What does it mean to "bless" something?

[Brakeman]

What does it mean to "bless" something? What does it impart in the object blessed?

[Minimalist]

Nothing.

[Captain Colostomy]

In the Southeast US, it's a polite form of derision.

[Doubting Thomas]

I think it means to have God look favorably on someone or something so he doesn't bring harm to that person or object. In effect, asking God to not harm someone or something that he might accidentally or purposefully otherwise bring harm to.

Of course, here in reality people or things which are blessed suffer the same misfortunes as people or things which are not blessed. Almost like God doesn't care or doesn't exist.

[Cyberman]

I had this idea a few years ago to test this stuff out. Sam and I had been to a xmas meal at a local church (yes, you read that right). Of course, they did the usual thing of saying grace and blessing the food. Which got me thinking; does blessing food make any discernable difference, make it taste different for example?

So I came up with the idea of pitching a table in the street with three plates of food - pizza slices or something - one of which had been blessed and one just basic untouched pizza for a control. The third would have been cursed. Then I was going to invite passersby to sample one from each plate and write down which they thought was which and maybe why. I'd collate the results and post the footage on my YT channel.

Then I completely lost all interest. I'd forgotten about it until I saw this thread.

[Brakeman]

I was hoping a theist could provide some bible verse pretzels to explain it for us.

[Cyberman]

Every serving of bible verses from a theist is a pretzel of Gordian proportions.

[Bad Writer]

I was hoping a theist could provide some bible verse pretzels to explain it for us.

I would argue against baiting theists. What ensues can cause an atheist to 1. claw his/her own eyes out 2. laugh uncontrollably 3. have said laughter result in a urination accident 4. make one's head explode, which is a good follow up to the first scenario.

[Doubting Thomas]

Re: blessing food

I remember once when I was a small child, maybe about 3 or 4, and right before a meal my family wanted to say the meal prayer. I said, "we don't need to pray, the food's not hot!" Apparently in the past they'd told me that the food was hot and if we pray first it gives it time to cool.

[CleanShavenJesus]

From UrbanDictionary.com:

Bless: V. To smoke cannabis. To have a smoking session (sesh). The full version of the tem is "Bless Jah", Jah being common Jamaican for "God". This makes perfect sense seeing as the god of the rasta movement might best be defined as cannabis smoking. To "Bless", as of posting, isn't very widely known, and as such it has several advantages to just saying "Let's toke".

1) It can be said in front of authorities or people opposed to cannabis smoking without them understanding the meaning.
2) It implies the spiritual aspect of cannabis smoking, which is a great way to think of smoking.
3) It separates the speaker from lesser smokers who use such conventional terms as "smoke"




So, there you have it. Who would like to bless with me?