There are several issues at work here.

For one thing it is the basis of culture that good and bad are that cosmic conflict between the forces of righteousness and evil, when in nature it is the basic biological binary of beneficial and detrimental. The 1/0 of sentience.

That is because the larger reality is bottom up, while it is the function of culture to synchronize society as a larger social super organism, based on the same ideals, languages, rules, measures, etc.

For many people, this social framing outweighs any personal character. When you are running with the herd, you can't just stop and scratch your ear.

Then that the larger the group, the more common the denominators necessary to include everyone. So personal character can be a hindrance to fitting in.

A spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which life rises, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which it fell. The light shining through the film, than the stories playing out on it.

To the Ancients, gods were metaphors. Gods of love, war, beauty, spring, hunting, etc.

In this world, monotheism equated with monoculture. One people, one rule, one god.

Ancient Israel was a monarchy. The Big Guy Rules. Like the religion.

Democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures.

The origins of the Christian Trinity go to fertility rites. The young god, born in the spring to the old sky god and earth mother.

Though by the age of the Olympians, Zeus didn't give way to Dionysus. Tradition prevailed over renewal. The old didn't make room for the young.

Which was why the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus had such resonance.

Though by the time Constantine adopted it as the state religion of Rome, it too had started to calcify, so the monotheism served to validate the Empire and bury any reminders of the Republic. While the essence of the Trinity was shrouded by the Holy Ghost.

So the Catholic Church was the eschatological basis for European monarchy. Divine right of kings, as opposed to consent of the governed.

When the West went back to popular forms of government, it required separation of church and state. Effectively culture and civics, morality and law.

Which has created a certain hollowness in the West, that when pressed, reverts back to the most elemental forms of tribalism. Such as Nazism, National Socialism.

https://medium.com/@johnbrodixmerrymanjr/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-western-mind-906dc73cffe2