A 25 Minute Documentary: Does Hell Reveal God?

Promoted Post: We are all living in the Womb of God-the-Mother, 13.8 billion Years Pregnancy Beliefs about the afterlife What do Americans believe about life after death? The survey asked respondents about the existence of heaven and hell and also probed what they think people who have died are capable of doing. Heaven and hell…

June 11, 2024

3–4 minutes

christianity, god, heaven, hell, religion

Promoted Post: We are all living in the Womb of God-the-Mother, 13.8 billion Years Pregnancy

Beliefs about the afterlife

Table shows Americans more likely to believe in heaven than hell

What do Americans believe about life after death? The survey asked respondents about the existence of heaven and hell and also probed what they think people who have died are capable of doing.

Heaven and hell

Seven-in-ten Americans believe in heaven (71%), and six-in-ten believe in hell (61%).

Overwhelming majorities of evangelical Protestants and members of historically Black Protestant churches believe in both heaven and hell, while smaller majorities of mainline Protestants and Catholics hold these beliefs.

Jews are far more likely to believe in heaven (48%) than in hell (20%). The vast majority of religiously unaffiliated Americans do not believe in either, with few atheists who believe in heaven (4%) or hell (3%).

About eight-in-ten Republicans and adults who lean toward the Republican Party believe in heaven, compared with about six-in-ten Democrats and Democratic leaners. Nearly three-quarters of Republicans believe in hell, while half of Democrats say the same.

Black Americans are more likely than other large racial and ethnic groups in the survey to believe in heaven and hell.

Pew Research Center has asked about belief in heaven and hell before, including in a 2021 survey on human suffering, which we conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, 73% of U.S. adults said they believe in heaven, and 62% said they believe in hell. Our 2007 and 2014 Religious Landscape Studies showed a similar pattern, although those surveys used somewhat different wording and were conducted by telephone – and therefore are not directly comparable to more recent ones. For more detail on surveys that have asked about heaven and hell since 2017, refer to the Topline.

The nationwide poll was conducted May 11-15, 2023 using the AmeriSpeak® Panel, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Online and telephone interviews using landlines and cell phones were conducted with 1,680 adults. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3.4 percentage points.