Why is Atheism more controversial in America than Europe?

[JuliaL]

I think it's because America was (not) founded on Christian principles.

I too really sympathise. I know I've got it easy, in terms of religious nutters. That's one of the big reasons I wanted to join an atheist community to help provide some relief from the madness.

It's hard to say exactly what the cause is, but I think the point about politics is a very valid one. There's nothing like the kind of preaching and religious bias in our politics. Shit as it is, if anyone started talking about "what God wants" in a campaign speech, they would probably have committed career suicide.

I would say that the United States as constituted in the late 18th century was founded on enlightenment thought with an express intention of excluding religion.
But the North American continent was initially colonized by extreme religious nutballs that couldn't get along well enough to stay in Europe.
They got kicked out (or oppressed enough and encouraged to leave) and founded religious camps in what many of them thought was the new Israel. I live 25 miles from Zion Illinois.
No surprise that only 250 years later the tenacious tendrils of religious extremism still wrap themselves around community and civic life here.
The founders were geniuses and we were lucky to have had them.  They established a foundation that has endured and to some degree improved equity among its members even while it was operated by the religious nutballs.
Stay tuned.  It's a race between sanity, Ruth Bader Ginsberg's or Scalia's life expectancy and who gets elected POTUS next.