Why is Belief in God better than non-belief?

Alice and Bob are both humanitarian workers, and both of them have saved countless lives and improved countless others, completely devoting their lives to their work, and dying within a week of each other. The only difference is that Alice is an Atheist, and Bob is a Christian. What omnibenevolent omniscient God could decide that Bob is better than Alice, just because Bob decided that a God was likely and Alice decided that one wasn't? What is fundamentally good about belief? Is a greedy man who is a devout believer equal to or even greater than a frugal atheist in the eyes of God? Are the Evil pardoned if they believed, are the Good damned if they didn't? I'm sort of looking for a lateral-thinking answer here, I don't want " 'cos it says it in the f***ing bible, and you better believe it, you heretic". Thanks.