In this presentation from 2006, Dr. Onkar Ghate presents a fascinating discussion on the relationship between religion and morality. He makes the case that the rise in religion is the result in the remnants of the American sense of life seeking some code of absolute moral values in the absence of such values in the secular culture. As Dr. Ghate says:

It [religion] is in large measure a quest by individuals who have been abandoned in a moral desert and think they see in religion an oasis.

Onkar Ghate makes the case that while religion cannot provide a foundation for absolute moral values, there is a source them: reality.

The video includes both the talk by Onkar Ghate and a Q&A session with Dr. Ghate and Yaron Brook.