Angels: Nearly 8 In 10 Americans Believe These Ethereal Beings Are Real

-- Angels don't just sing at Christmastime. For most Americans, they're a year-round presence. A new Associated Press-GfK poll shows that 77 percent of adults believe these ethereal beings are real.

Belief is primarily tied to religion, with 88 percent of Christians, 95 percent of evangelical Christians and 94 percent of those who attend weekly religious services of any sort saying they believe in angels.

But belief in angels is fairly widespread even among the less religious. A majority of non-Christians think angels exist, as do more than 4 in 10 of those who never attend religious services.

Beyond the religious gap, women are more likely than men to believe angels are real, and those over 30 are more apt than younger adults to think they exist.

The finding mirrors a 2006 AP-AOL poll, which found 81 percent believed in angels.

Previous polling has found the public a bit more likely to believe in God, but far less likely to believe in other other-worldly beings. In May, 92 percent of adults told Gallup pollsters they believed in God. But just 34 percent in an AP-Ipsos poll in 2007 said they believed in ghosts or UFOs.

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted Dec. 8-12 and is based on interviews with 1,000 adults nationally. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

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Comments

[Gerard St Laurent]

04:02 PM on 05/04/2012

8 in 10 people still believe that black cats are bad luck. it doesn't make it so.

[iknowscottyknows]

05:41 PM on 01/09/2012

Jesus spoke of angels.

Jesus or the world, Jesus or the world. Choices.

[oldwarhorse]

01:47 AM on 01/06/2012

Always have believed and always will. Pretty cool numbers this time around.

[Tequilatarian]

05:54 AM on 01/02/2012

Depressing.

[jestermarcus]

02:09 AM on 01/02/2012

Scary......

[inonoatama]

12:42 AM on 01/02/2012

“When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days ... Jesus said ‘Take away the stone’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? So they took away the stone ... The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.

— The Gospel Acording to John 11:17-38

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.”

— David Hume “Of Miracles”

“You will next read the new testament. it is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions ... Of those who say he was begotten by god, born of a virgin, suspended and reversed the laws of nature at will, and ascended boldly into heaven.”

— Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

[iknowscottyknows]

05:39 PM on 01/09/2012

Good post. Who should we believe?

[YourNewNeighbor]

07:32 PM on 01/01/2012

California Angels? Why "believe" in them. They're right there at Anaheim Stadium.

[paleoimage]

05:21 PM on 01/01/2012

Any wonder why we're a nation in decline in terms of intellectual capital and scientific achievement?

[incorrigible]

10:17 PM on 01/01/2012

nope, there's no wonder

what's even sadder is that these adults who've finally got it in their heads that santa aint real still believe that god is real

[Original Intent]

09:28 AM on 01/02/2012

Because folks have lost the ability to look at things and make sound judgments?

Like this one. America is becoming less intelligent, and falling behind in science because we are becoming more religious? Wrong. A more religious nation built this nation, and led the world in science.

Am I saying that it is because we are becoming less religious... no. Religion isn't the problem. It's folks that want to box all the problems up, and point them at one group of people.

I could easily say that atheists are getting sillier just as quick as fundamentalists.. but that would preclude all the folks in-between that are getting just as silly in their narrow-mindedness.

[MorallySuperiorAtheist]

06:41 AM on 01/01/2012

Though we pride ourselves on our sophistication over the "third world", statistics like this indicate that we Americans have not advanced beyond our primitive forebears who offered human sacrifices to satiate the dragon-god threatening to swallow the Sun. As long as we as a species believe this kind of drivel, we will continue to tolerate the world we have instead of the world we could make. Religion isn't the opiate of the masses; it lobotomizes the masses. I stare in wide-eyed amazement at people, nominally sapient adults, born in the latter part of the last century, who continue to swallow these fairy-tales.

[ED NORTON]

08:37 PM on 01/01/2012

I share both your opinion and amazement, MSA.

[Dr of psychology]

08:52 PM on 01/01/2012

Uh huh

[tjeastrich]

12:50 AM on 01/01/2012

Belief in angels for me was reinforced by an experience I had as a younger adult while taking a car trip. I was rescued in an accident by three people, who I believe were angels. Angels don't necessarily have wings; they can take on many different attributes, including human form. The angels I encountered virtually appeared out of no where, rescued me, and as soon as I was safe, just vanished. I have no doubt in my mind that they were angels. But, I know there are skeptics. Faith is a very personal thing. The essence of faith is to belief in what can't be proved through evidence of empirical documentation.

[MorallySuperiorAtheist]

06:52 AM on 01/01/2012

The only people who accept the fact that "my idiotic belief in fairy-tales is a very personal aspect of my life....it is my faith", are other people of "faith". Stupid and gullible are still "stupid and gullible" even if you call it something else. In the history of mankind, no one has ever had any objective testable evidence left over after a big-whopping-lie-of-an-event like the one you describe other than "it cemented my FAITH for me". Not a one. Saying I would have to have faith to understand and believe your fabrication means that I would have to change my approach to the world into one of servile credulity. Can't do it.

[Dr of psychology]

08:54 PM on 01/01/2012

Uh huh

[YourNewNeighbor]

07:34 PM on 01/01/2012

Angels don't necessarily take on "human form." Many come to people like you in the form of English Muffins and owl ears.

[Gay Iberian]

03:23 PM on 12/31/2011

8 out of 10 Americans who believe in angels are stupid.

[anglofans]

09:46 PM on 12/30/2011

When my husband was dying of cancer, I met many angels - from the nurses and aides in the chemotherapy who did what they could to make us comfortable to the many members of church and friends who came offering support in the form of shopping trips (I didn't drive at that time), driving lessions, a hand-knit lap robe with a prayer and lots of good wishes from Christians, Jews, Wiccan, Buddist, Shinto, a friend whose mother had the women of her mosque say a Du'at for us and a couple of atheists who kept us in their thoughts.

Angels are everywhere.

[asgspifs]

09:17 PM on 12/31/2011

OK. If you are going to re-define "angel" as a good person who actually exists, sure, then no one can really argue with that.

But this article is talking about "angels" as supernatural, ghostly, ethereal beings. There is no evidence that such being exist. There very easily could be such evidence, but there is none (anecdotal claims based on wishful thinking are not evidence). Thus, it is disturbing that so many people believe in imaginary things just to make themselves feel better.

Sorry to hear about your husband.

[incorrigible]

10:24 PM on 01/01/2012

im sure we all agree with your sentiment but the article was referring to angels as invisible watchful guardians, not people who act angelic.

i could also say god is everywhere if my interpretation of god was lint

[paulwl]

08:44 PM on 12/30/2011

And, I'm those minions G-O-D too! This is what is wrong with the world today; whatever happen to logic, reason, rational and . . . P-R-O-O-F?

[Dr Idris]

04:25 PM on 12/30/2011

yes-but how many of those 8 in 10 Americans know the answer to the Medieval Scholastic conundrum, "how many Angels can sit on the head of a pin" Since they have a Medieval world view, perhaps some of them, at least, know some Medieval Philosophy and Theology.
Now THAT would be an interesting poll for a Sociologist of Religion to try.

[Pandoras Folly]

05:19 PM on 12/30/2011

however many are commanded too? or alternately one, Pinael the angel of pins

[Dr Idris]

07:23 PM on 12/30/2011

well a pretty good guess; and a funny one. Medievals thought the number to be Infinite-Angels are spiritual outside of time & space.

[QuarkGluonSoup]

07:11 PM on 12/30/2011

ironic. in claiming others to be ill-informed, you show how ill-informed you are. no medieval thinkers (scholastics or otherwise) debated how many angels can sit on the head of a pin. the line comes from 16th century humanists, who were the major intellectual group who opposed the scholastics. they came up with that line to mock the scholastics, not to quote them.

[Dr Idris]

09:22 PM on 12/30/2011

I am well aware that 16th c Xtian Humanists, Erasmus & co, mocked Medieval Scholastics for asking such questions as "how many angels can sit on the head of a pin." Not because there was no coherent answer, but because it DID NOT MATTER, nor did it help to live a Pious Xtian life According to e.g., the Bros.of the Common Life. It was beside the point. Did they make this up to ridicule scholastic thought, in order to exaggerate the pretentious irrelevance of their foes? If so I stand corrected. Are you sure? I don't know Thomas Aquinas&co by heart, but Medievalists have emphatically insisted that the answer, coherent in Medieval terms, would be an Infinite Number. Because Angels are "spiritual" non-spatio-temporal beings. Or could it have been some Counter-Reformation scholastic answering Erasmus? You assumed too much about what I know and don't know. Your reply was incomplete & it could have been more learned-as well as being snide and self-satisfied

[El Superbeasto]

11:34 PM on 12/30/2011

well, we can always debate it now... so... how many?

[brooklyncitizen]

03:30 PM on 12/30/2011

That the spiritual is real is certainly true.
Anyone that reads poetry, looks at a painting or listens to music understands that this is the realm of the spirit. A poem is not just random words strung together to describe the scientific material world. It is speaking to the stuff that is intangible, and as real. It is a loss when folks cannot partake of this.

[Dr Idris]

04:36 PM on 12/30/2011

Matters what you mean by true. Santayana was a materialist, who rejected Idealism and CATHOLICISM (except culturally) yet he posited a non-efficacious REALM Of essence, accessible to the Spirit. He thought Platonism had it upside down. Causality is the mechanism of nature, which "chooses" some, among infinite, essences-WHICH MUST "EXIST"-they are available to the Spirit. I think he'd argue along these lines and both agree and disagree with you.
No doubt the experiences are all real, as you say they are. The "scientism" types don't have them

[Bob Wood]

12:39 PM on 12/31/2011

That "spirituality"...is involved with human emotions. Some people are more sensitive to emotions than other people are. That I'm an emotional person who cries at super market openings...doesn't mean that there's a supernatural realm...populated by supernatural beings...committing supernatural acts. I find myself "spiritually" moved by the suffering or misfotune of others...which probably has more to do with empathy...or sympathy...than anything supernatural. There's not a shred of evidence to support anything supernatural...and thus...there probably isn't anything supernatural. Most anything is always "possible"...though not highly "probable"...(sigh)

[brooklyncitizen]

06:09 PM on 12/31/2011

no, I am not talking about an emotional response. emotions are like the weather they come and go, what I am talking about is permanent and transcendent.