What does "rest in peace" even mean?

[Warren Stupidity]

The religious are very confusing.

[Turbineguy]

1. For some it means:

"Don't get back up!"

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Sure, but nobody really thinks the dead do that.

It just seems to be one of those commonplace utterances that have lost all meaning.

[edhopper]

3. I think

it comes from the idea that life is full of misery and suffering. So you get to rest and be at peace.
Of course many religions want you to accept that suffering. Cause God and latter reward and shit.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. No I don't buy that interpretation. It seems to be an admonition or wish,

Last edited Sat Jan 31, 2015, 02:15 PM - Edit history (1)

either a command or hope that the dead person not get back up and presumably haunt us, or not be all thrashing around and stuff being an unhappy dead person, not a statement of fact about the dead.

The actual phrase is "may he rest in peace", which clearly allows for the alternative.

[edhopper]

9. Do you know

the entomology?

[Thor_MN]

10. Well, Dermestid beetles are used for cleaning bones...

And Calliphoridae (blowflies) will lay eggs on meat...

[Stuckinthebush]

11. Coffee spew

Thanks!

[Curmudgeoness]

14. OMG

Classic.

[edhopper]

16. Damn you

auto correct!!! Teaches me not to post without proofreading.

Etymology, of course.

[Thor_MN]

17. Sorry, couldn't resist

[edhopper]

20. I deserved it. nt

[kdmorris]

4. Don't be a zombie?

Don't come back and haunt me?

Stay put... the dead are scary?

I don't know... take your pick

[JDDavis]

5. To me it means:

Hey, we paid a sh*tload for this wooden box for you to lie in.

So you better like it.

Stay there, don't haunt us like you did in life.

Questions: Do religions that burn their dead bodies say the same thing?

Do religions that rush to get their dead bodies in the ground before the next sunset say it, too?

Religion is confusing, I agree.

[mr blur]

6. "Keep the noise down!"

Fuckin' zombies!"

[onager]

7. Then there's the other undead...

Sadly out of fashion nowadays, with the frigging zombies hogging the media. Except for the twinkly-teen-vampire crap like Twilight:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

12. much like most of the Bible, this was badly translated.

It started off as a curse, namely, "Rest in Pieces," but someone fucked up the translation.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. I was wondering what brought this on.

It was a post in gd about the death of Rod McKuen which used that phrase, combined with my watching the fascinating but disturbing Night Will Fall documentary on HBO last night (http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/night-will-fall/synopsis.html#/) which was about the never released Berstein/Hitchcock film about the liberation of the concentration camps at the end of WWII. There was this footage of SS guards being forced to take care of the dead they had just dumped in piles in their haste to murder as many as possible as the war ended. All these emaciated corpses with their disconcertingly cheery rictus grins being dragged and carried and flopped into open graves. They did seem quite happy, in a dead sort of way.

[Curmudgeoness]

15. Rest in peace.....

what a silly expression. If you believe in the Christian god, it is already too late for you to be helped by prayers or good wishes for your soul. Either you will be "in peace" in heaven, or you will definitely not be "in peace" in hell.

I have always thought that this expression related to ghosts. People wanted the dead to go straight to heaven, and they were afraid that they might get stuck somehow, walking the earth in some sort of torment. I always found it odd that religious people were the ones who also would believe in ghosts. I don't know an atheist who does.

[olddots]

18. I will tell you

If you give a substantial prayer donation to the Church of Olddots.

[Warren Stupidity]

19. I tried to give a prayer to the ingrates in the prayer circle

but the local sheriff locked that shit up. They gots them no sense of humors.

[Warren Stupidity]

22. Yes sure, but it's common usage now is more in line with "don't get back up".

[Lordquinton]

24. It means RIP in peace

right?

[AlbertCat]

25. Isn't it a Dark Ages thing....?

..... Y'know where they think you are really "resting" in some kind of sleep until "the Trumpet will sound/ and the Dead shall be raised/ Incorruptible!"

The idea was, I think, that your corpse rotted because of your sins, and so you didn't rest in peace.... unless of course you were free of sin or until your "corruption" proceeded up until your sins were done, and you didn't rot anymore.


It's all that religious stuff of "When you die, you really don't die, you do something else."