Coinsider this: If you are correct and we both died tomorrow morning...I guess we would both simply would cease to exist...but just suppose for a moment, if Christians are right... 
Or suppose that the Bhuddists are right. Then I guess we're BOTH going to Bhudda-hell
. It's not a matter of either-or. The choices aren't atheism or Christianity. It's one set of superstitious beliefs or another. Or none.
As to it "offering" all the hope and caring and yadda-yadda (come to think of it, I think "yada yada" is from Hebrew . . .): that is of far less importance to many people than the
truth.
Consider a child's belief in Santa Claus. To the child who believes, the world is full of magic. A very nice old man in a red suit watches you all year to make sure you're being good. For the good boys and girls, his personal elven toy-makers diligently work countless hours all year hand-crafting the perfect toys for you. Then at the end of the year on a magical night the jolly old man visits each and every one of these good children, eats their milk and cookies, and leaves them their treasures.
It's a wonderful story full of hope and magic. It's also a lie. As cool as it might be if it WERE true, there is no little man in a red suit coming down your chimney. What it is though is a good way to make the children behave throughout the year, just as in simpler times various religions were a good way to keep people from killing or stealing from each other. You tell them they're going to hell if they do it and by Jove, they'll behave. It was, is, and will always be about control.
Fortunately for children, when they get old enough to realize how little sense the story makes, they can wait up and prove that it was indeed their mom who put the presents under the tree. The original knowledge of most religions being false (and everyone agrees that most of them are false - even the religious only believe in one and think it's all the
others that are just made up non-sense . . .) just happened to be lost throughout the ages.
Heck much as I can't stand Scientology, you have to admire L Ron Hubbard to some degree. He was a science fiction author who truly understood how religions work. He basically made a bet with another author that he could write a "bible" and start a religion within his lifetime. Thus, the book Dianetics was born, and along with it the religion Scientology. The book is a work of fiction written
WITHIN THE LAST CENTURY, and yet they're still managing to convince people that it's true and to join their religion. From the outside looking in you can see how foolish they are. The trick is to truly be looking from the outside, and not just peering into one padded cell from another.
