Why are Americans so religious?

America was first settled by people who were being severely persecuted for their religious beliefs in England (at that time, the Puritains). If you dig a little bit into English History, you'll discover that the Puritains were hunted down, jailed, tortured, killed and threatened by the Crown. So they left England where they could find peace without persecution (here in the New World).

The Puritains had a very profound effect on the American Mind, blatantly Protestant, very fundamentalistic in nature. Since our country started out mainly in New England where the Puritains settled, many offshoots eventually developed, all Protestant, all fairly fundamentalist in nature. And that seems to have spread just about everywhere. In those days, there were no credentials - anyone who could read a Bible, could preach. And so it sort of became an American tradition for people to just pick up the Bible and start preaching (there were all kinds of road preachers). Well, I am not a historian, but that is the way I see it.