Well, I'm a person that has experienced both the divine and the demonic so the concepts hold definite truth and meaning for me. I could give you story after story from those that have also experienced similar encounters with heaven and hell. Many believers also never have such encounters.
Exactly, they are just stories. Anecdotal information, nothing more. Like stories about UFOs and planet Nibiru.
So, based upon your logic, given that there are competing theories on heaven and hell (ex: Judaism, Islam, Christianity, etc) that this alone reveals that the theories are ludicrous (or fallacious). This fallaciousness supported by the idea that the concepts are created by men and men contradict one another. Taken one step further, you qualify your logic with an absolute statement, derived from your subjective opinion, that “the reality is when you die you die and that's it”. This absolute statement of ironic subjectivity also grounded in the same subject matter ignorance we discussed previously.
On a sidenote, the vast majority of denominational differences are based in adiaphora (non essentials of the faith) and styles of worship. Foundations of salvation and the gospel message are rarely comprised within Christianity. I won't speak for other religions.
You also noted, that religion was invented to comfort folks because of death. I don't argue this because for some religions this is true. It isn't universally true and it isn't for Christianity, but certainly for some religions and cults it is.
Back to your original assertion that heaven and hell is ludicrous because given competing theories created by men and given that men contradict one another the assertion is false. Great. This bit of logic can be applied to many things. Let's take for example the proliferation of competing theories on the topics of the "origin of life" and the “origin of the universe”. All are therefore deemed ludicrous and fallacious because they are created by men and men contradict one another.
The individuals who formed these theories knew all too well that they are only human and thus inherently contradictory, so they used evidence to test their hypotheses. Where the evidence did not confirm the hypotheses, hypotheses were modified or even abandoned altogether (see
cold fusion). Evidence (real evidence, not theological arguments based on self-evident premises) cannot be argued with.
As you said before, there is no room in religion for arguing (see testing) the existence of God. There is no way, in religion, to overcome man's contradictory nature. There result is many Gods, many religions, many worldviews.
