America is a Christian nation, and it shows. I think Americans get the idea that they are exceptional from their religious faith. After all, they, and only they, know who God really is.
The fact that they worship at a church rather than a mosque because of the geographical location of their birth is obfuscated by the certainty that they are exceptional. “I’m an American because God made me an American!”
They live in an empire which extracts wealth from the poor of other nations by force and financial manipulation, but in their minds it’s the one true God who has blessed America. Poor countries are poor because they worship the wrong god. We will send them missionaries, and our armies will make them free; the ones that live.
Americans don’t believe in killing. But, kill if you must, to protect American lives. American lives are, after all, exceptional.
They believe in one life and then the judgement; which means they believe they can only be, for example, a white Christian male from Alabama.
Maybe they would behave differently if they knew God does not interfere, nor does she make exceptions.
If they only knew this life is only one of many they’ll live on the path to enlightenment, then maybe they would feel less exceptional.
Maybe they’d stop the bombing if they knew their next incarnation would be as a black Muslim female in Yemen.
But that’s a silly idea… if you’re a Christian.