If ministers/preachers said we're going to Hell no matter what, then for many people the meaningfulness of living is lost if we get no benefit after we die.
As I have said, people are free to draw, or reject, purpose in life, however [and from whatever] they feel like.
I'm fairly confident that if people thought they'd have no chance of getting to Heaven for whatever reason, they wouldn't be as pious or good as they pretend to be.
I am shocked that I might actually have more faith in humanity than you do.
Sure, there are dicks everywhere.
But let's examine your argument from the point of view of an atheist. They don't believe in Heaven, or gods, yet they still
tend not to go around being 'evil' (stealing, raping, murdering, whatever).
I, again, fail to see why a Christian/Jew/Muslim/Hindu/Sikh/etc. would be any different.
I think it's the possibility of Heaven that makes divinity even more important, otherwise most people would believe in divinity solely for living gains. Like, ask God for a mansion or Allah for Mercedes or Laxmi for money.
Let's play a little game - say there was a religion which believed in a god, but no afterlife - would people still ask the god for things?
Sure
Why not? It's a hugely powerful being, like a genie, which can
potentially grant wishes.
it has
Now, what if there was a religion which believed in a heaven, but no god - would they bother asking gods for things?
The importance of the god, in the first example, is in its actions and powers. In what it has done and what it will do. It is not in the afterlife which it may or may not provide.
SMALL EDIT - as misread what you had written slightly (but can't beef hooked to remove what I had already typed)
Should a god, with the power to create all life/existence/whatever, exist, then its importance would be in what it has and can do.
It is an important factor as it might well decide to destroy everything and start again.
Or randomly fuck with the rules of existence.
Or randomly fuck with you individually.
Or, if a Roman/Greek god, just randomly fuck you...
Now, it might be important in the afterlife as well. It might be important in deciding what happens to you after you die.
But I'm not convinced that it wouldn't be equally important should an afterlife not exist.
I disagree. How many religious people would do good acts if they knew or thought they wouldn't get into Heaven? HOw many would care to help others if they were going to Hell anyway, or if afterlife wasn't a thing?
Whether people do good things or not, to gain entry to a place which might or might not exist, doesn't make that place necessarily any more meaningful. Unless its meaningfulness is given purely thought the actions people will undertake to go there.
Again, with atheists, many of them will do good things. Undertake actions which some people may describe as 'selfless'. They don't act that way because of what they might gain later on.
And many religious people may do 'good' things. But I'd wager most don't even think that they are
doing them to get into a heaven - they merely do these 'good' things because they are 'good' people.
Because they have been brought up to do unto others as you would have them do unto you' - or whatever.
Organisms other than humans being selfish is normal, it's about survival. However, human selfishness isn't necessarily about survival, but wanting more whether or not we need it.
'Need'?
Even if we acted in a selfish way to gain something which we didn't need - just for the sake of gaining more stuff (which we might not even use) - that wouldn't necessarily make the selfishness of our actions 'bad'.