@chai2,
Okay, here's what I mean about unsatisfactory answers.
Suppose I am a child and see both of my parents get gunned down by some joker in the street, after getting our of some opera.
I have one good belief from this, and alot of bad ones.
1. My parents are good to reincarnate and/or an afterlife. They will be in a better place and not have to deal with scumbags gunning them down.
2. There is no God, there is no afterlife. They are going into the cold cold ground and I will never see them again.
3. There is a God, but there isn't an afterlife. And God is wicked because he lets evil prevail.
3b. If God lets evil prevail, I must become justice. I must wear a bat suit and hunt down others who would do evil. I must do evil to create a world where nobody has to have their parents murdered.
As tempting (and as funny) as the last one is, it basically involves that you become a way worse murderer to basically create justice on this Earth, because you don't trust that there's a plan for the dead. Regardless of what you think of Batman, that's a pretty sad life. And there's a fourth one.
4. There's no God and no afterlife. And nothing matters. I should live for the moment.
This too is an unsatisfactory answer as it really translates into...
4. (I want to have meaningless romantic encounters that potentially screw up alot of lives, saddle my self with debt, and live my last days in tension and despair, before possibly dying of a ddug overdose or getting killed by someone I am in debt too)
Or this.
5. There's no God an no afterlife. You only live once and you need to take care of yourself.
5. (I am a china doll, and will live without taking any risks, ever. I will eventually die of boredom, either in old age or by suicide)
All of these answers suck, except the first. The last one is no risks, the one before is self-destructive, and the one before that has a problem of justice. What about the second? Well the problem of that is misery. Everyone who dies, hits you hard, and you have no coping means.
Even if #1 is false, it's an essential belief in order to retain sanity.