Americans are willing to have fun with the world of faith.

"The Savvy Convert's Guide to Choosing a Religion" (Knock Knock Books, 2008, $14.95), a humorous new nonfiction book that treats finding the right religion as the ultimate purchase, does that.

It's a Consumer Reports-like assessment of 99 faiths with a "Saturday Night Live" spin, because there's never been a better time to be in the market for meaning.

And if you're seeking your spiritual match, but don't feel like wading through the 208-page bound volume, there are online tests to help you choose, and even a novelty spin wheel you can use or send as a greeting card.

It all comes down to pairing your personal inclinations with dogma while paring down the dozens of faiths covered in the book, test and wheel.

The possibilities are everywhere — Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism — all manner of isms, including more brands of Christianity than fast food.

How is the poor consumer to weigh the perks of each against the drawbacks?

"It's a little like falling in love," says Jen Bilik of Venice, Calif., whose company, Knock Knock, created "The Savvy Convert's Guide."

"You have to pay attention to the initial attraction. But what about the lifestyle and values? Do they really match yours?"

The guide's tongue-in-cheek goal is to make shopping for religion as "easy as buying a new car."

"It really is OK to go shopping for what you want in a religion now," Bilik says. "And, if you know the demands and promises that a religion offers, it might help you avoid buying a lemon."

Still, the humor of the book, which comes from an edgy tone and the oddity of seeing faiths treated like flavors of gum, may be more appealing than the book's factual core, Bilik says.

Her company has taken a light-hearted approach to what the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life recently reported — that Americans overwhelmingly believe in God (92 percent) and yet are not dogmatic about faith.

In fact, 70 percent of the 35,000 people in the survey said there's more than one route to eternal life, and many are sampling the appeals of different traditions.

Gene Thompson of Brandywine Hundred, Del., marvels at how this differs from when he was growing up in the South more than 60 years ago.

He first knew a brand of the Southern Baptist faith that spoke of being the one true path. In more recent years, he's watched faiths pull back from such declarations.

Typically, Americans espouse a view that it's great to be curious, wanting to know what competing traditions offer, he says.

Religion is serious, Thompson says, but it's best expressed with a light and open heart. And he believes there are a growing number of Americans like him.

The Pew survey said there is constant movement among faiths, and that makes for a "very competitive" marketplace.

The founders of Beliefnet, a Web site exploring spirituality, had a sense of this fluidity when launching the site in 1999, says managing editor Michael Kress. The site's Belief-O-Matic has fun with this interest.

The 20 questions ask about your core beliefs. At the end of the quiz, you get a ranking of religions that best match your beliefs.

An Orthodox Jew, Kress scored highest in Reform Judaism and Quakerism, which surprised him.

"Today, it's OK to question how you were raised and where you would find a better fit," Kress says.

Sometimes people are drawn to more than one faith at once, such as Jews interested in Buddhism.

Metro-spirituals are another group of explorers. They tend to be young sophisticates who "take a dash of meditation, a sprinkling of yoga, a pinch of environmentalism" and arrive at a hybrid all their own, Bilik says.

"We've been through a revolution of mobility and choice, so we're no longer stuck with the religion we were born with," she says. "It's brought immense change to how people experience religion."

And while we're not entirely a nation of serial believers, moving from one set of beliefs to the next, Americans are more willing than ever to explore all manner of practices, great and small.

And for those who don't like any of the 99 faiths, the authors have a last word of advice: Start your own.

MARKETING THE MEANING

Some religious perks: