You are absolutely right, Zucchiniflower, comfort is what we seek when we try to find answers to the unknown and unanswerable questions of life and existence.
A lovely fairy tale - or wishful lie - is a great balm to the fear of death. For adults as well as for children, hope of happiness is much easier to live with than is the certainty of non-existence - even when we know that it is only hopeful thinking.
Most of the questions that have no answers are explained in mythologies and religions through allegory and poetic fantasy. The multitude of religious believers shows how important it is to mankind to create wishful fairy tales. Whether we believe them literally or not, the stories provide comfort. With utmost respect to those who do believe, we can hope, we can have faith, but none of us can know for certain what does happen to the soul after death, or for that matter, where the soul was before birth, I think we are perfectly justified in creating comforting and hopeful answers.
Two of our 3 year old grandchildren asked me this Christmas where they were when their parents were little children. The stock answer I know is, "You were a twinkle in your daddy's (mommy's?) eye."
However, one of the two is adopted from China, and very happily aware of being born to other parents, so she could be adopted by her Mommy and Daddy. It would have been an answer full of new questions.
I said instead that before we were born we were all of us beautiful butterflies in Dreamland. The two mothers were not so sure that they liked the lie - but for all I know, we might well, all of us, have been beautiful butterflies in Dreamland before we were born. The little ones were fascinated with the idea, and I think it is a nice and comforting thought. More fairy tale and less 'lie' than the tooth fairy and the easter bunny.

birte