Philadelphia, USA - A new poll is putting Americans at the top of the list when it comes to religion.
The Ipsos poll finds that Americans profess unquestioning belief in God and support mixing faith and politics at much higher rates than people in ten other countries.
Nearly all US respondents said faith is important to them, and only two percent said they don't believe in God. Also, nearly 40 percent said religious leaders should try to sway legislators.
Meantime, respondents in Western Europe were found to be the least devout among those surveyed.
And only Mexicans come close to Americans in embracing faith. But unlike Americans, Mexicans strongly object to clergy lobbying lawmakers, in line with the nation's historical opposition to church influence.
The polling was conducted in May in the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, South Korea and Spain.
"The United States is a much more religious country than other similar countries, looks a lot like what you call developing countries, like Mexico, Iran and Indonesia," said John Green, an expert on religion and politics at the University of Akron.
In the United States, some of the most pressing policy issues involve moral questions — such as gay marriage, abortion and stem cell research — that understandably draw religious leaders into public debate, Green said.
The poll found Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to think clergy should try to influence government decisions in this country.
For Jason Schindler, a 30-year-old Markle, Ind., businessman who has young children, "Getting away from religion and overusing the separation of church and state has put a damper on our children and society as a whole."
But Democrat Elizabeth Brill, a Democrat from Cleveland, said, "I don't believe religion and government should mix."
Many countries other than the United States have been through bloody religious conflict that contributes to their suspicion of giving clergy any say in policy. But a variety of factors contribute to that feeling.
In Spain, where the government subsidizes the Catholic Church, and in Germany, which is split between Catholics and Protestants, people are about evenly divided over whether they consider faith important. The results are almost identical in Britain, where the state church, the Church of England, is struggling to fill pews.
Italians are the only European exception in the poll. Eighty percent say religion is significant to them and just over half say they unquestioningly believe in God. But in Italy, as in other European countries, enthusiasm is low for the mixing of religion and politics.
The Associated Press-Ipsos polls of about 1,000 adults in each of the 10 countries were taken May 12-26. Each has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.