“Why bother with that?”
Because being sad about death isn’t a religious thing? When people die, we miss them. Maybe even more when you think you’ll never get to see them again.
“In that dispensation”
Yeah, I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
“just tell them the departed no longer exist, so they are not ‘looking down’ on them from anywhere, not watching them form the beyond”
A child who misses their grandmother probably isn’t scared that she’s looking down on them. They’re sad that she’s gone and won’t be seen again. Is that really so hard for you to understand?
“All they are now is an empty meat husk that will decay like the pet rabbit that died, all a part of the cycle of life; certainly nothing to be sad over.”
Why is it nothing to be sad over? Sure, that’s the way things are. And sure, we have to learn to live with it. But atheists can still miss people and be sad about death. Just because something is a fact doesn’t mean you have to like it. Again, I’m not sure why this is so hard for you to understand.
“You are here (for whatever reason), then you are not.”
For no reason, actually, unless you want to count causality as a reason (instead of just an explanation).