Is it? How is not believing any different than believing? Unless somehow your god is affecting your life, and making you healthier than me (which I doubt), how are you any different?
However, in response to your finding of belief while you were down, this is a typical story. If you've ever listened to rap, from really ghetto people, a lot of rap is very religious. Many rappers actually have a rough background, and it reflects in their music.
I think what really helps people who are down, is their realization of how much their life sucks, and their gained motivation to do better for themselves.
Also... There's physics. According to something in physics, if all humans could use 100% of their brain and focus on something, the matter would change to what they focused on. This is why there is believed to be psychics.
In the movies and books called, "What the bleep do you know?", they gather a number of highly spiritual Buddhist monks, and bring them into a room, and have them spend a week focusing and meditating entirely on a glass of water, telling it to lower its oxygen level. After a week or so, it did. There are many other correllations of such findings.
To the fellow who touched on the Big Bang. The big bang proposes that all mass was condensed into that single entity (Maybe it was your god), and it exploded, with mass expanding outwards, creating all that we know today.
While I respect peoples rights to believe what they want, and to believe in a higher being, I consider it more of an easy way out of the mental burden of "The big question"-- Why we are here.