What is morality? What is it to have a conscience? What is it to empathize with another person?

It most emphatically is NOT god's presence. Morality derives from evolution, which applies to societies as well as species: a society which lives by a sound moral code will survive preferably to one that does not. Since murder and theft are rather obviously destructive to any society, moral codes generally denounce them. A conscience is simply the result of training in the morals of the society. Faith is not good -- it is, in fact, the ultimate evil: it is the deliberate rejection of the ability to apply logic to evidence, which is the distinguishing feature of the human race. To have faith is thus to reduce oneself to an animal.