it seems to come down to faith in things higher or more fundamental than human laws. that is why even as a non-christian i can deeply relate to people who live for god, rather than for the nihilistic icons and wordly ideologies of "the (fictional) world"

they generally seem to have retained more of their human-ness or their 'instincts' as you put it. they do not pathologically reference current ideology to justify their actions, rather they reference their religious ideology and the words of jesus which is in many senses more aware of human abuse of power than the average atheist.

an objective view depends entirely on our frame of reference, which is why the smartest people can be absolutely lost in the sound logic of a mind construct whose foundation is erroneous.

god as a foundation makes people accept that not everything in the world is as it may seem or that we have all the answers yet. it's just that christianity may not be the roots of our culture but rather the first major attack on the roots of our culture because it assumes and presupposes certain ideas that may already lead one down a potentially unfactual path, for instance the idea that god is transcendant rather than omnipresent in all of life, that i am here and god is somewhere else. it spawns the idea of causality, of separation between a this and a that which does have apparent merit talking about the physical world, but falls short on realizing the interconnectedness of all things or the very sober realization that "things" do not exist any more than our obsessive need to divide and sort everything into little bits for the social convenience of being able to talk about them.

i like recommendations, will read that article after a shower. it's very good to read you again, many blessings to you