It's complicated territory Bets (as you know) in that it's not just a matter of always blindly following your 'conscience', because what you take to be your conscience may be 'wrong'.
As in if we had a pure line to Spirit, then we'd 'know' 100% what was right/wrong or more to the point loving. But equally when we achieve that we'll presumably be realised. Meaning that we'll know experientially that this reality is a false invention of ego, and will no longer continue to create and sustain it, and so separation/individuality/fear and all they entail will end.
So we have the parallel problem (as we perceive it through an ego informed filter) of progressively developing those attributes that enable us to 'know' or see from Spirit - compassion, wisdom, equanimity and so on.
Meditation being one central tool (the altered 'view' which follows taking good teaching on board being another, along with self enquiry and properly used life experience) to creation of the mind space necessary to reveal these which are said to be inherent in us all, but buried beneath the mental static created by ego.
My personal experience of meditation is that it does precisely that. As one becomes more relaxed and centred, there can be quite spectacular events in terms of opening of the heart, development of emotional sensitivity, strengthening of intuition, and the dropping of much of the fear that leads to aggressive behaviours. It can be tough for periods, in that this opening (dropping of suppression and projection) brings one face to face with some very painful stuff, but over time there's a parallel development of a sense of joy, and the ability to cope always runs ahead.
So most of us get mixed messages - bits of knowing/insight mixed with ego urges. Which is how for example the Spanish Inquisition could justify a massive campaign of torture in order to 'save' souls, why the Pope could launch the Crusades, why religions in general (and none are immune) keep getting sucked into the wordly power and riches game. Why the fundamentalist tendency is likewise often ready to justify extreme measures.
The rose tinted, 'nicey nicey' version of what passes for 'love' is the other extreme - indulgence worsens the position of others, but the individual feels good about them self.
Buddhism talks of the problem as 'obscuration', ACIM makes the distinction between 'knowledge' (love based reality as seen by Spirit) and 'perception' . (the fear and aggression based unreality created by ego by projection of faults on to others, and suppression of knowing - although indeed this entire time/space reality is said to be the work of the collective ego)
Setting oneself up as being spiritually superior to another must be the ego using religion to aggrandise oneself. To paraphrase ACIM - we are all sons of God, all equally loved and loving. The perception that some are less deserving than others is the result of the projection by ego of our own faults on others - it causes us to perceive our own faults in them, and so we are provided with reason to fear them.
The Holy Spirit/higher mind it's said adjudicates between the wholly separate realms of Spirit and ego, and ensures the feed of guidance and insight we need. Which we of course can experience in any number of forms. We may of course not be listening though, or may be intent on using it for selfish ends.
ACIM Lucy teaches precisely that we should think more about how to transcend this reality, and to not waste our effort on trying to understand how it (
'egoworld') works - because it's in the end an incoherent and irrational system.
Buddhism does teach 'rules for living' in the Hinayana - not because it's all that real, but because while we are bound by our belief in this reality we need to avoid escalating our suffering to the point where the self work required for escape becomes impossible. Undisciplined behaviour not only causes suffering for others, we also risk digging ourselves so deeply into karmic debt that escape becomes the task of many many lifetimes.
When you stop being led by conditioning, and start to look carefully at the assumptions underlying ego thought it doesn't add up. How for example can happiness follow from an attitude where everybody tries to get ahead at the expense of everybody else?