The researchers report that fewer Americans are in the "none" category when it comes to religious affiliation, compared to results from other studies. The growth in "nones" — 14.3 percent in 2004 compared to 8 percent in 1988, according to the General Social Survey — "is often used by academics and the press to indicate growing secularization in the United States," the Baylor study noted.

But the Baylor researchers found that only 10.8 percent of their survey respondents report they are unaffiliated with a religion. The lower number, they said, results from the fact that their study asked respondents to name not only a religion and a denomination but also the name and address of their current place of worship. Oddly, some people who listed no religion or denomination did list a congregation and address.

Nearly 63 percent of Americans not affiliated with a religious tradition say they believe in God "or some other higher power." Almost a third of the unaffiliated pray at least occasionally.

According to the survey, 33.6 percent of Americans are evangelical Protestant (although only a third in these denominations refer to themselves as "evangelical"), 22.1 percent are mainline Protestant, 21.2 percent are Catholic, 5 percent are black Protestant, 4.9 percent are "other," and 2.5 percent are Jewish. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was counted in "other."

The survey found that persons 18 to 30 years old are three times more likely to have no religious affiliation than are persons 65 or older; and that the Western United States has the highest percentage of religiously unaffiliated people.

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