Name just one successful and secular society? Most of the Scandinavian countries, most of western Europe, nearly the entirety of Japan, most of Australia and New Zealand, etc.
I specifically state long term success. A quick google search will show you that Japan is a very religious society. Europe as we know is in the middle of an absolute collapse. Australia and New Zealand are right behind them and lets not forget the fact that these were countries that thought it was acceptable to throw people into concentration camps during covid. This isn't the winning argument you think it is.
Not only that, but these countries rank higher in almost every societal metric. I am guessing you haven't travelled to these places... I have. The people are largely happy, healthy, they take care of one another with far less crime than we have here in the USA. There are churches here, but very few.
Even in the US the more secular states rank higher in almost every societal metric.
Save me with tired societal metric talking point nonsense. It's almost entirely a function of people self reporting their happiness level. Happiness is a horrible metric and a worse life goal. You can show a direct inverse correlation between your societal metric and birth rates. If things are so great then why are they going extinct?
I suspect you're still going off of crime rates prior to these countries catastrophic immigration policies drastically changing these statistics.
There are churches here, but very few. The people in these countries tend to have higher levels of education, which is a threat to organized religion as it makes it very difficult to control an educated, independent person.
I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering. As I've learned more about science and the universe, I've questioned my faith every step of the way. Every time I've seriously question my faith, I've walked away with a stronger faith than ever. This is a common story for those educated in the STEMs. All educations are not equal. The educated people you're referring to aren't educated at all, brain washed would be the best way to describe it.
It is also hard to push antiquated, bronze-age techings that the earth is flat and only 6,000 years old, that man walked with dinosaurs, that God condones the ownership of slaves, that women are second-class citizens who can be beat, etc, to a population of educated people who can think critically.
Who are you arguing with here? Have we had some conversation in your head that I'm not aware of? If you want to know what I believe, you can just ask and I'll tell you.
The fact is, those who have been indoctrinated and radicalized by religion are not accepting of an "open market" of ideas as you proclaim.
The fact is, those who have been indoctrinated and radicalized by atheism or the critical theory depts of the universities are not accepting of an "open market" of ideas. Fixed it for you.
The fact you mention that you are white and want to "defend" that is telling by itself of what your true motives really area.
Truthfully, I'm indifferent to the color of mine or any ones skin. What I'm no longer indifferent to is that white people have been demonized in this country by our most powerful institutions for nearly 20 years. I was fairly indifferent to it until I had kids. I will no longer accept people and ideologies that would demonize my sons and allow them to be violently target for the color of their skin. No parent should tolerate that.
I think it is incredibly sad how the teachings of Jesus have been distorted to weaponize a white nationalistic ideology while dehumanizing anyone who doesn't think the same, believe the same, walk and talk the same. By dehumanizing them, it is easier to strip them of their freedoms, constitutional protections, their families, their liberty and even their lives. All of this is anti-Christian.
Again, no one here has made that argument. Who exactly are you arguing with?
However, here's the argument. All ideas, believes, and cultures are not the same and thus not equal. I'm tired of pretending as though they are. No culture other than the Christian Western culture from the enlightenment could have built the strong, free, and technologically advanced world that we built. At best some can loosely copy what we've done from afar. Stating the obvious does not mean that the lives of the people within these other cultures are less valuable. There is nothing inherently dehumanizing in accurately comparing different cultures. I sincerely hope all people of this Earth find Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean I have to bring them here to replace mine and our culture.
There was a growing number of MAGA who hated Charlie Kirk, like the fringe lunatic Larua Loomer, and the shooter was clearly one of the same. I think certain people I won't mention really wanted the shooter to be someone the "righteous right" could collectively hate and rally against. Someone with silly pronouns with blue hair, a pentagram tattoo and a nose ring. Someone they could dehumanize to fit the "they did this" narrative to make it easier to divide the country in a manufactured "us vs them" war that the left and the right media is propagating.
So here it is. We've gone from absurd to deranged. Are you seriously going to try to make the argument that the shooter was MAGA??? Please find me one "MAGA" member who calls their enemies fascists. None of us use that term. The guy was clearly Antifa and you can right this down. We're going to find out there were other antifa members that helped him plan this and provided logistics.
The country is divided, I agree that it was manufactured, but we're a decade past that. We're in the middle of a full on insurgency of people with violent intent. I have no interest in sharing a country with anyone who thinks its acceptable to harm us because of our traditional beliefs or would celebrate our harm. These people aren't human, they're communist filth.
Human dignity.
You either see every single person as equal to you, or you think you're better than others.
And that's how we got racism, genocide, slavery, and religious persecution.
Equality is great in theory. It's great that we strive for that within the law. However, let's be crystal clear on reality. Equality does not exist in nature.
He attended one semester at Utah State University. 60%+ Mormon student body (not suggesting Mormon religion had anything to do with recent events, only pointing out that this is a rather “conservative” school by many standards). Then he went to a VoTech school.
Your intent here seems clear, but you might want to wait until we have more information before making assumptions and drawing conclusions.
This guy wasn't radicalized within the university. Based on what little we know this was happening online long before he left for college, likely during covid when he was locked in the house with nothing else to do, but go down some demonic rabbit holes.
However, its an almost certainty that he was radicalized by people who were radicalized in the universities or ideas coming straight out of the universities. It doesn't have to be directly connected to trace back to decades of demonic nonsense coming out of our universities. That's all assuming that he wasn't MKUltra'd.
Is it due to the desire to live in a red state or just a more rural area in general? Is it the blue state they are leaving or the population density? Leaving higher cost of living areas for cheaper housing? Lots of factors to consider I guess.
There's still plenty of rural areas in the blue states. Why didn't they just move there?