What is it about America? Does America's education system just suck?

[Aegrus]

Here in the UK theres almost noone who still believes in creationism, and the majority of young people are atheists.

If you go to church you just find it full of old and middle aged people, and some captive kids who are forced to go. I guess we're smarter than our parents generation.

What is it about America that so many people still believe in the virtually literal word of the Bible and are such strong Christians.

Do they actually teach kids science and evolution in American schools?

It makes me think either Americans are genetically stupider than other countries or their education system must be absolutely terrible.

Young people in America just don't care, because their parents are self-entitled idiots who just repeat mindlessly, over and over, that America is the best country in the world, and Americans are the best people in the world (for trying so hard to save all the other starving people the world is apparently made of), just because they were told that as children and have never left America to see differently. There's strong bigotry here. Most Americans see America as the most important and only good thing in the world, due in large part because our history classes downplay the role of any other countries besides us in world history. (Russia, apparently, didn't win WWII, ancient China was never powerful, and the French didn't help us win our revolution, which totally wasn't just a bunch of greedy pinheads who wanted lower taxes than the European citizens had to pay. Seriously, it's passed off as a war for freedom, nevermind we were fighting for special privilege. And everyone just ignores that by the time we abolished slavery, most other European countries had already done away with it. History classes make it seem like we were the first ones to realize it was wrong- not damn near the last.) World history BEFORE America is barely discussed.
I've chatted with my fellow American friends on this issue, and they couldn't even name what countries we had troops in right now. Is that a little shocking, that the biggest (military) power in the world literally has no idea what war's it's in?
They thought that the middle east was a desert filled with terrorists, and said we should nuke them because they're all the same. They said asians are short little people who say "ching chong" and are obsessed with honor, and they think Europe is below Africa, and still fights wars with knights. I'm not making this up. They think Africa is one country. None of them even knew the differences between Republicans and Democrats, despite fervently claiming to be one or the other.
And it's not just my friends who are idiots- it's EVERYONE. I'm sorry, I badly needed that rant.