You are forgetting two things. There is no such thing as "inherently." If there were, there wouldn't be a billion people who disagree profoundly with you. Your culture is simply different from theirs. And they have been doing those things for 1200 years. They started out in Arabia, and by conquest now have territory that extends from North Africa to Indonesia. That's a lot of terrain and a lot of time. And they like being them. Most people do. There is no "inherently." There is culture, and you can defend it or not.

Your culture derives from a religious vision. After two thousand years, you feel you can take the good fruits of that vision while dispensing with the main character in it. That's not a stupid concept! It is reasonable! BUT like socialism, it just doesn't work long term in the real world, when put into practice, even though it sounds so reasonable in the abstract.

Your having an ethical life and family life, without the original cultural divine vision, is a little like proposing to have Hamlet without the main character. Without the main character, there is no play. Oddly enough, Hamlet has no lines in the opening and final acts, and is off stage for a long spell in the middle. But you still can't have Hamlet without Hamlet.

What makes people happy often hurts others.

So I think a pede like you should be a wooden-spoon Christian. A Christian whose religious engagement is as simple as a wooden spoon. The core salvific event of being Saved. The Ten Commandments. The Psalms. Some basic Bible narratives if you have time and energy, but they do repay study.

Forget complications. What is a complication? Anything that makes your head spin. Leave that to the theology majors. In fact, perhaps do not talk to too many theology majors.

Plain vanilla.

That girl meant, if there is no Big Punisher in the sky then people will be nice when they feel like it and may not when they strongly feel something else, and nobody is looking. She correctly knew she wasn't safe in a world like that.

Resign yourself to the stories that sustained your ancestors and made you what you are. Without superstition, but with something that is the historic truth and essential truth about a person of your nation and ancestry.

That was a nice girl. Sometimes a man can allow himself to be taught by a woman if she is on to something.