On a typical Sunday morning, you might find Laura Cox jogging along the bike path at DeWeese Park.
Bob Streifthau of Centerville spends Sundays tracking what's going on in government by watching C-SPAN or programs such as Meet the Press.
Where you ordinarily won't find them is at church. Though many churches will be packed today for Easter, Cox and Streifthau are part of the growing number of Americans who are "unchurched." Like 14 percent of the people who answered the American Religious Identification Survey last year, they don't identify with any religion.
Streifthau, a retired health inspector, is an atheist who doesn't attend church because he doesn't accept the belief system churches represent.
For Cox, a pharmacy technician, regular church attendance is a habit she never acquired. Her family didn't attend church much when she was a child, and she doesn't attend church now unless she's accompanying a friend.
"I don't even have a reason for not going," Cox said. "I just don't go."
Apparently the number of people who just don't go is expanding rapidly, according to researchers for the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. The researchers called more than 50,000 American households at random early last year and asked, "What is your religion, if any?"
The 2001 American Religious Identification Survey was a follow-up to a similar study done in 1990.
One of the biggest changes revealed by the 2001 survey was that the percentage of people nationally who said they had no religion rose from 8.2 percent in 1990 to 14.1 percent in 2001. Those identifying themselves as Christians of various denominations decreased from 86.2 percent in 1990 to 76.5 percent in 2001.
The percentage who chose other faiths — Judaism, Islam and Buddhism, for example — was largely unchanged, from 3.3 percent in 1990 to 3.7 percent in 2001. But the percentage of respondents who declined to answer the question rose sharply, from 2.3 percent in 1990 to 5.4 percent in 2001.
The researchers doing the survey project that about 2 million Americans consider themselves atheists or agnostics, 200,000 call themselves "humanist" or "secular," and 27.5 million simply say they have no religion.
Surveys taken shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks showed an increase in religious fervor in America, but more recent polls show that has waned.
Cox, 29, said she believes in "a higher power," but beyond that has trouble defining her beliefs.
"I don't know necessarily what I believe," she said. "I sometimes think I need to take a theology class, then I might understand the differences and know what I ought to do."
Cox said that when she was a child, she and her older sister sometimes went to Sunday school and church with friends. She still does that occasionally.
"It's nice to be surrounded with that kind of positive energy," she said. "I don't know of too many other places you can go where people are up and singing and welcoming you in."
At the same time, she sees actions and attitudes in church that make her uneasy, and she hasn't found a church where she is completely comfortable.
"You can take any verse out of the Bible and put your own spin on it," she said. "Some of what I've heard people say I don't want to be associated with.
"I've always considered myself a really good person, but sometimes I wonder if that's enough," she said. "I've seen friends who get into church after they get married and start having children. Maybe that's what will happen to me."
Streifthau said he hasn't met many other people in the Dayton area who identify themselves as atheists, but he doesn't find that surprising.
"Churches have people getting together for dinners. They have songfests," Streifthau said. "There aren't even any songs that resonate with being an atheist. There's no place where atheists are likely to come together.
"Anyway, it's not a very popular thing to be in a society that's 80 to 90 percent religious."
Streifthau studied zoology in college and has always considered himself a rational person. "The more you understand the scientific method, the more you realize there's no need for a God to explain things," he said.
Streifthau said co-workers and people he has known casually probably have never realized he's an atheist. He said the issue rarely came up.
The only time he generally discusses philosophy is when he attends monthly meetings of the Free Inquiry Group, an atheist organization based in Cincinnati.
"It sure is a lot more relaxing to be with people who won't feel badly toward you if you express yourself honestly," Streifthau said.
Tim Avery is Ohio's director for American Atheists Inc., which is holding its national convention in Boston this weekend.
Avery believes the dwindling number of people identifying with religions is a sign that America is in the early stages of a movement away from organized religion. It may take another century or more, but he thinks powerful church organizations are on their way out.
And Avery says that is a positive development. "Most of the atheists I know are among the most kind, honest, loyal and trustworthy people you are likely to come across," he said.
Organized religion is a primary cause or justification for many of the major conflicts in the world today, he said. "You can't convince an atheist to fly a plane into a building by promising them they will be surrounded by beautiful virgins in the afterlife," he said.
The growing ranks of the unchurched hasn't gone unnoticed within local religious organizations.
The Rev. William Augman Jr. is superintendant of the Springfield district of the United Methodist Church, and he said the church's membership has been declining throughout the past decade.
Young people in particular seem bored with traditional church institutions, he said, and the United Methodist Church is trying to bring young adults in by updating service styles to be more lively and contemporary. The effort is part of a national "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors" campaign to improve church attendance.
Curtis Kneblik, assistant director of evangelization for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, said the Catholic Church is trying to bring people back with a program called "Come Home."
He said many people who were raised as Catholics have become alienated from the faith mostly after getting divorced or marrying someone outside the church.
Kneblik said some have left the church because of disputes or misunderstandings with priests. Despite the current scandal about sexual abuse by priests, Kneblik said he hasn't run into anyone who left the church over that issue.
"As a faith community, we want to admit wrong when wrong has been done and to show someone the welcoming face of Christ if they want to return to the Catholic church," he said.
Harold Fox of Dayton is a member of a 17-person congregation that meets in the houses of members. His group was founded on the philosophy that a congregation should be actively out in the community trying to make a better world.
Most of the members of the 35-year-old congregation are older, and, as with larger churches, new people are needed to keep the group going.
"We're starting a new ministry reaching out to people who are unchurched but have the same passion for social justice that brought us together originally," Fox said.
"What we're finding are a lot of refugees from church," Fox said. "There are a lot of people out there who have had some bad experiences, and they have a real aversion to church."
The religious leaders who said they are trying to draw people back into the fold say they want to mend fences and correct situations that may have driven members away. And they say the unchurched would benefit by giving faith a chance.
"We're inviting people to come in," Augman said. "Coming together in a church is an important part of life."