dan964
what
Let me rephrase, your summary even more succinctly.Okay... I can't follow the A and B part (maybe because I'm too dumb) so I'm just going to clarify what I think you mean here. As, the existence of god provides a mental basis for the existence of hope in people who believes in religion, those who deny the existence of HOPE cannot ground itself with a certain divine thing that is able to decide whether how everything will go on, thus unable to make sure whether hope for them really exits. This is proven in your example for Christians, as they are certain with the existence of hope rather than atheists (particularly Nihilists) as we cannot base our desire of hope on a divine might, making us unsure of what will happen next or whether we could rely on it. In your exam example it is further proven, as if we do not study and prepare for the exam, the hope for getting a good mark then lies on an extremely good luck, which is uncertain.
The existence of God can (but does not necessarily) provide a ground for hope, because God can ensure certain things take place, and so the believer who has faith (confidence) in what God says will happen can have hope expecting it to happen at some point.
This is especially the case with life after death.
One of the consequences of denying the existence of God, is we are left instead to take our confidence in other things like collective humanity OR statistical likelihood (probability), however because we have no control over the outcome, we cannot have a full hope. Especially when you examine the collective failures of humanity (e.g. especially looking at for instance, WW2), hope in humanity is destroyed.
Hope and faith are related. Now all have faith, (except the consistent nihilist), even the atheist has confidence/trust in certain things, it just isn't God.