First of all, I think it is useful to point out that the old Traditional Conservative Russell Kirk had modified his view on this issue ever so slightly over the years. In the first 30 years after The Conservative Mind he would state the first principle of conservatism as "belief in a Transcendent Moral Order." by the Nineties however, he he was citing it as "a Belief in an Enduring Moral Order." I would like to think that like many on this forum he had met many "old whig" style conservatives that he fully agreed with that he knew were fully in agreement that Moral Principles were constants and not situational and he felt that as Prudence was the first virtue of conservatives, common bond should be acknowledged.
Few can read Hayek and not get the understanding that while not a religious man by any means, he supported religious morality as an anchor to society and as a foundation for the state. He held with Adam Smith that for mankind in general, religion was the most reliable transporter of morals, in a solid sense, from generation to generation.
I have met many here that hold few religious views and yet appear to agree that morals are constants and not the realm of schemes and metaphysics based upon rationalistic formula.
The real dread that this author's instructor, Voegilin, had as I understand it, was fear of those holding that government could give us paradise on earth, instead of in heaven. Voegilin held that this was "immanitizing the symbols of Transcendence". Instead he reminded us that Man is imperfectable and as such, he and his constructs can't be made to substitute for salvation, regardless of whatever form of "grace" one understands. This is what the Rationalists from the Communists to the leftist/capitalists of today don't believe.
As Sowell says, they want us to follow the "vision of the anointed" and turn over to central control all the big issues of each era because they frame them all as problems or worse yet, crisis.
As Burke said, it is all in the particulars. If your principles give you morals that meet the criteria above, I join with you in general conservatism and look for something more tangible to agree and disagree on other than your personal religious beliefs. I have met many. so-called religious people that fail to see their belief in God as anything other than a platform for enlightenment sentimentality and social schemes.
Those who distinguish civil from theological intolerance are, to my mind, mistaken. The two forms are inseparable. It is impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned; to love them would be to hate God who punishes them: we positively must either reclaim or torment them. Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it must inevitably have some civil effect; and as soon as it has such an effect, the Sovereign is no longer Sovereign even in the temporal sphere: thenceforce priests are the real masters, and kings only their ministers.
Now that there is and can be no longer an exclusive national religion, tolerance should be given to all religions that tolerate others, so long as their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of citizenship. But whoever dares to say: Outside the Church is no salvation, ought to be driven from the State, unless the State is the Church, and the prince the pontiff. Such a dogma is good only in a theocratic government; in any other, it is fatal. The reason for which Henry IV is said to have embraced the Roman religion ought to make every honest man leave it, and still more any prince who knows how to reason.
Jean Jacques Rousseau:Civil Religion
He says this about Hobbes:
Of all Christian writers, the philosopher Hobbes alone has seen the evil and how to remedy it, and has dared to propose the reunion of the two heads of the eagle, and the restoration throughout of political unity, without which no State or government will ever be rightly constituted. But he should have seen that the masterful spirit of Christianity is incompatible with his system, and that the priestly interest would always be stronger than that of the State. It is not so much what is false and terrible in his political theory, as what is just and true, that has drawn down hatred on it.
One basis for building a moral society can be drawn from conventions built over time in said society. The duty of the conservative is to conserve societal conventions that have proven over time to be just and equitable to the greater part of civil society. In matters of State; reason should rule. I tend to agree with Albert Einstein when he said, "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."