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Guess Who Believes There Is a Hell?
Fully 71 percent of Americans believe there is a hell, and 76 percent are confident there is a heaven.

But don't worry, most of us--64 percent--think we're headed straight to heaven with only half of 1 percent worried that the eternal fires of damnation await them when they die.

That's the word from the Barna Research Group, an independent marketing research firm that has tracked trends related to beliefs, values, and behaviors for almost two decades. This poll surveyed 1,000 randomly selected adults in every state except Hawaii and Alaska.

"We're optimists at heart," Robert Johnston, a professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., told The Los Angeles Times about the survey's results. "If you really believe in hell, you wouldn't want to be there. By definition, hell is the denial of goodness."...

...50 percent of born-again Christians believe a person can earn salvation based on good deeds without accepting Christ as the way to eternal life.

Half the agnostics and atheists surveyed believe that everyone has a soul, heaven and hell exist, and there is life after death.

One in eight atheists and agonistics believe that accepting Jesus Christ as one's savior probably makes life after death possible.