Why is America so religious?

[DeistPaladin]

Most countries which have the highest standard of living are becoming increasing secular and less religious.
In the UK its less people with each generation who seem to believe in myths and it seems to be becoming more and more atheist, whereas America seems to be obsessed with religion.

A very good question and one I've often wondered about. It seems especially strange to me because America was once a bastion for secularism. Mind you, I'm going back two hundred years when Europe was still in the midst of sectarian violence. To the best of my knowledge, we were the first without an official religion or state sponsored Church. The separation of Church and State was written into our very Constitution, a document that never referenced any divine authority.

Now the situation seems to have reversed itself.

One hypothesis I've heard, which would explain it, is that because there was no state sponsored religion, the mind viruses that survived had to be shrewdly marketed and gain popular support. Preachers became proficient at the art of razzle dazzle. The environment created a particularly aggressive strain of the meme. Meanwhile, the state religions in Europe got fat and lazy.

It wouldn't be the first time that a destructive strain of fundamentalism grew out of an environment of religious tolerance and plurality. Christianity itself was born in the theologically eclectic Roman Empire.