Both Russ and Vanessa brought up how the Protestant religion has shaped the U.S. in contrast to how Islam has shaped the Middle East. Russ especially mentioned religion in contrast to reason.
I think that our country's Protestant heritage has actually had a strong influence on making the U.S. a rational nation. In many ways, Protestantism broke away from Catholicism in order to have a more rational religion: they divested themselves of extensively ornate religious ceremonies, used Bibles written in the vernacular, and preached that each man could speak to God himself, without the aid of a priest.
Through religion has evolved a lot in the past 230 years, and as liberal college students we laugh at the idea that our president might wake up and ask God for guidance every morning, religion is still and inextricable part of our nation. It is threaded through every detail of our laws and government (look at marriage laws for an example - they're based on social tradition, which is based solely in religion), and the Protestant faith in the reason of common man pervades - not just in our democratic voting system or "trial by a jury of your peers", but even in the way presidential candidates spend more time trying to look like a regular guy than on detailing the issues they support.
The ideology of manifest destiny is a perfect example of the intersection of explicitly Protestant beliefs and a "secular" yet Protestant-based reliance on reason. Expansion was (and is) justified both with religion and logic: we expand because God wants us to (or because it's our moral duty to spread our government), but also because it makes sense to occupy space to the West (or consolidate our power in the Middle East).
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I agree that Protestantism is a more rational branch of Christianity compared to Catholicism, but I still don't think I would go as far as saying Protestantism has laid a foundation of rationalism for our country. Still present in Protestant faith is the idea of apocalypse, of pre-determinism (which plays a big part in the idea of the Protestant Work Ethic), of racial superiority based purely on bigotry and selective pseudoscience, etc.. The list goes on. I guess I should clarify by saying its establishment religion in general, not protestantism in particular, which accounts for a large part of the ass-backwardness of our country.
Of course, a fully-fleshed out discussion would also include mention of the difference between different branches of Protestantism... ie fundamentalism vs. more open sects. That's a-whole-nother post though.
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