The axiom of choice

[Everybody Wang Chung]

I remember during the 80's, every single Fast & Testimony meeting I would constantly hear the phrase "every fiber of my being."

Thank goodness that phrase has died out.

[Physics Guy]

Perhaps this thread deserves an extended life to discuss religious verbal tics in general.

One I've found among Evangelical Christians of many flavours is the one I like to call, with apologies to John Calvin, "the inevitable perseverance of the just". See, if you liked the Axiom of Choice, I've got a million of ''em. But seriously,

When praying aloud in a group extemporaneously, which Evangelical Christians quite often do, the word "just" crops up in just about every second sentence. The pray-er keeps assuring the Lord that they "just" want to do something; often what they want to do is to ask God to "just" do something else. The pattern is so persistent that you could probably identify 24 different specific uses of "just" and play Bingo with it. You couldn't make a drinking game out of it, because everyone would be sloshed before we got to the sermon.

I've wondered about this for years but I'm still not sure exactly what this love of "just" means. It's telling God, and the other people listening, that one doesn't want much. I think it's probably patting oneself on the back for wanting so little, though perhaps it's intended as an implicit grateful acknowledgement that God has blessed one so much that little is left to request.

[Gadianton]

Interesting. There is a deeper connection to the OP with this example and I can't tell if PG intended this.

I had read PG's post halfway before I had to stop and go back to the beginning and try again, because I was reading it as "God is just". Father God being "just" is an important idea as I recall, it's the supremely noble quality that allows people to fall off the deck and into hell while the captain keeps his forearm wrapped snuggly around the helm.

One of the first responses misunderstood the OP to be talking about freedom of choice, which is a big deal in Mormonism. So do "tics" tend to be homonyms (as PG apologized for)? Maybe the primary word is firm in your head already, and biased in availability should you need a "tic" with that particular meaning. But then, that bias would have to be shared at a group level for the tic to go viral.

[malkie]

Perhaps this thread deserves an extended life to discuss religious verbal tics in general.

One I've found among Evangelical Christians of many flavours is the one I like to call, with apologies to John Calvin, "the inevitable perseverance of the just". See, if you liked the Axiom of Choice, I've got a million of ''em. But seriously,

When praying aloud in a group extemporaneously, which Evangelical Christians quite often do, the word "just" crops up in just about every second sentence. The pray-er keeps assuring the Lord that they "just" want to do something; often what they want to do is to ask God to "just" do something else. The pattern is so persistent that you could probably identify 24 different specific uses of "just" and play Bingo with it. You couldn't make a drinking game out of it, because everyone would be sloshed before we got to the sermon.

I've wondered about this for years but I'm still not sure exactly what this love of "just" means. It's telling God, and the other people listening, that one doesn't want much. I think it's probably patting oneself on the back for wanting so little, though perhaps it's intended as an implicit grateful acknowledgement that God has blessed one so much that little is left to request.

This is the Gluttony of Delicacy, identified in the Screwtape Letters

She is a positive terror to hostesses and servants. She is always turning from what has been offered her to say with a demure little sign and a smile "Oh please, please... all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest weeniest bit of really crisp toast". You see? Because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognises as gluttony her determination to get what she wants, however troublesome it may be to others.

Sally has it down pat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnlm2e3EN78

But I'd like the pie heated and I don't want the ice cream on top, I want it on the side, and I'd like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it, if not then no ice cream just whipped cream but only if it's real; if it's out of the can then nothing.

Waitress: Not even the pie?

Sally Albright: No, I want the pie, but then not heated.