A new Weekly Standard article discusses the growing number of agnostics in the United States and their general political affiliations:

… data shows the two areas of the country where the percent of “Nones” [those with no religious affiliation] has topped 20%–New England and the West Coast–are also regions where Democrats have made substantial political gains in the past two decades.

This is not surprising to me at all.  When you eliminate God,  naturally, the state becomes the number one candidate to fill the vacancy.  To borrow from a hymn:  the state becomes your help in ages past, your hope for years to come, your shelter in the thorny blast and your eternal home.  What is surprising and even more troubling to me are those “believers” (about 25% nationwide) who, despite claiming faith in God, look to the state first for all of the above.

For the non-religious, faith in the state also acts like a moral compass, allowing them to act like a good person burdened by the plight of the poor, the horrors of war, the tragedy of human injustice and the travesty of wasting our earthly resources, without requiring them to accept a worldview that would “burden” other, less socially en vogue, areas of their life (such as submission to God in all things, sexual purity before and during marriage and tithing).  In some cases, it also shields one from having to put their faith into action by causing a sort of ”I gave at the office” mentality where voting for the Democratic Party (the party for the “oppressed”) becomes one’s good works.  (In fairness, this is true for some conservative Christians with respect to Republicans as well).

But do not be fooled:  agnosticism and atheism are still very much their own versions of faith complete with dotrines, creeds and saints, albeit unofficial in most cases.  Put simply:  choosing not to choose is still choosing.  And that choice directs one’s life.  In short:  It becomes one’s religion.

The first Thanksgiving occurred when Captain John Woodlief led the newly-arrived English colonists to a grassy slope along the James River and instructed them to drop to their knees and pray in thanks for a safe arrival to the New World. It was December 4, 1619, and 38 men from Berkeley Parish in England vowed:

“Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God.”

Thank God always for his provision.  We have been truly blessed.

When we think of Islamist terrorists, doesn’t our reaction frequently boil down to “hey, what’s their problem? Why don’t they just ‘get democracy,’ move into the 21st Century, leave behind all this primitive religious fervor, and quit killing people?”

Basically: what makes them think there’s something worth fighting over?

The idea that Islamist terrorists don’t have something “worth fighting over” is founded on secular assumptions - that no religion is better than another, or at least that no religion is worth spending your entire life’s energy trying to defend and promote. It is the ultimate arrogance, condescension, and insult to their value as human beings to dismissively say to them that what they believe in is not worth fighting for. If this extreme form of Islam is true (as they believe it is), that we are infidels, that it is their God-given duty to convert or destroy us, then it certainly is worth fighting for. Our very act of dismissal provides fuel for their argument that secular western society is ignorant, relativistic, and has no direction but downward.

The problem is not that these “pre-modern” “savages” have yet to be “enlightened” by the modern (or post-modern) secular western world, or that their impoverished conditions have caused them to lash out at our success. The problem is that their worldview is dangerous, wrong, and evil.

No secular means or democratic solution is going to weaken their resolve. And no watered down “can’t we all just get along” line of diplomatic reasoning will ever have any impact on such zealous individuals.