Why Atheism Replaces Religion In Developed Countries

[Valkyrie]

Valkyrie: The things as you ask, you won't find it as much but...every time some news comes up that someone has prayed for health while a simple visit to the doctor would have done the trick, it comes from the USA. I have even heard news of a child suffering from diabetes, which was untreated because the parents preferred praying for a cure instead of a proven and working way to deal with it. So amongst the 'western world', the USA citizens certainly seem to be the most religious.

There also seems to be a 'is the USA poor' discussion going on. The problem of course, is to define poor. Would we look at debts, the USA is poor. Do we look at average income, it's not so poor. If we look at the income of the majority of the population, it's slowly edging towards poor again. But even with these interpetations, the USA is certainly not the poorest, and it's far from being the poorest.
But I do think that when it comes to religion and atheism, the USA is actually the 'oddball', and not Sweden. The USA is an oddball in many ways, like being a very poor and a stinking rich country at the same time. When I look at other European countires, it seems that atheism is also growing there, and religion (I mean Christianity) is in decline.

I wonder if the USA is becoming more radical. It´s hard to see because I don´t really know how it was exactly like there a couple of decades back.

I do see what you mean, Girlysprite. Yes, the idea of God seems to be everywhere these days, and there are a few parents that let their children die out of an unsubstantiated belief in God. I won't argue that some of us really do believe- Christian scientists are one such group, but among Christians in general, belief is not as deep as it would seem.

You offer as evidence those who let their children die out of belief, and that is valid. However, I'd like to propose that the number of American Christians who do this are far outweighed by the number that pretend not to hear the beggars on the street asking for spare change.

I appreciate that there are different levels of belief, and I suppose that one could claim that even a slight belief still qualifies as belief. Maybe I should have phrased my intitial post differently . . .

How about: "Americans do not believe as much, or as deeply, as the circumstancial and anecdotal evidence would seem to suggest."