system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Secular values and ideals, not Christian ones, are to credit for American exceptionalism and the success of "the West" more broadly.

Conservative pundits like Stephen Crowder, Ben Shapiro, and Denis Prager claim that what makes America, and "the West" more broadly, great are Judeo-Christian values.

However, individualism, civil liberties, democracy, science and reason... All the ideals that make America as great as it is today are thanks to the Enlightenment, which was largely a secular movement. Many of the founding fathers (Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Monroe) were deistic, meaning they were not "Christian". Jefferson literally wrote his own version of the Bible excluding all the supernatural bullshit and miracles.

And if anything Christian fundamentalism has held our country back, and continues to do so to this day. People that think the earth is flat, that evolution isn't real, that bomb abortion clinics, that create gay conversion camps: they cause a demonstrable harm to our society.

Another thing that throws a wrench into conservative notions of Christian ideals and American exceptionalism is that Eastern societies were far more advanced than the West prior to the Enlightenment. Our numerical system was developed by Hindus, and popularized by Arabs. Advancements like ink, paper, gunpowder, were all made in China. Baghdad, a Muslim city, was a hub for scientific and philosophical advancement. My point is that the Christianization of a civilization isn't correlated with the greatness of said society, and if anything it is negatively correlated. Another fact that exemplifies this is that South America is arguably more Christian/religious than the US and other European nations, but far less successful. 

I guess I just don't understand where conservatives get this idea that Christianity and its values are what make America, and the West great.
gpt
I think there were many important secular influences on our country, but the american view of civil liberties was influenced a great deal by John Locke.

One of the premises of Locke's second treatise was that all men were made in the image of God.  This particular Christian influence was one of the sources of the idea that all men are created equal.  

This obviously wasn't universal.  Other christians, who disagreed with Locke, used their faith as a premise in arguments for a divine right to rule.