In the US, would you say that God is used often as representing what's good or right, especially to children? From what I know, I think that religion, Christianity in particular, gets embedded in American children right from birth, with God used as a powerful symbol to help keep them in line.
In no way is that the case, at least on a societal basis. Neither American culture nor gov't uses God as some sort of tool to keep people in line.
Many people will list themselves as religious, even if they're not, and even beyond that, the percentage considering themselves Christian dropped from 88% in 1990 to 80% in 2001.
Further, about a fourth of that is Catholic.
Demographics_of_the_United_States#Religious_Affiliation
If you bring crime into it, consider also that much of the crime is in urban areas, where you have social issues at work, and also areas where there's racial tension. For example, southern california, has had several instances of racial clashes, such as in the urban areas that are usually mixes of hispanic and black communities. You can't accurately group religion in those areas with religion as it is viewed in rural northeastern portions of the United States, which would be most similar to the pilgrims that founded the country.
Its areas that are heavily diverse that are witness to the most crime, and when you consider that a state like California, which has numerous issues with crime, has a population with no racial majority, whatsoever.
The Afro Carribean community in the UK is also a lot more integrated than African Americans, you'll find.
There is a good point in that, as presently, race relations in the U.S. are pushing much more for recognising different racial groups as seperate rather than pushing for being just treated equally, as was the case 30 or 40 years ago. Spokespeople for the African American community now, too often, are creating a racial divide to further their own goals. Hense why African-American is referred to as such even though many whites referred to as just American have been here for far fewer generations than the African-American community.
As for back to the original topic though, because of the multitude of religions present in the U.S., its hardly as though there is a single monolithic church that everyone belongs to, and while faith is common, it hasn't become simply some institution created by or ran to the benefit of the american gov't. Its just that the faith is considered a part of the historical significance of the U.S., due to the religious origins of the United States.
