Opinions on religion

Perhaps you've heard the catchphrase: "God helps those who help themselves."It might have come up at a dinner table during the election.In our day, this phrase comes up in political banter more than any other place.One side claims that Jesus gives everyone a fair go at life, so all you have to do is work hard to succeed. At one level I agree: we should strive to be personally responsible where we can be.The other side appeals to all of the passages about feeding the hungry, and says that this phrase certainly doesn't mean that we leave people to their own difficult circumstances.(For my friends who aren't American, this probably doesn't apply, but feel free to chuckle at us from a distance ;-))Where both sides are often wrong, I think at least, is in the assumption that this is even a helpful or "Christian" saying at all.It's not.