many millions are without health insurance, and we still execute criminals, instead of life sentences, and a many think a pregnant woman must give birth agaomst jer will, and many people don’t want evolution taught, but instead a religious story of how earth and humans began– to name a few backward policies that don’t exist in more progressive, more advanced, and humane nations.
If helping the poor are liberal policies, apparently all the religious figures were liberals.
Still, it’s good to know that people are smartening up.
Claudia, atheists don’t need a dictionary; you need to read the survey that you’re writing about.
The survey asked respondents if the believe in God "or a universal power."
Every atheist believes in gravity which, whether you can understand this or not, is a universal power.
The person who designed this question was clearly an idiot.
If you’re going to write about something, Claudia, you might try acquainting yourself with it first.
Pierre, I accept that I should have looked at the original survey, but I wasn’t expecting the New York Times to mangle the actual answer so badly. I will look into it further later.
Still, a "universal power" especially when put right next to the word "God" seems to strongly suggest a deist god, not a universal law of physics. It’s stretching things a lot IMO, to think that 20% of atheists thought "well I believe in the laws of physics, so I believe in a "universal power". Considering the past dismal level of many Americans in religious literacy, I think that the explanation given by the article, essentially that some people may think atheism actually means being against organized religion (I’ve spoken to people with such a misconception, though admittedly none who called themselves atheist) and therefore call themselves that, despite actually being deist.
Michael, helping the poor is a universal impulse, but you must admit that if you told an average person that you wanted to spend more money to help the poor (notice it being put in overt spending terms, even admitting the posibility of debt) , protect the environment even if it meant economic costs and think diplomacy should always come before military action, and then asked them whether they thought you were more likely to be conservative or liberal, they’d be more likely to think you liberal.
Right on Claudia, when you say…."It’s stretching things a lot IMO, to think that 20% of atheists thought "well I believe in the laws of physics, so I believe in a "universal power"" This whole confusion on the atheism question is just idiotic.
Many headlines say americans believe there are many paths to salvation, as if this is good and progressive…at least we are tolerant of others who believe in god……The headline should be that most americans are stuck in a mind set of superstition and ignorance which you’d expect in the middle ages, before the rennaissance, and surely before the 18th century enlightenment,– despite modern science with cars, planes, space travel, medicine that aleviates infectious disease and pain, despite advances of geology, physics, evolutionary biology, etc…..we still have midieval beliefs in demons, angels, heaven, hell and prayer. Is this what universal public school education has brought us?
Ah Pierre, I failed twice. The first when I didn’t read the study, and the second when I took your word for the question.
The question was NOT "Do you believe in God or a universal power?" as you say. The question was "Do you believe in God or a universal SPIRIT?" That frames the matter in VERY different terms. No way a "universal spirit" is going to be taken as gravity. "Universal spirit" is deism.
Therefore I stand by my initial claim that 20% of atheists, if they claim to believe in god or a universal spirit, really need a dictionary. I say IF because I’m unable to find the breakdown of different types of unaffiliated in the PDF file.
Mostly this doesn’t surprise me, except for the 57% of Evangelicals; apparently they don’t understand the point of their own religion. The idea behind evangelizing is to save people from Hell by conversion; if they can get to Heaven with their existing beliefs then there’s no point in evangelizing, correct?
And I think you’re misunderstanding Hell–it’s not some sort of afterlife version of Alcatraz, where everyone’s under a life sentence. It’s a place for people who don’t want to be with God. To be in Heaven is to be with God, but God won’t force himself upon people who don’t want Him. Ergo, those who reject God can live apart from God, and living apart from God is known as Hell. It’s a terrible, hopeless place, but many people willingly choose that…
And yes, there are many highly educated people who are deeply religious.
Claudia, the detailed table for that question is here. [pdf] You can find the detail tables in Appendix 2 of the report. The "unaffiliated" responses are clearly sorted into atheist, agnostic, secular unaffiliated and religious unaffiliated.
It shows that 15% of self-identified "atheists" are absolutely or fairly certain of the existence of "God or a Universal Spirit." No doubt at least some of those are ID’ing "God" as a Supreme Being and "universal spirit" as a non-supreme something or other. A belief in the latter could be quibbled to fit into atheism.
Smells like teen spirit!
Thanks Tully! I see from the table that another group that desperately needs a dictionary is the 17% of agnostics that say they are "absolutely certain" that there is a god or universal spirit.
That sound you hear, it’s me bashing my head against the table.
Many agnostics define agnosticism as not adhering to any organized dogmatic religion, Claudia. I would direct your attention to the agnostic theism movement, for example. There is nothing inherently contradictory between having a belief in a god or universal spirit and simultaneously adhering to the idea that the existence of such a god or universal spirit is unprovable .
The base principle of most agnosticism is NOT a non-existence of a god or universal spirit, but the undefinability and lack of provable knowledge of same.