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.

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

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.

What if by some stretch of the imagination, the energy that leaves a person's body when they die was constricted somehow? Where does the energy come from that creates a deformed fetus? Aren't storms created from colliding energies? So couldn't a person say with uncertainty to the deceased...RIP? There is certainly...uncertainty in the world at every level!

I think resting in peace is fine, especially if your life was full of suffering at the end. Cancer, Alzheimers, or other health problems, death is personal peace, an end to suffering. Does not have to have anything to do with what you believe comes after.

You can say RIP instead of the full phrase. That way, in their mind it's "Rest in peace" and in your mind " it's rot in peace," I say this tongue in cheek, because I feel bad about any loss to others and wouldn't really feel that way.

I don't see it as pandering to false hope. I see it as acknowledging that life before death isn't 2nd essarily peaceful, so we want our loved ones to have whatever peace can be found in their afterlife.

Yes. Dirt naps are the most restful things ever.

I would say sorry for your loss amd wouldnt overthink it people expect you to say something comforting & I don't mind doing that because its ritual time and the whole ending of life is ritualised.

Regardless of belief it's been a method of connecting to people who were loved. We all liked actors and musical artists that have passed and it has become a universal standard of remembrance. It's harmless so why put so much energy into dispelling it?

It's a tradition nothing more, and it saves a lot of agro at funerals

Nothingness I don't know how much more at peace you could be ...