Here come the Nones

Are Nones a denomination, demographically?

They don't identify with a religion and their percentage has doubled since 1990, giving them 15 percent of the population, according to Trinity College's 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS).

Now, look at their behavior, says Mark Silk of Trinity College's Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life. They are "are just as likely to switch to a religion in later life as those with a religion are to switch to something else."

Perhaps because Nones are not, despite occasional cries of evangelical panic, sweepingly irreligious. Fewer than 10 percent identify themselves as atheists or atheistic. The majority of Nones (59%) are agnostic or deist.

When Nones may become the largest U.S. denomination, or as Silk observes, group which acts very much like a denomination, U.S. religious life promises to be more rather than less complex.