But we - I, anyway - think this fixed end point is what gives life meaning. If I were to live forever in heaven (or hell), then my actions now would lose relevance.
Except if those actions tied into where you existed in the next life... Heaven or Hell.
Again I'd disagree. If you live your life believing that your actions determine whether you go to heaven or hell, then any kind or good act you commit is not really kind or good, it's selfish, it's impossible to disentangle it from expectation of future reward. Religious belief leaches meaning from your actions.
Is there anyone who uses science to determine whether he is going to Heaven or Hell?
Well, no. The initial investigation would be establishing either mathematically or through empircial evidence that heaven and hell exist. Since these can't be proven, we can't proceed to the next step.
Consider that science becomes a religion for people when they rely on it.
I understand your point, but this is not religion. We make assumptions, hundreds each day, that certain things will go as we expect. If you cross a road, you have
faith that the cars won't speed up. This is similar to
faith in science (verifiable truth), it's based on past proof, and if there is some science you're not convinced by, you can examine the evidence to determine that proof. Religion is faith codified into a system. But
everyday faith that for example night will follow day, is based on past experience and past evidence, and so is not religion.
Where is verifiable truth? Certainly not science. Look at the science of the 1800s. Most of it has been overturned, and the rest of it has been sorely challenged. Right now there are scientists who have found a new brand of neutrinos coming up through Antarctic without a verifiable source. This tells us that the standard model of 3 kinds of neutrinos is wrong
I think this is a misunderstanding. Science proceeds because it is falsifiable. Newton's laws of motion were established laws, but Einstein's relativity didn't prove that Newton's laws were nonsense, they proved that they were quite a good approximation, just not as good as relativity. Science proceeds in these little steps, every discovery improving on those of the past. Yes, sometimes we hit dead ends and one particular branch of science is disproven, in which case that branch is cut away and work begins anew. This is why science is verifiable truth. Each scientific discovery advances our understanding a tiny bit more.
"the standard model of 3 kinds of neutrinos is wrong" - Not wrong, potentially incomplete. If we were to discover a new kind of neutrino, that wouldn't mean that the other types don't exist, it wouldn't invalidate the entire history of particle physics, it would just add to the depth of understanding, and aid in the direction of future research. Wrong is not the same as incomplete. If you talk about the standard model being wrong, what the standard model is is our human interpretation of the stuff we've discovered so far. The interpretation can change, but the past evidence can't.
Science relies on faith that the evidence is interpreted correctly. Religion has basis that is not only faith. Religion has evidence, as well.
This is exactly the reason why science is religion. Especially among laymen is science religion. They have to believe what the scientists are saying, because they don't understand how to do the experiments themselves.
I would contest the point about religious evidence, but I don't want to get derailed. I'm not attacking religion, I'm defending science.
People accept what scientists say because the evidence of scientific truth is all around us, literally all technology is based on science. People may indeed not understand or be able to perform experiments themselves, but they can still accept science. This is my point above about faith and the speed of cars when you cross the road.
If you buy a bottle of beer, you will take a drink of it without testing it. You don't know that is definitely beer and not deadly poison, you just have faith based on previous experience. This is not religion, it's expectation of the future resembling the past.