Life After Death: 75% of Americans Still Believe in an Afterlife

Think that belief in life after death is declining?  Think again!  Contrary to many of the reports that say spiritual belief is on the decline……many recent studies show that the vast majority of Americans still believe in some form of an afterlife, even though the religious dogmas associated with that belief are definitely on the decline.

(less people attach a religious story to their conception of what “heaven” or an afterlife entails)

I post this only because there have been some really aggressive stories posted in recent days (around the Holidays of course 🙂 about the meteoric rise of “non believers” or “nones” as they are referred to in demographic circles…..folks who don’t associate or identify with any particular role or religion.

And while I’m not traditionally religious myself, I do hold very well worn, tried and true and personally evidenced ideas about what I believe takes place after my physical shell goes away.

Check out a recently published survey of US households below, or share your own thoughts in the community comments below.

 

The survey, comprising a representative sample of 15,738 Americans between the ages of 18 and 60, found that 72% of adults in the United States believe in some sort of life after death, though not everyone holds the same vision of what this existence will be like. Just 37% of Americans believe in a bodily resurrection from the dead, though this figure varies considerably according to religious affiliation.

Those describing themselves as Fundamentalist Protestants and Mormons, for example, believe overwhelmingly in bodily resurrection (86% and 94% respectively), while among those who identified themselves as “liberal Catholics,” only 30% believe in bodily resurrection and among Jews the number is lower still, at 20%.

Considerable diversity also exists regarding the final destination of humans after death. Just over half (51%) of those surveyed expressed traditional belief in the existence of both heaven and hell as real places, and an additional 8% believe in heaven but not in hell.

Among the religiously active, belief in both heaven and hell increases significantly. Those who attend services weekly are about twice as confident that heaven and hell exist as compared to those who never attend. Some 83% of weekly service-goers believe in heaven, while just 43% of non-attenders do. As for hell, 77% of the religiously active believe, compared to just 35% of the inactive.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2014/12/31/three-out-of-four-americans-believe-in-life-after-death/