They differ in their belief about the deceased's current subjective experience (or lack thereof).
To the religious, death is an illusion. After a short time on the earth, everybody meets up again in the afterlife. It may be sad, but not too sad.
To those who don't believe in an afterlife, death is real. When someone dies, everything about them is annihilated. A lifetime of experiences destroyed; a unique personality deleted from existence, and everyone worse-off because of it.
Sadly, the desirability of an outcome has no correlation with its likelihood.
To the religious, death is an illusion. After a short time on the earth, everybody meets up again in the afterlife. It may be sad, but not too sad.
To those who don't believe in an afterlife, death is real. When someone dies, everything about them is annihilated. A lifetime of experiences destroyed; a unique personality deleted from existence, and everyone worse-off because of it.
Sadly, the desirability of an outcome has no correlation with its likelihood.