Idk, to me, myth means lie. We don't have to lie in order to feel safe.
Yeah, I know the word "myth" triggers people. But it's not intended to. Perhaps the better idea would be the word "model". As CD always says, "all models are wrong; some of them are useful."
Religion is a model that is very imperfect, but what we're saying is that in some ways it served humanity well for a long time. I don't believe that we would be the society we are today without centuries of religion leading up to it, even if we perhaps don't need the "God" part now.
We originally made up a lie about gods to feel safe. But we no longer need to. We can have the expectation that people treat each other with decency because it's ethical and what's best for us all. I don't have a special right to life, but I have as much a right to life as anyone else. When that is reciprocated, we can progress as a society. No gods needed.
You act as if "ethics" exist a priori. I'm saying that's false. I would call ethics a myth, but as you consider that synonymous with a lie, it would be better to describe ethics as a model.
We come up with a model that we try to use to facilitate a good society. That model is, like all models created by man, imperfect. We call that model "ethics". But it's really hard to get people to follow the model without a threat. That threat used to be "eternal damnation". And we replace it with "laws" based on those ethics and "jails" that you can throw people into if they violate it. Another model called the "social/contract".
But why should anyone respect the laws? Well, we construct another model, which we call government. And we say that government makes the laws and can enforce them. And like the model of "ethics", government is another model that is imperfect. Sometimes we elect shitty people. Sometimes they do really bad things. And when they do, all we have to rely on to compel obedience is "well, they're the government." End of story.
----------
It's all fiction on the veneers of human nature, that only works because we agree it does. Like money. Money is a model. Money works because we all agree it does. But occasionally we don't. Like Weimar Germany, or Zimbabwe, or Brazil. Myths are not inviolate.
I can respect religion as a model for one reason: it's based on theoretical perfection, and because it's supernatural, it's unfalsifiable. That's pretty damn powerful. Whereas most of our other models are based on empirical imperfection. We can point to government screwing up. We can point to misplaced ethics, like
the idea that people were owned as property in the US only ~160 years, and that was not only legal, it was written into the founding document of our government.
But in the end,
they're all just stories we tell each other to try to agree on how we should all get along with each other.
I agree with you that The Golden Rule is a hell of a model for society. But it's just a model. It's not "true" or "false". It's something we tell each other to agree on how we can all get along.