> Any hypotheses as to why the U.S. should be so uniquely plagued by
religiosity?
I wouldn't say uniquely, but certainly the US, in general, is one of the more fundamentalist nations around. It probably has to do with the split face of the democratic ethos that serves as the constitutional ground. Religion is assumed to be true, with full authorial powers and legitimacy, but at the same time no legislation may be passed with direct appeal to "religious" reasoning (at least according to the books). So one the one hand you have the truth of God, on the other, you can't proclaim this truth from the white house. The result: religion becomes a primary vehicle for the establishing of counter-cultrual discourses ("the return of the repressed"). There would likely be less religious "crackpots" if the church and state were re-united because then no one would take the theocracy seriously... and the grounds for counter-culture ("transgression") would change. Which is better? I dunno.
ken