@Glennn,
Glennn wrote:
I'm speaking to the belief that there is a post-life reward granted by the god for those who live up to its expectations.
It is a big theological/philosophical question to wonder what exactly the "hereafter" entails and how it works.
First, you have to address the issue of whether consciousness ends permanently when the body dies or whether it continues on in some way.
If you can completely convince yourself that it ends when the body dies, then you can try to get away with all sorts of things that cause negative consequences and then try to die before reaping those consequences.
If, however, you consider that consciousness is a fundamentally immutable aspect of reality that can't be destroyed and only changes form, like energy, then you are tasked with figuring out the patterns through which consciousness migrates and whether it can permanently avoid the consequences caused by the actions of its previous forms, or whether it will ultimately have to face those consequences.
Religions that believe in reincarnation make it easier for the materialistic mind to contemplate the hereafter as a direct continuation of the present world. The soul simply transfers from one form to the next by being reborn, and as a result it must experience the effects of others' actions, which were in turn influenced by actions of its past incarnations.
Religions that believe in 'heaven' and 'hell' and 'purgatory' as spiritual afterlife states are more difficult to grasp from a materialist perspective because they don't make direct reference to incarnation within a material form/body. You can think of the soul's experience within material incarnations as being more 'heavenly' or 'hellish' depending on the particular circumstances and states its destiny carries it through, but if you are stuck on the dichotomy between material existence and spiritual experience, it may be difficult for you to think purely in terms of the spiritual experience(s) that correspond with "heaven" and "hell" and/or "purgatory."
As for whether God is some arbitrary judge who has 'expectations' that you have to live up to in order to attain heaven, that strikes me as a naive and simplistic notion. It is more accurate to say that the universe works like clockwork, so every action causes effects, which cause further effects, etc. and that the overall ramifications of that are that sin causes suffering, where 'sin' refers to actions that are not in perfect harmony with a loving universe devoid of harm and suffering.
You've probably heard the familiar Bible quote, "the wages of sin is death," but maybe you haven't interpreted it to mean that things that cause death are sinful. If you would understand the term, 'sin,' to refer to anything that naturally causes or helps lead to death, then it might be easier for you to accept the truth of this basic statement that "the wages of sin are death."
But then the quote also reads, "but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord," so there seems to be hope of overcoming death. This can be interpreted in different ways, but if you cross-reference it with the Buddhist idea that you can transcend the cycles of birth and death by attaining detachment from desire, there is correspondence between that idea and the Christian idea that we can be saved from sin and gradually sanctified through Christ.
How can these seemingly different ideas from different religions correspond? Because if you think of death as a temporary experience that divides the continuity of eternal life with suffering and consciousness-breach, then life is by default everlasting and relative peace of mind comes from the experience of continuity of consciousness throughout subsequent deaths and rebirths; and likewise suffering comes from attachment to your current life as the ultimate state, which you repeat over and over in subsequent lives.
It is similar to the experience of dreaming, which can cause suffering when you feel like the dream you're experiencing is your ultimate reality; but the moment you become aware that it is just a dream and that your consciousness will continue to progress through a series of dreams, and then be awake for the day before going to sleep again the next night, etc. that sense of continuity of consciousness affords you peace of mind that isn't available if you would think your life was going to end each night as you lie down to go to sleep.
Still, even if you become aware that consciousness is eternal and that death is a temporary state between the present life and the hereafter, then you still have to contend with the fact that the seeds we sow in the present are reaped in the future by ourselves and future generations. So the world can grow more heavenly or hellish depending on whether people put effort into sowing good seeds or bad ones for the future.
You could be reborn life after life into a world where the climate is degenerating, or into a world where humans are gradually recognizing their negative effects and correcting them to achieve a better future.
It could also be that when we are successful enough at adopting the right attitudes toward sin and reform, that forgiveness and salvation come into full bloom and we are allowed to completely transcend this purgatory and inhabit higher heavens where suffering no longer exists at all.
Obviously we can't know by direct observation with our senses what the hereafter holds in store, but there are patterns of cause and effect that are recognized by wise people of various religions, who then try to reach out to others by teaching and recording their wisdom. If you want to reject all such wisdom on the basis of narrow materialist assumptions about consciousness ending when the body dies, you can gamble on that belief, but you can also consider other possibilities and think about what you have to do if you want to experience more peace and happiness in your (eternal) future.