The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud

“…all the gods of antiquity have been condensed. The people which first succeeded in thus concentrating the divine attributes was not a little proud of the advance. It had laid open to view the father who had all along been hidden behind every divine figure as its nucleus. Fundamentally this was a return to the historical beginnings of the idea of God. Now that God was a single person, man’s relations to him could recover the intimacy and intensity of the child’s relation to his father. But if one had done so much for one’s father, one wanted to have a reward, or at least to be his only beloved child, his Chosen People. Very much later, pious America laid claim to being ‘God’s own Country’; and, as regards one of the shapes in which men worship the deity, the claim is undoubtedly valid.”

The idea of a small group being labeled God’s Chosen People has always weirded me out …
(just as the phrase ‘weirded me out’ weirds me out).

Does God play favorites? Regardless, it seems everybody just wants to be daddy’s favorite.