Where do we go when we die and are you afraid?

[The Grand Nudger]

It certainly doesn't have anything to do with right and wrong in this life. Assume that there are places we go when we die.

Are things right or wrong, in this life, with respect to which place the sorting hat sends us when we die? If the sorting hat sent me to hell for giving a beggar bread, would that make giving a beggar bread bad, and if the sorting hat sent me to heaven for raping and pillaging my way through a neighbors territory, would rape and pillage, then, be good? I ask this question because the faithful very often seem to have the final destination of our souls conflated with the moral field, but I find it difficult to believe that believers genuinely believe as much. That, confronted with a heaven admitting edict from a god to do some horrible thing, they would suddenly feel that the horrible thing was not horrible.

There is nothing in all of our data about moral intuitions that would affirm this, it would be completely inexplicable. As far as we can tell, it's just not how people work. Why, then, does it feature so prominently in evangelistic effort and apologists arguments?

I interpret this common idea as a miscommunication, as a person explaining that they find heaven and hell to be so compelling that they personally might do (or not do) something on the basis of where they were going to go when they died - a transactionary religion with compelling motivations - compelling enough to do a bad thing for the golden ticket. What do you think Shazz, is it difficult to understand why a person might do a thing to acquire some other item that they desire? Atheists may not be chasing that golden ticket, but we desire other things, and those desires are as compelling as motivations to us as your desire is to you. For some people, the simple joy and satisfaction of doing good for goodness sake is enough.