religious beliefs

When it comes to religious beliefs, I can understand that people have different views and I am generally tolerant of most of these views. I understand the agnostic, the person who says that the existence of God can neither be proved nor disproved and I understand the person whose belief in God is based on faith and needs no proof but I am at a loss to explain the atheist who says there is no God. My guess is that there are atheist who buy lottery tickets, even though the odds of winning might be 100 million to one but I don’t think anyone including an atheist would buy a ticket if they knew they could not win. We are all in agreement that no one knows for sure if there is life after death but why not believe that there is? We have all been given a free will to think as we please and given the choice why not believe that there is a heaven after death. Could it be that their egos are so powerful that they refuse to give up control to a power outside of themselves?