I think it's easier to surrender yourself to a belief. You don't have to think, analyze and deal with the pain of finding less than ideal realities or possibilities. But I don't think it is in any way better unless you don't have the intellectual capacity to even question your own beliefs.
I dont know how to but I'd like to have been able to post YLJ's post along with this, it intrigues me.
The simpleton theory of religion is a bit flattering toward the athiest or non-believer but how often do you encounter people who are genuinely like that?
The easy life that each of you describe is not one which I'm familiar with as a believer, not something that I associate with either modern or ancient beliefs, except rhetorically, and in theory the state of comfortable intellectual numbness could be associated with anything, belief or non-belief, as a kind of psychological coping strategy or ego defence.
From the totalitarian systems of history and today to the brotherhood of street gangs or outlaw bikers suspending disbelief and becoming comfortably complicit is all part of it.