Where do the values that many of us take for granted come from?

My son, keep your father's commands
and do not forsake your mother's teaching.
Bind them upon your heart forever;
fasten them around your neck.
When you walk, they will guide you;
when you sleep, they will watch over you;
when you awake, they will speak to you.
For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life ...
Proverbs 6:20-23

What the secular world does not understand about God's Word and His commandments is that they are the instruction manual to THE life ... a life of purpose, a life of joy, a life filled with meaning.  His teaching will guide you, watch over you, and speak to you in all situations.

Without God's teaching and God's instructions, we are aimlessly meandering through life, like trying to walk through a dark room without a flashlight or - in modern times - without the flashlight app on your smartphone. ;)

What the secular western world does not understand (or conveniently ignores) is that we all live in the shadow of Christian values passed down to us by previous generations.  Before Judeo Christian values and ethics, our world was a murderous, dog-eat-dog world ... nothing like the world we live in today. And every time in history and that we have walked away from God ... horrible, atrocious things have happened (think: the former USSR, the Nazi Regime, Pol Pot).  Each time we've extinguished the light, bad things have happened.

Can a person today be a "good" person without submitting to God's authority?  Sure. But they wouldn't understand good from bad if they hadn't been influenced by Christian values through living in a country that was built on Christian values.

And in the end, it's not about following the rules for the sake of following the rules, and being considered a good person. It's about the Person who makes us good. That person is Jesus Christ ... and without him, no one is good: no, not one.