Oddbean new post about login | logout @Ardainian Right I see homeland and family as part of loving humanity. It makes sense that we are divided into smaller units. Trying to merge them destroys uniqueness, and nature lives by uniqueness. For me, it is not so much God per se as a willingness to be religious about life, that is believe that it is on the whole tending toward the good and not the random and disorganized like the minds of people who listen to Pantera.
@2a48eef0 Loving homeland and family are how you love humanity in a concrete manner. Those who abandon concrete love in favor of love in the abstract rarely manifest this abstract love in any useful way.
@Ardainian Right Abstract love... what an odd concept. I think one has to love humanity because of its potential and its best people, but nothing is binary or absolute. That is, one can love humanity, and an inalienable part of that is loving homeland, family, race, ethnicity, and local community. I am not an altruist/universalist... love is for the good, and hate for the bad.
@2a48eef0 I use the idea of God in a broad sense, in the sense of "transcendent reality all of existence is subject to."
@Ardainian Right Sure. I call that "Godness" in the shorthand. There is something alive about existence, more than the physical.