{"id":7481,"date":"2023-08-10T09:34:04","date_gmt":"2023-08-10T13:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=7481"},"modified":"2023-08-10T09:34:04","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T13:34:04","slug":"new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/08\/new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology.html","title":{"rendered":"New Survey Finds That Belief in Prayer and Heaven is Twice as Popular as Astrology"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_7487\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7487\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7487\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/08\/prayer-troubling-times-credit-shutterstock-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"prayer\" width=\"768\" height=\"576\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7487\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">mapo_japan\/Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>According to a new survey, twice as many Americans say they believe in the power of prayer and heaven as they believe in astrology and reincarnation. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnorc.org\/projects\/belief-in-angels-and-heaven-is-more-common-than-belief-in-the-devil-or-hell\/\">AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll<\/a>\u00a0found that 72 percent of U.S. adults believe in the power of prayer, while 69 percent believe in heaven. That\u2019s twice as many adults as believe in reincarnation (34 percent) and astrology (34 percent).<\/p>\n<p>Belief in angels (69 percent) also gained majority support, as did karma (63 percent). The concepts of hell (58 percent) and the devil (56 percent) are less popular. Fifty percent of Americans believe the \u201cspirits of those who died can interact with the living, while another 42 percent believe \u201cspiritual energy can be rooted in physical objects. One-third of Americans believe in yoga as a spiritual practice.<\/p>\n<p>Eighty-three percent of Americans say they believe that \u201csome things can\u2019t be explained by science.\u201d A New Testament professor at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Kentucky, Susan Garrett, said believing in angels crosses multiple worldviews.<\/p>\n<p>She told AP, \u201cThey\u2019re very malleable. You can have any one of a number of quite different worldviews in terms of your understanding of how the cosmos is arranged, whether there are spirit beings, whether there\u2019s life after death, whether there\u2019s a God and still find a place for angels in that worldview.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U696NYlJewg\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The poll\u2019s findings about heaven and reincarnation align with a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/religion\/2021\/11\/23\/views-on-the-afterlife\/\">2021 Pew Research Center survey<\/a>. That earlier poll found that 73 percent of U.S. adults believe in heaven and 62 percent believe in hell, while 33 percent believe in reincarnation. Among self-identified evangelicals, belief in heaven (96 percent) and hell (91 percent) was high. Few evangelicals in the Pew survey (16 percent) said they believed in reincarnation.<\/p>\n<p>The May 11-15 AP survey involved interviews with 1,680 adults.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to a new survey, twice as many Americans say they believe in the power of prayer and heaven as they believe in astrology and reincarnation. The\u00a0AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll\u00a0found that 72 percent of U.S. adults believe in the power of prayer, while 69 percent believe in heaven. That\u2019s twice as many&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":7487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[1700,212],"class_list":["post-7481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america","tag-astrology","tag-prayer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>New Survey Finds That Belief in Prayer and Heaven is Twice as Popular as Astrology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A new survey found that twice as many Americans say they believe in the power of prayer and heaven as they believe in reincarnation and astrology.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/08\/new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Survey Finds That Belief in Prayer and Heaven is Twice as Popular as Astrology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A new survey found that twice as many Americans say they believe in the power of prayer and heaven as they believe in reincarnation and astrology.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/08\/new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-08-10T13:34:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/08\/prayer-troubling-times-credit-shutterstock-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lauren McKeithen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"New Survey Finds That Belief in Prayer and Heaven is Twice as Popular as Astrology","description":"A new survey found that twice as many Americans say they believe in the power of prayer and heaven as they believe in reincarnation and astrology.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/08\/new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"New Survey Finds That Belief in Prayer and Heaven is Twice as Popular as Astrology","og_description":"A new survey found that twice as many Americans say they believe in the power of prayer and heaven as they believe in reincarnation and astrology.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/08\/new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2023-08-10T13:34:04+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":576,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/08\/prayer-troubling-times-credit-shutterstock-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Lauren McKeithen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/08\/new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/08\/new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology.html","name":"New Survey Finds That Belief in Prayer and Heaven is Twice as Popular as Astrology","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/08\/new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/08\/new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/08\/prayer-troubling-times-credit-shutterstock-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2023-08-10T13:34:04+00:00","dateModified":"2023-08-10T13:34:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/67183b7ec4ffc995620174c78f9cc68a"},"description":"A new survey found that twice as many Americans say they believe in the power of prayer and heaven as they believe in reincarnation and astrology.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/08\/new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/08\/new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/08\/new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/08\/prayer-troubling-times-credit-shutterstock-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/08\/prayer-troubling-times-credit-shutterstock-scaled.jpg","width":768,"height":576,"caption":"mapo_japan\/Shutterstock.com"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/08\/new-survey-finds-that-belief-in-prayer-and-heaven-is-twice-as-popular-as-astrology.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"New Survey Finds That Belief in Prayer and Heaven is Twice as Popular as Astrology"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/","name":"Christ News Today","description":"Christian News From Around the Globe","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/67183b7ec4ffc995620174c78f9cc68a","name":"lmckeithen","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/author\/lmckeithen"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7481"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7490,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7481\/revisions\/7490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}