1. Europeans are far better educated.

2. Unlike ours, their populations were SLAMMED by two World Wars and they KNOW there is no god in heaven to save them.

It really is an US thing. The other European heritage dominated ex-English colonies - Canada, Australia and New Zealand - very much follow the European path of increased secularity. But then again, they are also much closer to Europe in terms of social provision, as well.
Maybe that insecurity (no state health care, poor state education, poor unemployment support, poor state pension provision) makes religion more attractive?

the avg european is better eductated & smarter than the avg american.

Europe today is more progressive in social issues than the United States is. The Spaniards and their Catholicism brought to the U.S. across the Mexico border has been dragging the American society behind for 250 years.

It is ironic that Europe where people ran away from religion and religious persecution is leaving religion. England is one of the least religious countries in Europe today. And the place they ran to - America is more religious.

Good post, good comments. I think the biggest problem was allowing the line of separation of church and state to be crossed. Europe came away from 2 WWs wondering how a God could allow what happened to happen. America came away thinking thank GOD we stopped the madness. We put it on our money in the 50's - In God We Trust. By the 70's money was becoming God for big corporate. Education in the sciences fell behind Europe and we still had not dealt with our racial problems.

Erm because we shipped all the religious extremists to North America and USA particularly became quite isolationist. Also USA believed in American exceptionalism consequently ideas didn't travel. Contrary to popular belief, large swaves of EU, particularly UK, never really wholeheartedly accepted 0Christianity. Christianity was changed by the Anglo saxons not the other way round. So we have Easter with eggs, harvest festivals and Christmas with trees and yule logs!

Yes, In most of Europe, there have been government-sanctioned religions, so the churches had no competition. In the USA, since the Constitution was put in place, there was "freedom of religion" so all churches were free to morph their BS stories to capture the most followers.

Could it be because of the European enlightenment ?.Many people emigrated from Europe before and during the enlightenment so they had the earlier religious mindset. Apart from the Eastern and Western seaboards the USA has been fairly insular and inward looking so the strict religious beliefs were retained .
Just a thought.

European people are more open minded than American people, but I wish they eventually will catch up.

In I,Robot the age of regions is mentioned in regards to economic drive. Europe being the oldest and therefor most settled and content, America being in the middle and starting to realize there’s more to life, and the Caribbean and African regions being the youngest and most driven to succeed

Perhaps a similar thing is going on with religion. The modern concept of science had its birthplace in Europe. They’ve had a few more years for serious critical thinking to filter down to the masses. Also, as has been mentioned already, a much longer history with which to view the horrors of religion. I have no time right now but it’d be neat to research the numbers of non believers compared to when a region embraced science.

Non believers are growing faster than believers - church attendance among young people is dropping.
The religious right is very vocal and militant - they have a much larger voice in our political discourse than they deserve.

America was founded, at least in part, as a refuge for religious holy-rollers from Europe.

US is a younger country that has has essentially become the last safe haven for Christianity in the world, so it draws more Christians than other parts of the west. US also had a unique revival in Christianity in the '50s and beyond because atheist communism was viewed as a major threat, so Christianity was considered to be a method to oppose communism. But like Europe, US is becoming less religious over time.

In addition to most of the things others have mentioned. Most European countries have state churches, therefore without the separation of church and state, the church becomes seen as merely another arm of the state, and is therefore despised because of that. (It tends to be the state churches who have lost most.) And secondly much of Christian roots are in Europe, people are therefore more aware of its true history.

Education.
And travel.

Because American's appear to be more gullible than the Europeans.

Education. European Countries are much better educated than we here in the U.S. When you go through school from elementary to high school and beyond with inferior books to learn from, you are indoctrinated not educated. To many of the books on U.S. history and World history have been dumbed down with outright lies here in the U.S. We can mostly thank the religious whacks here in Texas for the textbooks all over this Country that fail to educate our people.

I really believe inbreeding in the former Confederate states after the Civil War has led to genetically inferior folks in that part of the country, leading to a level of ignorance that leads them to relgion to lift them out of their lot in life, and following political leaders who feed those insecurities. If you spend enough time in the South and Southeast it is obvious there is something wrong with too many of the people in those areas.

First: Religious freedom since Peace of Westphalia peace, that ended the 30 years war and granted religious freedom, this was the seed of secularization of Europe.
Political and social life outside religion makes the out of religion step easier as you can keep your social laces.
Many governments using the religion to support ideology put a lot of people out of the organized religion, and there they stayed, creating pockets of atheism or at least people that were not accepted in the churches.

These movements created a secular Europe that even if they are religious they do not care much about it.
But in some countries religion is still used as part of identity and nationalism.

In US and America in general as a continent the isolation from deferent religious neighbors (with power to do some harm) and homogeneity of religion, plus the lack of the same religious war in Europe did not started the same process, also the cold war that characterized atheism as part of the commie pack (as the church was one of the pillars of the Czar power and thus the soviets tried to destroy it).

Also education level of the lower class where most of religious leaders (that I think are not religious at all) harness power. US has the most advanced universities and most uneducated lower class of the developed countries at the same time.

For the other parts of the world, religion was a big part of the resistance to colonial powers, and today they have access to modern weapons, so the few can control the many, thus keeping religion as important part of society.

In Russia the religion is on rise as Putin uses the same Imperial symbols as his power (yep, his internal and external politics are similar to Russian empire, not Soviet Union).

Even in the US it is changing.

Well you shouldn't equate other western hemispheres with the US. For instance Canada has seen significant declines in religious observations for the last 50 years and that trend continues to be strong.

I think the US is much the same BUT there are significant exceptions in some regions. I think the question is "Are those regions indicative of the larger religious trend?" and I'm pretty sure its NO but due to the press they get and the power they wield/want they may seem more prevalent than they actually are

One thing that was commented and i strongly agree with is the cold war period and the fight against communism which by default labeled communism and athiest secular thinking together. while capitalism and Christanity was on the other front. Since USA was on the fore front on the battle with commi this gave the churches to have a fertile grounds to expand and label all non believers as commi. Thus hindering critical thinking in fear of being outcasted as an enemy.

No I can't because it's not true.
Your misconception comes from the fact Evangelicals (and Catholics and Christians in general) VOTE!
For the first time ever, in the U.S., people with no religious affiliation outnumber both Evangelicals and Catholics. But spurred on by religio-cultural issues, ESPECIALLY abortion, devout, fundamentalist Christians VOTE in droves, while the non-religious sit on their hands.
So the religious are massively over-represented on all levels of government, DOMINATE it in fact. Meanwhile the non-religious are invisible, have no direct impact on public policy, and must be held to account for the many crimes committed in their name, because of their indolence, indifference, and sheer abrogation of their civic duty.
It's a disgrace.
But it's not like they actually care.
The lazy liberal left are gadually snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, as the religious will use their creeping tenacles to eventually destroy democracy altogether and impose their worldview by force. One example is net neutrality, another is AM talk radio. All media outlets will eventually be co-opted by the right-wing fanatics and the left will be pushed into an underground dungeon. The internet is all but lost.
All because liberals refuse to VOTE.

Its nice