The Christian religion talks about Man having free will. I think nihilism is exactly that : life has no purpose, be free to do whatever you want with it. Seems much more healthy than following all kinds of ridiculous religious rules, but that's just me.
I think even religious people should hope they're wrong, because none of them really manages to follow the rules, so if there is an heaven and a hell, the first one must be empty and the second one overcrowded.
Soren Kierkegaard, a famous 19th century existentialist philosopher, noted quite logically that religious people simply lived better lives, and whether or not there heaven or hell existed or not did not outweigh the cons of not believing in God.
His logic was simple, which he coined "the leap of faith:"
1. Believe in God, die, nothing happens.
2. Don't believe in God, die, nothing happens.
OR
1. Believe in God, die, go to heaven.
2. Don't believe in God, die, bathe in a lake of fire.
I actually wish I could be religious, but sadly, I'm a helpless empiricist. I know too much!
That's a retelling of the much more famous (and 2 centuries older) wager from Pascal :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager