I've found that whenever someone asks "what else do people have for hope etc.?" that it's the old double negative so this last bit is the answer. What did people have for hope before patriarchal religion? They had one another, food, the sun and moon. But while we romanticize the natural world we certainly don't have to romanticize the Bible (which was afterall written by men). The more papyrus' discovery's being made in the deserts of the middle east, the more we understand the human origins of the Bible. And there's nothing wrong with that either if you don't claim it's the only way to believe. If nothing else surely having been a JW has told us that there are as many belief systems as there are people.
If we stop thinking about going to heaven maybe we'll focus on what's happening around us. Maybe if we believe this is our only chance to do our best, then we'd find more folks doing their best. Maybe if we didn't support ancient despotism's we'd support equal rights for everyone. (We still don't haven't passed the ERA in America). Maybe if we didn't support the "other world and next life belief we would do even small things, like mentoring in order to encourage kids.
Somebody mentioned to read some quantum physics. I agree. In fact a terrific book is the last years publication of Faster than the Speed of Light. It's written by a young phyicist, the kind who studies the universe (cosmologist?) like Stephen Hawkings. The more you read the more you realize that phyics is just a way of thinking. It's more awesome than any god I've ever read about.