The athiest god will strike you down if you do!

I stopped saying it because I feel it's pointless.

Agreed we should change it to RIP. Rest in pain.

Why can't we live in peace? Now that would be nice!

I think it's ok to say, it's more a mark of respect and closure (for me at any rate) For example, if a celebrity or music star I particularly admired has died I would post a Youtube link on my Facebook page with RIP Joe Bloggs.

They're culturally vestigial. It has limited meaning. Goodbye is a contraction meaning god be with you. Should we stop saying goodbye?

I see your point. However, in lieu of anything else that sounds better, it's nothing more to me than an inoccuous platitude. The believers are being pandered to by far worse than me, whenever I say that.

It is a meaningless phrase that most peole say because they can not think of anything better to say and is accepted by society.

Well, there's this alternative:

I just think nonexistence is a good form of being peaceful. No more suffering or fear, because there's no "insert person here" left to experience it.

It's just a made up phrase the living say to comfort the living

Perhaps there could be an atheist version to reflect what really happens after death? RIP - Rot, Insensibility, Putrefaction.

They are ritual words, nothing. A traditional way of saying you're sorry so and so died. So it doesn't really matter.

It;s just a way of speaking No mental activity required.

Would "remember in peace" be to wierd...

Its personal. I have not said that to anyone.

I have no problem with RIP. There are physical remains, be they ashes or a body, and also the memory of the deceased held in the thoughts of those who remember him/her.

Here in Hawaii, ashes (or cremains) are often scattered in the ocean or on a lovely vista. Folks often say "Rest in Paradise" with Paradise referring to Hawaii, not a supernatural heaven.

I hope memories of me rest peacefully in the hearts of those who have come to care for me and wherever my kids choose to have any remains of me is a peaceful place.

I don't think it's bad to say. I have been dead. It was blissful. Rest in peace to me means, your fight is over you may lay down now. It doesn't necessarily mean "have a good afterlife". I prefer it to "well poof you gone!" Or "you're in a better place".

An alternative view on "rest in peace" is actually like a prayer of the believer wanting the recently departed to "stay dead and not come back to haunt him" in any way. Don't be moving around any and just stay motionless in the ground. RIP was taken later to mean you are "resting in heaven" but ideas of heaven have little to do with rest. RIP as something you are doing in heaven just don't measure up. It is all superstition.

Eh, I'm not a purist here. My late 2nd wife and my son suffered in life in various ways, and at least they are beyond the reach of their suffering. In that sense they are "resting in peace". It is unfortunate that the only peace many people ever get is found in oblivion.

It does bother me some, but it's better than any other religious platitude. Sometimes I think the expression may have originated due to the fear of ghosts or vampires.

Yeah... why not? But I’m agnostic so it could never hurt.

I never thought of that as a religious statement or a reference to afterlife.

Actually it could be anti religious

RIP, I hope those god botherers are wrong.

It's certainly better than that "In a better place" BS the religious like to trot out. Especially when I've just lost someone, even a cat! Not nearly as triggering, because the "better place" should be with me, and I'm sure my father, my 3 miscarriages, and my two most beloved cats would all rather still be here with me.