Patriotism

Short story writer Guy de Maupassant left us this: “Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.”

FWIW, I’ve always felt the same way.  There is no good reason (especially now) to believe that the United States is a better country than France or Japan, or that Americans are better people than the Irish or the Poles.

Believing this garbage only sets the world a path toward childish hostility.

Adding religion to this only makes a bad situation worse.  If you really believe that God favors the U.S. over Sweden and Portugal, you have some sort of intellectual/moral defect.