Something a little odd struck me in reading the recently release Pew Statistics on Religion in America Report.
The good news is that Americans are nearly unanimous in saying they believe in God
(92 percent) and large majorities believe in life after death (74 percent), according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life’s 268-page study released Monday.
But here’s something that caught my brain. The study found that 59 percent of Americans believe in hell while 68 percent believe demons are active in the world.
Question: Where do the nine percent of people who believe in demons but don’t believe in Hell think demons live? New Jersey? Sheboygen?
I don’t think they’ve thought this through.
June 26, 2008 at 3:09 am
I live in NJ and there are demons here. And they hold elected office. That’s why my property taxes and car insurance are ridiculous.
June 26, 2008 at 4:37 am
I don’t remember from the Bible that high property taxes were the demon’s main goal, but it was probably secondary 😉
Also, wait until Obama becomes President and then the whole country will be just like Jersey.
June 26, 2008 at 5:23 am
The other thing that made me go “hmmm”- 6% of self proclaimed atheists believe in a personal God. Terentia
June 26, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Some active demons may have messed up the result?
June 26, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Here in Michigan, there’s the town of Hell. Maybe they live there…
June 26, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I keep trying to think about another country my family can go to live if he gets elected, but I can’t come up with anywhere reasonable. Guess we’ll just have to keep plugging along here.
June 26, 2008 at 4:38 pm
I wonder if some atheists drive through that town and refuse to believe it exists.
I would also like to travel there in the winter so I could say I was there when Hell froze over.
June 26, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Well, accordibg to the book of Pratchett/Gaiman (Good Omens), at least some of the demons are highway-planners…….
=)
June 26, 2008 at 10:56 pm
In high school my youth minister took some of us to a youth event a few hours away. We got lost, bought a map, and had to re-route through a town called Gehenna. It was winter and everything was frozen, including the river. We finally got there 2 hours late and everyone asked, “What happened to you guys?” to which we could truthfully respond (and quite gleefully) “We’ve been through Gehenna.”