Seven-in-ten religiously unaffiliated adults, who do not follow any religion, nonetheless believe in a higher power of some kind, including 17% who say they believe in God as described in the Bible and 53% who believe in some other form of higher power or spiritual force in the universe. Only one-quarter of religious “nones” (27%) say they do not believe in a higher power of any kind.

That’s the result of a Pew Research Center survey of more than 4,700 U.S. adults.

The ‘religiously unaffiliated’ comprises those who describe themselves as ‘atheist, ‘agnostic’ or ‘nothing in particular’.

Even one-in-five of the self-described ‘atheists’, however, do believe in some other kind of higher power or spiritual force in the universe (18%).