I am not convinced it is easier because most religions involve obligations, no matter how spiritually attuned you are and no matter how much benefice you could derive from meditation or other spiritual practices or the consolations of beliefs you will still, I believe, find your life more difficult and experience as many internal conflicts as a result of being dedicated to a religion and its precepts as not being.
With respect to most athiests, I tend to find that the majority of athiests, particularly young people, are lazy about belief or dont need belief, find it unrewarding and devoid of consolations and so their out look could most accurately be characterised as irreligious, non-religious or non-believing.
I've met very, very few "conviction athiests" who would be martyr material if they where placed in the situation. Conversely I also find not many "athiests in a fox hole", to coin the phrase, so it serves some purpose. If as nothing else as a psychological mechanism or defence people adopt it as a consolation.
This is one of the things which disturbs me the most about people "getting religion" or being "saved", I know many of the protestant faiths are built up around this so I dont want to offer offence but none the less, I see a lot of people troubled by neurotic guilt, a mid life crisis or angst about increased expectations and diminished opportunities.
All of this I think can involve adopting religion or ideology, or more frequently religion as ideology, as a crutch. That can lead to terrible things for the individual and others. It wont make their life easier and I think that if it prevents real self-development or resolution of internal conflicts or trauma it will actually make it more difficult.
Maybe some people find it brave to live despite its apparent pointlessness, I dont particularly, for some people the idea of no eternal damnation infinitely outweighs the consolation of an eternal reward, I dont buy that either. We live in age in which people will pass on even the idea of a saint's reward provided they can be sure they will not answer for their wrong doing and receive a sinners reward. To me that says something about bad faith or troubled conscience rather than religion or the question of objectively considering an afterlife or God.
In any instance I really and truly believe that religion should not and can not be used to deny the reality of death and suffering, those things are what they are, regardless of any promise, faith or hope. In most instances when facing either of those things I believe that philosophy can frequently does provide more of a consolation than religion alone. That is to say that as a believer I dont find that I'm untroubled by those things, I cant dismiss them as irrelevences.