I've been playing a lot of CK2 and EU4 the past couple months and religion is a HUGE part of the games. Almost every time you bring up history the first thing that comes to mind is religion. From Ancient Egypt, India, China, and Greece, to the founding of Christianity and the Protestant wars, also let's not forget the Crusades, religion is always the main factor of politics and the daily lives of the people of all classes. I was wondering if religion was really always on peoples mind or if history just talks about it more kind of like with wars, all of history wasn't wars, but war is what's put in the books, is it the same with religion?
So I have been thinking for a bit of how to answer your question as it is a very broad scope. The short answer to your question is no not as much as you.might think, but with a few caveats. I have found that Americans and Westerners in general often project "insane religiousity" into the past as our own countries have become dramatically less religous recently. People assume that this is a linear line and then project this back which gives us a picture of everyone constantly praying and being uber religous in the past.
What is true is that the category of "nones" is fairly new, nearly everyone in past identified with some religous tradition although even then there are exeptions see Spinoza's philosophy or some of the ancient Greek philosophical schools and philosophers. It is also true that religion and politics where more intertwined with most countries having a state religion and groups such as the Catholic church having a lot of cloute.
The veiw of the role of religion as a community was also different. To give an example of this look at Lebanon today in Lebanon there is a system where offices if givernment and pairlemantary seats are reserved for different religous sects, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the Prime minister a Sunni Muslim, the speaker of pairlement a Shia Muslim, and the deputies Greek Orthodox. Such a system would never work in America because we don't indentify with our community that strongly, no one cares to ensure that presbyterians are adequetly represented especially between denominations we view this as something for and indivdual to decide. In Lebanon a member of a religous community is a member regardless of their actual devotion or if they follow the tenents of their religion.
Similary unless you were in the edges of medieval Europe Christianity woukd be the religion, but the level of personal devotion could very wildly based on the region and the individual's personlity and location just like today. We don't know much about averagevpeoples thoughts byt we do have some sources law for one England had laws about church attendence and you don't need a law for that unless you need to encourage some people to attend.
Finally certian conditions made forced a milder interpretation of relugions for some groups. Most of the steppe nomads in Central Asia converted to Islam, but their nomadic way of life made a strict interpretation hard hard to follow, not that medieval Islamuc societies might not he as strict as you'd imagine the types of Islam in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan are modern inventions, regardless a lackof Korans and Mosques and education, plus a fondness for fermented horse milk made a strict interpretation unlikley. Some things like the separation of the sexes were simply not possible when people live in yurts and need to move together. The type of mystical loise Islam that came to dominate this region is nothing like people imagine the Islam of the past.
All of this is not to say that there were not intensly religous people in the past there certianly were, but the idea that everyone was a fanatic while.popular is incorrect. Even things you.think would be clear like the Crusades did not always allign neatly into Muslim vs Christian and you had events oike The 100 years war which were almost entirely secular.
Why am I not seeing any comments? It says there's 3 but their not showing up???