> it's useful for a society to formally acknowledge an authority that's greater than the individuals to whom it gives political power.

yes, as you noted...that higher authority is society not god. The concept of god is an attempt to impute one's/a group's morals on a society

But societies that deny God end up with a god anyway, and impute their morals on society anyway. I'd much rather have the higher authority be explicitly contemptuous of the head of state.

The problem is, you can’t poll society every time you need to decide the correct moral that applies. So you have to use your judgment, or in other words, ask yourself (aka be creative, effectively what asking God would accomplish assuming God doesn’t really exist).

So is voting

That just gives political power to people who purport to speak on behalf of this 'authority', some of whose motives or reasoning are highly questionable.

People with highly-questionable motives and reasoning inevitably show up anyway. If they have to concede that God is somebody besides themselves, then their armor has instant cracks.

I think you need to watch more televangelists cause they seem to be doing great :-/

Doesn't seem to really work that way.

Instead, they claim that <whatever they actually want to do next> is what their $deity has revealed must be done.