The "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey," released Feb. 25 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, was based on surveying a nationally representative sample of 35,000 adults. It shows a remarkable increase in the number of Americans who are looking for other religions.

"People will be surprised by the amount of movement by Americans from one religious group to another – or to no religion at all," said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum. "They’ll also be surprised by the extent to which immigration is helping to reshape the US religious landscape."

The study indicates that the largest increase is in the group of people who do not associate with any specific religion, but this does not mean they are atheist. When asked, they describe their religion as "nothing in particular."

Some highlights of the survey include:

• Roughly 44 percent of American adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.

• The number of adults who said they are not affiliated with any particular faith today (16.1 percent) is more than double the number who said they were not affiliated with a particular religion as children.

• Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with a particular religion.

• Protestantism is on the verge of becoming a minority. It is at 51 percent today as compared to the 1980s, when almost two-thirds of the population was Protestant.

• Nearly four-in-ten people are married to a spouse with a different religious affiliation.

• Nearly one-third of those raised Catholic have left the religion, but due to immigration the overall percentage of Catholics remains stable.

• Hindus and Mormons are the most likely to be married.

• Mormons and Muslims have the largest families.

• Hindus and Jews are much more likely than other groups to report high income levels.

• In sharp contrast to Islam and Hinduism, Buddhism in the United States is primarily made up of native-born adherents. Three-in-four Buddhists say they are converts to the religion.

According to the survey, religions which demand the least from their adherents are losing the most people, and vice versa. As the Wall Street Journal noted on March 1, "The mainline Protestant churches -- with their less exclusionary views of salvation, looser rules for sexual conduct and sermons about social justice -- have lost membership, especially since the early 1990s. The more traditional evangelical churches keep growing."

Analysts of the survey have also noted that the remarkable increase in change of religious affiliation is not necessarily a cause for alarm, pointing out that "shopping for religion" displays a conscious effort by people to make a choice, rather than just accept what they were born with.

Subsequent releases of the survey will include analyses of the US Religious Landscape Survey’s findings on Americans’ religious beliefs and practices as well as their social and political views.

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