Many Western Europeans think of Americans as hopelessly, bafflingly, and dangerously, religious. Many Americans think of Western Europeans as distressingly, inexplicably, and unrelentingly, secular. In 2009, the German sociologist Hans Joas observed that \u201cit is widely accepted that the United States is far more religious than practically any comparable European state.\u201d And he noted Western European puzzlement: \u201cThe more secularized large parts of Europe became, the more exotic the religiosity of the United States seemed to European observers.\u201d So why are Americans, compared with Western Europeans, seemingly so religious? And are we as religious as we seem?<\/span><\/p>\n Sixty percent of Americans say that religion is \u201cvery important\u201d to them; only 21 percent of Western Europeans say that. How did we get that way? How did they get that way? And how different are we?<\/p>\n Maybe everyone is religious. Maybe sports fans who live or die each week with the fortunes of Manchester United or the Pittsburgh Steelers are as religious, in their own way, as earnest participants in churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples. And maybe the Americans who look on with outrage when some mob \u201cdesecrates\u201d the flag are as devoted to a civil religion as the Pope is to the Catholic faith. But the sixty percent of Americans who say religion is \u201cvery important\u201d to them and the seventy-nine percent of Western Europeans who just can\u2019t bring themselves to say that, probably mean something more traditional. They probably mean that they believe\u2014or don\u2019t\u2014in God; follow\u2014or don\u2019t\u2014the Torah; cherish\u2014or don\u2019t\u2014the Buddha; or devote themselves\u2014or don\u2019t\u2014to the teachings of Mohammed the Prophet. In other words, most of them probably think conventionally about religion when someone asks if it is \u201cvery important\u201d to them. But whether the question is about beliefs, practices, identity, the veneration of tradition, or some other familiar view of religion, most Americans answer it one way and most Western Europeans another. Let\u2019s leave the Eastern Europeans out of view; they complicate matters. We are talking about Western Europe and the United States. That is more than enough.<\/p>\n