The daily life of your 99th percentile human from the time of the earliest civilizations and up until the 19th century was one of rigorous, daily toil. If you were in the elite, then your life was better, but still the quality of life was largely consistent from the nobles of ancient Egypt and the Monarchs of 13th century Europe.
There was some minor advancement in construction techniques, some advancement in metallurgy, etc. But even still, by and large, the quality life was largely consistent.
Through all that time, there were deities and philosophers who told us that the farmer was the core of the world, or that the warrior was at the core of the world. Religions told us that war was good, that war was bad. We had religions telling us that we would go to a better place, go to a worse place, be reborn, or any other conceivable possibility of what could happen after our deaths. Every single one of these religions told us how to behave so that either the world or our future selves would be better. In either case, behaving should have the effect of bettering the world by bettering human interactions.
But was there really any people who were less inclined to war? Was there any group who didn’t look down on some people as more or less great in value than what they were born as? Very rarely was a woman considered to be anything more than the property of her father, and subsequently of her husband.
Everyone believed in magic and curses. Medicinal and healing techniques were at best placebos and at worst actively harmful. The average person could not read, nor likely perform basic arithmetic.
History was written by the winners, and speaking out publicly against the government would see one killed or imprisoned.
We’re talking something like 4000 years here, and yes there is no noticeable change for any of it beyond a move from bronze swords to iron.
Now you might say that without religion, we would surely have been worse. But that idea doesn’t hold up. Confucius was a philosopher not a saint nor prophet, and his teachings are more or less consistent with the teachings of Christianity. Many religions didn’t preach any large moral system, instead being principally concerned with the correct rituals to perform so as to please the gods. These groups were neither better nor worse than any other group of humans. They were all just human. The average man toiled, the nobles fought wars and collected taxes, the clergy/shaman/monks did their own thing.
What finally brought about change was the ability to produce large quantities of paper, the formulation of the scientific method (brought on by the introduction of paper into Islamic society pursuant to the Islamic Golden Age), and the power of interest-based loans (which is what allowed Europeans to start paper production businesses pursuant to the Renaissance.)
The availability of capital, the ability to share knowledge, and a system to test and verify real world effects lead to the printing press, the middle class, and factories. These lead to pure research, democracy, and the production of items to better the lives of the lowest class, and free them from the full-day toil of working a subsistence farm. That allowed them the time to learn to read and write, and eventually break down the class system.
When no religion has stated anything new under the sun starting from thousands of years back, nor ever had any effect on the weather, on the number of witches in town, nor on the general benevolence of humanity, the argument that bettering life on Earth isn’t as important as what happens after death seems rather baseless. I know I can improve the morality of humanity be giving them the incentive to do so, and freeing them from the life-or-death quality of daily life that used to be. The last several centuries have proved it. Any deity so wise as all that seems like he should have been able to see that for himself.
As my signature says: