In an attempt to show that atheists can offer consolation to victims of tragedies like Sandy Hook, atheist Susan Jacoby, writing in the New York Times ("The Blessings of Atheism"), cited approvingly Robert Ingersoll who "tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest . . . The dead do not suffer” (ellipsis in original).
Prager, a practicing Jew, says "in terms of consolation, there is no comparison between 'The dead do not suffer' and 'Your child lives on and you will be reunited with her.'" A truthful atheist, he says, would have to state something like the following:
“As atheists, we truly feel awful for you. And we promise to work for more gun control. But the truth is we don’t have a single consoling thing to say to you because we atheists recognize that the human being is nothing more than matter, no different from all other matter in the universe except for having self-consciousness. Therefore, when we die, that’s it. Moreover, within a tiny speck of time in terms of the universe’s history, nearly every one of us, including your child, will be completely forgotten, as if we never even existed. Life is a random crapshoot. Our birth and existence are flukes. And you will never see your child again.”
Prager: "An atheist with the courage of her convictions would have written that. But the New York Times would not have published it."