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Jayson_Virissimo comments on "Spiritual" techniques that actually work thread - Less Wrong Discussion

7 [deleted] 11 March 2015 10:35AM

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Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 11 March 2015 05:35:27PM 6 points [-]

Saying grace before a meal can help you maintain tranquility (thereby making it more likely you will experience positive emotions) via framing effects:

Before eating a meal, those saying grace pause for a moment to reflect on that fact that this food might not have been available to them, in which case they would have gone hungry. And even if the food were available, they might have not been able to share it with the people now at their dinner table. Said with these thoughts in mind, grace has the ability to transform and ordinary meal into a cause for celebration.

-- William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

Comment author: fubarobfusco 11 March 2015 08:57:06PM 2 points [-]

You might consider reflecting on your good fortune to live in a time when food is abundant — indeed, where there's a global agricultural and transport system bringing that food to you.

And you might reflect on the folks actually involved in producing that food and making it available to you. Although (to paraphrase Adam Smith) you do not depend on the benevolence of the baker, the butcher, or the refrigerated truck driver, you're still much better off than if they did not exist to fill those economic roles.

Or, to put it graphically ...

Comment author: Lumifer 11 March 2015 05:49:39PM 0 points [-]

Saying grace before a meal can help you maintain tranquility (thereby making it more likely you will experience positive emotions) via framing effects

Or it can suggest to you that you are a worthless sinner destined for the lake of fire :-/

This is basically a claim that reminding people of religion is good for them. I am... doubtful.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 11 March 2015 07:23:49PM 1 point [-]

Religion is one of those things where It Depends. I think Abrahamic religions have big subcultural (sometimes family level) splits between defaulting to a nurturing God and defaulting to a punishing God.

Comment author: Gabriel 12 March 2015 05:04:25PM *  1 point [-]

It's worth noting that the quoted fragment occurs in a book on Stoicism, which doesn't have a concept of personal god throwing you into hell, and it's a part of the explanation of a Stoic technique. In fact, I think the OP cut away a little too much context from the quote:

The Stoics are not alone in harnessing the power of negative visualization. Consider, for example, those individuals who say grace before a meal. Some presumably say it because they are simply in the habit of doing so. Others might say it because they fear that God will punish them if they don’t. But understood properly, saying grace—and for that matter, offering any prayer of thanks—is a form of negative visualization. Before eating a meal, those saying grace pause for a moment to reflect on the fact that this food might not have been available to them, in which case they would have gone hungry. [...]

Comment author: Lumifer 12 March 2015 05:22:36PM 0 points [-]

I don't think this quote works well.

Grace is explicitly the expression of gratitude to a specific power: the power that holds your wellbeing and you life in its hand and you're grateful that it allowed you a measure of happiness (see the Book of Job for the case when it did not). At best this attitude contributes to learned helplessness -- "Man proposes, God disposes", aka Inshallah!

Comment author: RichardKennaway 11 March 2015 09:34:14PM 1 point [-]

Buddhism also has forms of saying grace before meals. Example.

Comment author: realitygrill 17 March 2015 05:25:43PM 1 point [-]

more widespread, "itadakimasu!"

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