You appear to have never raised children. Being empathetic and kind to children is key so they can learn what empathy and kindness is; without the demonstration (and for many children, the reinforcement) children's instinct are to resort to violence to get their way. Infants start out in the world copying the perspective of their parents, which is It is so critical to be expressively empathetic with infants so they can learn the appropriate mapping of experiences with feelings.

Children don’t just pick up these values from their parents, but from everyone around them; and in a social group where everyone balances their values against everyone else, norms and traditions form, and now there is an informal religion; and where norms and traditions transcend generations of those practicing, social structures are inevitably built to reinforce the norms into future generations, and now there is a formalized religion.

Any social structure can be corrupted by power. To say religion is inherently amoral because it is corrupt is put on intellectual blindfolds to how social values and norms are shared

There definitely is no evidence to support an inherent "moral compass" in humans or any other animal because there is no evidence to support genetic memory which would be required to pass information without teaching it.