Religion Quotes

While reading through "More Religion, but Not the Old-Time Kind, I found that there was one quote the stuck out from all of the rest. "The Global attitudes study correlated views on religion with annual per capita income and found that wealthier nations tend to place less importance on religion - with the exception of the United States." The first bit of confusion that I have captured is that many of the wealthy nations in this world do not see religion as that important. I begin to wonder how is it possible that such a statistic has been shown.
But, with the United States being so involved with religion, I can see this very clearly. My practice is Catholicism and I tend to be very strong - minded about my religion. I've noticed that every where I go, someone is making a remark about religion and what the believe, if they even believe anything at all. Even though someone may not believe that there is a God or some kind of creator yet they have a strong enough will to stand up for what they believe, to me that just means that religion is important to them. I think that is where this statistic somes from because in the United we have so many different cultures and so many different opinions that religious views come into play.