1) I agree that simply choosing to believe something doesn't in itself make that belief true, but to hold a "God doesn't exist" position (versus a more honest "I don't know either way" stance), you have to deny the existence of all things supernatural, as otherwise opens a door of possibility for God's existence. You have to believe that all the tremendous matter and energy that exists in the universe just came from nowhere magically (and the laws of entropy don't allow for matter and energy to have existed forever), and also that life, or even just DNA and RNA, in it's tremendous complexity is a random accident. 2) Comforting? The Christian path, in this life, is a much harder path than an atheist "do whatever you want as long as the law doesn't catch you" path. Recognizing God's existence avoids the harder questions of life and death? Quite the opposite actually - atheists are trying to avoid those harder questions by pretending that you just die and that's the end of it.