I think it's good that a materially prosperous country like America retains high levels of religiosity on the whole. That's a Good Sign. In Europe, with the exception of rare countries like Catholic Poland, the general trend is in the opposite direction: the more material wealth a country has, the less religious in general its citizens tend to be.
bold: yes, they replace the divine God with a material god.
American Protestantism has a tendency to mix the two. This is how they end up with the "prosperity Gospel" heresy. There is lip service to the divine God, but He is a means to material wealth.
Religiosity, in itself, is not a good thing. It can be bad if the religion is bad or false. Protestantism may be better than secularism, but it is not on the same level as Catholicism, not even close.
No, this is not a fair assessment of the American religiosity. What makes America special is that there serious religion is normal: it is normal to care about God and what He wants and to let your life be governed by that view. I did not appreciate this and took it for granted until I went to other countries and realized this was a very special gift to have grown up with. Even traditional Catholics in other countries don’t have that instinctive feeling your average American has. This atmosphere makes it more natural to be a traditional Catholic and to be good in general, because Americans have an assumption when they go outside that they are going to meet religious people and they are not surprised or antagonistic, therefore, when they meet you on the street.
As far as materialism, because taking your religion seriously is normal, Americans are much more accepting of someone living a simple life in lieu of a worldly one. They don’t generally condemn someone simply for being poor. They like the idea of the millionaire you’d never guess was a millionaire, because he lives way below his means. They like giving money to those in need and to beggars; the beggars themselves are happy, friendly and polite and have absolutely always said “God bless you” whenever they’ve gotten something from us in my lifetime. I like to show foreigners this and it never fails.
In other countries this idea can be literally “a foreign concept”. They can’t even begin to imagine such a thing in a positive way and are 100% convinced people living that way are either extremely lazy or extremely insane. They don’t give to beggars and you can hardly blame them because the beggars are demanding, anti-God, and ungrateful. Even if you say, “God bless you” to them, they almost always refuse to reply back and instead complain that you haven’t given them exactly what they wanted, sometimes literally the clothes off your back.
Of course, not all countries are like this. I once met a Spanish beggar who was had a cross on his shirt and said “God bless you” and a Swiss one who was very polite and grateful.
Other countries have their own special gifts. In some other countries, it is not as normal to care about your Faith, maybe, as America, but it is more normal to unashamedly identify as Catholic and be uncompromising and disinterested towards other religions, which makes it easier to be a traditional Catholic in that sense. Or, in some countries, it is much more normal than in America to use religious phrases in your everyday conversations, which can be a constant reminder of your Faith.
Each country has it’s own special gifts from God and America has them as well or better than any other country.
