Surely. The Pilgram Fathers of 1620 fled or emigrated from England because of their not accepted religious belief, persecuted by the state church, the Church of England. But they felt and confessed to be loyal subjects of the king, as colonists of the New World. Their communities were theocracies, there were strict rules of public conduct, and each one of them subjected himself daily to a strict examination of conscience as to whether he or she had committed a sin. Those who did not have that faith like the Pilgrim Fathers were not allowed to live there or were thrown out. This applied, for example, to Lutherans or Catholics who then emigrated to America but founded their own settlements.

Yes, of course. If you want to deepen your knowledge on this topic, you should read about the theory of "manifest destiny", to understand how religion is a such important factor for the birth of the United States.

Puritans.

The shape of Church Foundation was in a different circumstances from what prevailed in Europe and England. the Protestant Church arrived to the colonies of North America, beginning from Anglican in the south, which announced of its founding later an official church in Virginia and other settlements, and the benediction with financial support and taxation, it represents the mother country church, and alongside the parish church (congregation ) in the colonies New England, down to the rest of the communities and sects like Quakers, Baptists ,and Presbyterians.

I suppose that this is how it is presented and read in the abundant literature. It is always good for a discussion if the facts are used to formulate a hypothesis to be discussed today.

The arrival of non/conformist churches in America is considered to have formed individuality, except that the non-conformist churches were themselves extremely conformist. It does seem to me that the early churches in the USA formed only part of USA's culture and character serving to represent its Northern European character.

I would like to add another important factor on this discussion: did you ever notice that no president in the U.S. have declared himself as an atheist? As a matter of fact, each of them always refer to God and religion in their possession speeches. It should make us reflect.

Pasquale, many parts of the USA are deeply religious and whether a potential president is themself religious or not or is less relevant than their desire to be elected. No potential president claims to be atheist because of the religious element in the population not for any other reason. The Eastern states and Western states are far less religious and so it is not relevant there.

Only one British Prime Minister has ever publicly proclaimed their religious devotion in more recent times, and that was Blair who then rubberstamped a terrible war. Now that certainly is reason to reflect.

Pasquales comment made me think of which presidents were likely to be non/religious....rathar than athiest. Below my list:

Kennedy- my reading of him gives no genuine indication of belief

Nixon...same.

Johnson

Clinton

Trump

I'm sorry. I think I couldn't explain exactly what I wanted to say. With my precedent commentary I didn't want to say that American presidents are effectively '' believers''. I simply wanted to remark that they use religion with political aims. Than, about the list of presidents you consider as no-religious, well I think that you should also consider the importance of religion for the times of their terms. I think that, even if they weren't real religious they had to show a great sense of Christianity (in general), and this is what, politically, matters.