Religion/god is just wishful thinking.

[Faith No More]

People often add things to spiced up and or sugar coated their argument to derailed it from its main purpose all the time. I've seen it happen a lot. There's a word for that I can't remember at the moment. Any who, doesn't it come as odd that amongst the religious, the elders tend to be even more faithful to their belief than the young? That even though they were not that into it while they were younger but now, years later into their life, some of them can hardly separate themselves, even for a minute, away from their holy book.

Then there's those, as we've read here on the forum, had some life tragedy happened to them and suddenly they can't phantom the idea that a god does not exist. They don't want to. It pains them just to think about it.

See, in your second paragraph you readily admit that it is a little more complicated than a simple fear of death.

I'm not saying fear of death has nothing to do with it, however, I think you are trying to simplify the reasons behind beliefs. If you are trying to show people that they have psychological reasons for clinging to belief, this simplification portrays a misunderstanding, and you will quickly dismissed by the religious.

This also why they make claims of atheists to have death bed confessions. They think that, at the end of the day, we are probably like them, wishing their was more to life.

I think it's more of an attempt to bolster their claims. "See! So and so, who was an ardent atheist, finally saw the truth in our religion!"