text: why are (many) americans so religious?   certainly your underlying assumption is borne out in statistics.  in the u.s., polls show people self-identifying as atheistic less than half a percent of the time, though as much as 13% say they're non-religious (which i infer means they're in a religion, but they don't really care about it).  world-wide polls, however, have as much as 10% of the population identifying themselves as atheists and 16% in addition as non-religious.  in the u.k. there's even a segment of the population where 40% (!) identified themselves as atheists.  (link to statistics below)  as to why that is... i think most would just chalk it up to the equally nebulous 'societal influence'.  and even americans are hard-pressed to deny it's there, though sometimes you have to phrase the question correctly.  the one i like to use is, "what do you think are the chances of an outspoken atheist being elected president?"  in a democracy of fair-minded people, you'd think the issue wouldn't be a non-starter.  yet most americans i speak to rate the likelihood as zero (or less!).  for the record, i can sympathize with how the atheists feel.  polytheists like me don't do much better in america either!