"To use a theological construct as a moral compass works for some people. The community bonding of a church, mosque, temple etc works for some too. Fair play to them "

Well it does, but what we end up with from this is not necessarily benign. We hear of "Catholic children" and "Muslim children" for a start, one of the wickedest notions thrown up by religious belief. We even send them to schools that have those titles. Far better to develop your moral compass along secular lines. It's just as easy, the evidence being that there are some excellent atheists (Carl Sagan) and some terrible devout believers (Francisco Franco). A secular-based moral code is far less likely to contain illiberal attitudes to issues such as abortion, to return tenuously to the thread topic. As a little lad I was told that heaven had only Catholics in it, the implication being that not being a Catholic here on earth was A Very Bad Thing. The upshot of that kind of attitude taken to extremes is ISIS, for example. What looks benign from the outside can have an insidious side that shows only when the surface is scratched.