I've cracked it - why Americans are more religious than Europeans

It seems like an anomaly that religion plays so much more of a role in the USA than in Europe. We share a common Western heritage, so why are Americans so much more god-fearing?

My hypothesis is it has to do with genetics. The USA was founded as a beacon of religious freedom. It didn't matter what nonsense you chose to believe, or which god you worshipped, you were welcome to move to the new country and worship freely (unless you then converted to Mormonism).

This was in sharp contrast to many European countries where religious minorities were zealously persecuted - fined, imprisoned, denied many social rights.

Some scientists have suggested that spirituality or belief in God may have genetic origins - that certain gene combinations would tend to lead people to have more faith in the supernatural.

Taking this as our starting point, then we have a historical background of European religious persecution leading to migration to the USA. Taking this one step further, is it unreasonable to propose that this may have resulted in a great gene sorting exercise. The population on the east of the Atlantic would be relatively god gene deficient, whereas that on the west would be relatively god gene abundant.

To test this hypothesis, I would make the following prediction:

1) European countries which have a history of emigration due to religious persecution would now tend to have higher rates of irreligion and lower rates of Christian belief.

Vice versa for those countries which don't have a history of this.

The trouble is testing it - there are so many different methods of surveying belief, that comparing different surveys is difficult.

This has got to be a very plausible explanation though. It also means that perhaps the US population may slowly become less genetically religious in future, now that there is a recent influx of hispanic genes not linked to religious persecution.

Linked to this would be other predictions. For example, repressive theocracies would tend to have the opposite effect - if it is irreligious people who are persecuted, it would tend to be irreligious people who emigrate. So we could see countries like Iran becoming more fundamentalist over time


Anyway, I want this to be recorded as one of the limited number of original "Big Ideas" I've had in my life.

(another one is my hypothesis that the mechanisation of warfare will ultimately make males less brutally aggressive - since there will no longer be such a natural advantage in being a macho psychopath who can rip people apart with his bare hands in battle. Thus in the very very long term, tanks, bombs, and missiles serve the interests of feminism).