Despite how there would be good in there being nothing at all, ie at least nobody can suffer, religion says you need faith in a good God to be able to take morality seriously.
It seems morality is either just human convention/opinion or something more, something real. Religion answers that morality needs a foundation, God.
Morality does not require God, a cosmic foundation, or “ultimate meaning” to be real, binding, or important.
Even if it did, we do not really understand how the foundation helps. Even if it is not a crutch, we make it one. Doing that is in effect a denial that morality really is a foundation.
Morality should orginate in needs, harms, and beings capable of being helped or hurt—not in divine command or cosmic purpose. Religious accounts of grounding morality are confused, manipulative, inconsistent, and psychologically self-serving. Religious moralizing often harms more than it helps because it prioritizes maintaining a worldview over real human needs. And it need not be about the harm - it can harm in principle and that is enough reason to discard it.
THE BABY
A baby’s suffering matters without reference to some grand foundational theory.
This is the distinction between:
Moral explanation (why things matter)
Moral motivation (why we care)
Moral ontology (what kind of thing moral facts are)
Foundational ontology is not necessary for motivation or recognition of need. Morality grounded in need is more immediate than morality grounded in theory
If it is, we should try this test. The hypothetical helps discern our real values.
1 Why does the baby suffering matter?
2 Why do I - or God who is prompting me - care?
3 What kind of thing shows the fact of the suffering is wrong?
If we had to forget one of them it would be 2.
This shows also that God being at the heart of goodness and morality is wrong.
If we had to forget another one it would be 3.
So we are left with 1 and the answer to 1 is, "It is a brute fact sort of thing. It just matters."