Atheists help! Fear of hell:what are the odds that this story was actually true?

[Cavebear]

As I think of it:  The earliest ideas of Hell probably came from burials.  You went underground when you were dead.  Originally, that would have been rather for sanitary reasons, then neutral, just "belowground".  Eventually, ideas developed that there was some sort of judgements assigned to the dead.  Everyone went belowground.

Then, some deity had to be in charge of belowground.  Hence, Nergal, Hades, Hel, and Enma.  As theisms were organized among the living, punishments were assigned to bad dead people (probably those from conquored people and losing internal political factions.  The Egyptians had detailed ways of being guided through belowground to escape punishment for offending the deities (as surely all must have done at some point).

As the deities became one, so did the afterlife consequences.  But a few theisms allowed for escape from belowground.  Heaven was created...

After that, belowground was the place of only the truly evil.  If you followed all the rules, you didn't go belowground even if your body did.  Hence the soul...

The soul had no weight, and could escape belowground.  What happens to beins with no weight? It floats, of course.  Therefore good people went "up".  Well, where else was there?

I could go on about what ancient people might have thought, but the point is to suggest how early ideas of hell and heaven started. 

Just some speculation...