Well this post is mainly based on various interviews I had with various U.S. Senior Citizens. So basically every single one I talked to say a Nuclear War wouldn't happen/ or the U.S. would win because it would be "God's Will." I've also read(but forgot the source...maybe Newsweek or the N.Y. Times?) that the Soviet Union was even moe Paranoid about Nuclear War then the U.S.
That led me to this question. Would Nuclear War between the United States and the Soviet Union be more likely if the Soviet Union(Or at least its leaders) were religious/Spiritual? Any thoughts?
Hard to say, as Communism was explicitly secular. One could argue that Communism/Marxism (particularly under Stalin and to a point Brezhnev) as practiced by the Soviet Union
was a religion, which gets us back where we started. The Soviets only tolerated the Russian Orthodox Church because the KGB had infiltrated and compromised the priesthood. The confessional was a great way to locate dissidents.
Prior to the 1917 Revolution, the USA and Russia were on fairly friendly terms, and had no outstanding international issues, so a timeline in which the Tsar still sits on the throne into the late 20th century really doesn't pose the threat of a standoff between the two countries.
Moreover, Russia at the popular level has historically been a very religious country--at least as much (if not moreso) than the United States. There is a very large Russian immigrant population in the United States starting in the late 19th century, which further complicates matters. And both nations are majority Christian (albeit different sects) so in order for theological differences to fuel a major war between the two there should probably be another more compelling international issue to motivate the fight. What would there be for the USA and the USSR/Russian Empire/whatever we decide to call it to fight about absent the Cold War? Support of breakaway provinces*, but the logistics of a conventional war would be a nightmare and the cause isn't sufficient to break out the nukes.
In order for a religiously-motivated war to break out between the two nations, it would make sense in this case for one of them to be of an incompatible religion.** A Moslem Russia isn't out of the question, if the Caliphate pushes north, but the POD for that is almost 1000 years ago. But then Russia as a nation wouldn't exist as we know it in OTL, so the question is moot.
*The Russian Empire was the Union's sole European ally in the Civil War, with the Tsar contributing ships of his former Black Sea Fleet to help shore up the Union blockade. The main motivating factor for Russia to intervene was to discourage its own secessionist movements.
**Not that that's an absolute requirement, as Britain and France proved repeatedly throughout the Middle Ages despite having the
exact same religion!