ABSTRACT
By almost any metric, the United States is one of the most religious postindustrial countries in the world. For instance, in a survey of 30 countries (Smith 2012), 3 percent of people in the US reported that they do not believe in God versus 18 percent in Great Britain, 20 percent in the Netherlands, and 23 percent in France. Only Chile, Cyprus, and the Philippines ranked lower than the US. Conversely, 61 percent of people in the US said that they know God exists and have no doubts about it; this figure contrasts sharply with those from other post-industrial nations, including Denmark (13 percent), Sweden (10 percent), and Japan (4 percent). Moreover, according to a large-scale study from the Pew Research Center (2015), a majority of adults in the US report praying daily (55 percent) and believing that religion is very important (53 percent).
