When Rebecca Hensler's infant son died in 2009, she received numerous condolences from friends, colleagues and even total strangers she met online.
"(Atheists) don't think we are going to get to hold our children again," Hensler told a group of about 30 members of the East Bay Atheists, a monthly gathering of nontheists, where her descriptions of people's visions of her son as an angel drew a few gasps.
"We are facing an absolute loss, so when someone projects onto that the idea that we are going to be able to hold our children again or communicate with them, it is essentially dismissing the magnitude of that loss."...