• The LDS faith is largely white, but not as uniformly so as several other denominations. Mormons are 86 percent white non-Hispanic; 3 percent black;, 2 percent Asian; 3 percent other or mixed, non-Hispanic; 1 percent Hispanic, in a sampling of 571. By comparison, 71 percent are white. Jews are 95 percent white, and members of mainline Protestant Churches are 91 percent white.

• Jewish people have the largest proportion earning more than $100,000 yearly, at 46 percent; LDS Church members have 16 percent in that income category, the same as the national figure.

• The best-educated people in the country, according to the study, are Hindus, with 74 percent college graduates or people with post-graduate schooling; they are followed by Jews, 59 percent; Buddhists, 48 percent; Orthodox Christians, 46 percent; other Christians, 40 percent; other faiths, 39 percent; members of mainline Protestant churches, 34 percent; unaffiliated, 29 percent; Mormons, 28 percent; Catholics, 26 percent; Muslims, 24 percent; members of evangelical Christian churches, 20 percent; members of historically black Protestant churches, 16 percent; Jehovah's Witnesses, 9 percent.

• Nearly half, 44 percent, of U.S. adults have left the faith of their childhood for another religion or no religion at all. The survey shows the country is 78 percent Christian and about to lose its status as a majority Protestant nation, at 51 percent and slipping. Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, wrote in the report that the group will be releasing another survey in the spring concerned with religious beliefs.

Lugo wrote, "We will extensively probe such topics as belief in God and the afterlife, attitudes toward the authority of sacred writings, frequency of worship attendance and prayer, views on abortion, attitudes about the proper role of government and opinions on foreign affairs."

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Contributing: Eric Gorski, Associated Press

E-mail: bau@desnews.com