The Pacific Northwest is considered the least churchgoing region in the country, but a new poll says more than half of Washington state residents pray at least once a day.
The survey released last Sunday by The Seattle Times found that 53 percent of residents said they pray at least once a day and 31 percent prayed several times a day.
Nationwide, in a CBS/New York Times poll conducted in February, 36 percent of people said they prayed several times daily.
``I think praying and churchgoing are two separate categories,'' said Patricia O'Connell Killen, chairwoman of the religion department at Pacific Lutheran University. ``Prayer is associated with an individual's own spiritual journey. And increasingly in this region, as well as nationally, spiritual journey is disconnected from churchgoing or institutional affiliation.''
Seventy-two percent of those polled identified themselves as Christians, 3 percent as agnostic or atheist, 1 percent Jewish, and 1 percent Muslim. Two percent said they were adherents of other religions, such as Hinduism or Buddhism. The others were unidentified.
The poll of 500 residents was conducted March 19-23 and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.