Humans are very susceptible to normativity and subjectivity in general, not just with religion, but with numerous systems of belief that contravene empirical facts. All prejudice and bigotry has its roots in normative beliefs - that is, how things "ought" to be versus how they "are". As a positivist, what I seek is a system of values based entirely on the "is" portion of the is-ought dichotomy, where right and wrong are decided by the actual intrinsic facts of the thing in question. If you think this is a simple problem in philosophy to solve, you're mistaken. For instance, attempt to define "good", basing your conclusion solely on facts and not on any preconceived notion of goodness. What you quickly find is that good and evil do not actually exist in nature. They are behaviors. There is no scientific apparatus that can determine the goodness of an object. When someone commits a heinous crime, we declare it "bad" primarily out of our own disgust. However, emotions are variable. What disgusts one may delight another. The only kind of knowledge is scientific knowledge of the world around us. All other conclusions, especially ones arrived at by a sense of joy or repugnance, are irrelevant. No course of action is actually objectively better than any other course of action; even if one action might be of less utility to you than another, there is nothing that says, objectively, if it is better for the cosmos in general that you should benefit from one action or another. Realistically speaking, the universe doesn't really care if you give to charity or if you launder money. Your individual gains and losses are, again, irrelevant. Whether others approve or disapprove is also irrelevant; their feelings do not constitute objective facts.