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.

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Roadsterrider · 56-60, M

I think feeding the hungry is the right and the Christian thing to do, I think there are limits though. There are those that are content to live off of charity without trying to make way for themselves. There was a man recently who had several families in addition to a family with his wife, he was wealthy, owning his own business, paying no child support and his side families had collected over a million dollars worth of benefits while he paid nothing. I try to help people that want to work. I drive for work, a lady was asking for help for food, I gave her enough to go into the rest stop and purchase food, as I left the travel stop, she stopped me again but now the story was her car was broken and she needed money for a tow truck. It can be difficult to know who really needs help and who is just taking advantage of other people's good will. My wife and I hired a coworker's daughter to babysit for us, I came home from work, she mentioned quitting school, she was just a few months away from her 16th birthday, I asked about graduation, maybe college, nope, she said "I am going to have a baby." She didn't have a boyfriend, obviously wasn't pregnant, not planning on getting married, she said, "I will be 16, get pregnant, have a baby, get housing, a medical card, food stamps, I will have my own place and my own life." I don't think that is the reason for or the purpose of public assistance but for some, it is reality. I try to donate charitably to organizations that help those trying to help themself. As a Christian, I believe God helps those "in need", not those "in want".