ps: at some point this discussion will mention the difference between Europeans and US Americans :) The importance of "god" in US culture is quite astounding, really.
Hmm, well. I am from the ungodly Netherlands and have been living in Florida for about 9 years now. From what I can tell, the European media sure like to paint the US as a very religious country (among other things); and certainly, many Americans feel like they are, or pretend to be. At the same time, many of those same Americans do everything their god forbids, and apparently seem to think this is perfectly OK, assuming they give it much thought at all.
I am not looking to criticize Americans here, but I think in everyday life, there isn't all that much of a difference with less religious European countries, in spite of the apparent emphasis on religion here in the US.
In the USA it is culturally and socially acceptable to be "religious." Many individuals take up a religion for acceptance one way or the other, without harking to the power of it. So basically, they slap a name on themselves, and go to church off/on.
You cannot tell religion till it is unpopular, and oftentimes till it is persecuted.
<<In the USA it is culturally and socially acceptable to be "religious.">>
Ah, yes. In some European countries, this is much less the case. I noticed that in the US it's perfectly normal for the president (or other public figures) to say that they have been praying, for example. In the Netherlands, if the prime minister said that nowadays, people would look at him like he's pretty weird, or at least old-fashioned. =) (Even if that prime minister belongs to the "christian democrat" party.)
(It wasn't always like that, by the way; only a few decades ago religion played a much more important role in politics, with separate political parties for every major christian denomination.)
