Paved with Good Intentions

There was an article in the subway "newspaper" earlier in the week, "Hell Falls off the Map," supposedly about the waning of Americans' belief in Hell. Hades. The fiery lack of fire, or something. But the article stated that 70 percent of Americans believe in Hell, compared to 81 percent who believe in Heaven. Now, this is just one man's opinion, but 70 percent is a pretty good chunk of the American public. So I'm not sure "waning" is the right term.

Anyway, the takeaways from the article: "An earlier Gallup poll [found that] 77 percent of ever-optimistic Americans rated their odds of making heaven as "good" or "excellent." Few saw themselves as hellbound."

Actually, the number that I really want to see is the percentage of Americans who say that they are hellbound. It's not the full 23 percent remaining, is it? Can't be. Plus, note that, despite the differing polls, these numbers suggest that almost everyone who believes in heaven thinks that they have a good probability of getting there. How convenient for them.

Final takeaway: Our American folk religion consists of three key elements: (1) Civic deism: "God bless America"/"In God We Trust"/"Under God." (2) Christmas. And (3) creeping universalism.