24 May '19 08:10>
@fmf saidI imagine that similar sentiments occur among all people who are religious. I particularly imagine that many Iranians, Iraqis, and Saudis have feelings about their own countries which are home to many holy sites. I imagine that Jews and Hindus also have these sorts of feelings...
You say the notion of seeing oneself as living in "God's country" is something couched in "poetic, personal language".
Do you not think it reveals a kind of Christian narcissism and not-very-Christian jingoism too, by which I mean, out there in the real world of what is said from pulpits and by purveyors of retail religion [i.e. putting romanticism and poetry aside]?
With ...[text shortened]... logy on the table is concerned, isn't it rather akin to the counting of angels on the head of a pin?
I think that these feelings certainly can have a dark, jingoistic side, right... But I think it is more common that these sentiments are just normal, fine expressions that just esteem their own country and show affection to it.
Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.
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I don't get the elevating consumerism part, by the way. I do not think that nationalism and consumerism go together that well. I also do not think that most religions promote consumerism. Quite the opposite, religion oftne promotes poverty and introspection.