[Adam the Fish]

I believe that it is bad to use the afterlife to make people be good citizens is a bad thing because it is a lie*. I do not see lying to control people as a good thing, whatever you might use that power for.
And besides, why shouldn't people be moral because of their own conscience? Why do we need to have to have a reward to behave half decently? Isn't life a reward enough?

It's a fairly common misconception that Atheists have no idea of morality because they have no God(s). This isn't true. As stated previously, most of the time, the secular community is shown to be the most moral.

* OK, I cannot prove that the afterlife doesn't exist. But the Christian idea of it doesn't make sense (why bother living if you can go to Heaven? And you couldn't anyway, because Christianity says you always sin. So all your experiences couldn't enter an "all-good" place...and I think that experience makes us who we are. Also, without the concept of "bad," "good" cannot exist. That is a further flaw on the idea of Heaven), and that's what I'm discussing. Most ideas of the afterlife are self-contradictory or illogical, and all are unlikely with no evidence to suggest the existence of them.

Originally Posted by Coexist.

Now religion is often used as an alternative to...evidence

Yes.
Often by authority figures to small children who don't know better.

That seems pretty wrong to me.