A large part of the problem is the logical contradictions inherent in monotheism.

Consider that democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures. The family and cycle of life as godhead. The young god, born in the spring, of the old god and the earth mother. Though by the time of the Olympians, tradition had prevailed over renewal and Zeus didn't give way to Dionysus.

To the Ancients, monotheism equated with monoculture. One people, one rule, one god. Ancient Israel was a monarchy.

Christianity was an attempt to return to the concept of renewal, using the story of Jesus as its focal point, but by the time the Romans adopted it as state religion, as the Empire was rising from the ashes of the Republic, the purpose was to validate the rule from above. Thus it provided the basis for the next 1500 years of European monarchy.

So when democratic and republican principles rose again, it required separation of church and state, effectively culture and civics.

Yet without fear of God as moral policeman, it was simply the Will to Power that rose to fill the void.

The logical flaw in monotheism is that a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. The light shining through the film, than the narratives played out on it.

So conflating ideals with absolute creates a culture where every sect and cult has to proclaim its universality, or be dismissed as relativistic.

Though if morality were an absolute, it could not be transgressed, like a temperature below absolute zero.

So as an ideal, morality is the creed and its heroes, around which the community coalesces, like a pearl around a grain of sand. The behaviors that sustain and maintain a healthy society and community, in relative harmony with its larger environment.