For atheists who believe in no God... Then what is a poor, sick, dying, struggling person to turn to?

Question

I mean there is no health insurance for a check-up, no 401k, just 16 hours of work to make ends meet. There is an old car with flat tires, a lump somewhere on your body that would cost zillions to check out, so you just work and pretend it's not there. We aren't corporate rich republicans, just regular good people who work 90 hours a week including weekends and just make ends meet. Who do you suggest we turn to when things get even worse? A labor union that died in the 30's...a non-existant husband, a Hillary with a health plan, or juilliani or bush for support? No. You are spoiled and out of touch. God is for the real people.

Answer 1

Generally then what remains is the lives touched, if they are happy results, otherwise the misery only mounts...

Even Jesus said [paraphrased] that whatever you do for the least of men, forgetting of selfish interest, it is accepted as if done for God, and that they are the ones who Jesus knew, but the proud of their deeds he said I never knew you... So even one sincerely kind thing does not go unnoticed, regardless of faith besides that, as far as that example would imply. Only pretense and insincerity spoils that affectation of charity.

"Love thy neighbor as thyself, that is the whole law and the Prophets..."

Everyone has done something kind to another, so there's no harm, but perhaps maybe having missed the opportunity to have done more to be less selfish, and more universally generous. Claims of faith are secondary to that practice of charity/kindness, which atheists often do that kindness too, it's called altruism.

Truth is best. - God bless.

PS
By claims of faith, I mean lacking verity. Faith does not mean blind optimism, but intimate understanding and fulfillment of obligations/vows.

Answer 2

By your argument, why shouldn't the person turn to alcohol or drugs? Justifying a delusion by claiming it provides hope does not help. Why is that person putting money into the collection plate instead of paying the electric bill? Why should he see the doctor at the charity clinic about the lump if God will take care of it? If you wanted to condemn religion as "the opiate of the masses", you succeeded.

Answer 3

Why not turn to a poor, starving child in Botswana that hasn't had a bath in six months, has open sores all over her body, bathes in fetid water and eats once every other day?

Self-pity is just another excuse to stay trapped in your god delusion. Stop whining and make your life into what you want. Other people with far rougher situations than you have done it (including myself.)

Although, maybe this is why natural selection works so well. Culling the weak-minded from the herd?

Answer 4

i've got self assurance that is an exaggeration of the reality. and that i doubt you have ever been in a fox hollow or a dying mattress. I easily have commonly used extra beneficial men than what you say your are that should no longer swim against a 5 mph cuurent with an undertow. The have been the two SEALS and swam the sea- however the river have been given them the two.

Answer 5

You're arguing from the desire for someone to be there. Just because you "need it" it doesn't make it real.

And attempting to win support through pity & guilt is shameful. How about looking to your fellow man for help and support. That's what friends, family and neighbours are there for. Some magical man in the sky who just sits back and does nothing isn't exactly a great source of hope.

Answer 6

That's why it got called "The opium of the masses"

Not simply because it's dangerous, but that it offers a degree of comfort in an intolerable situation.

But I'll take my world without a softening illusion, thank you very much.
I'll go withThomas Henry Huxley who, when he was asked what profit his atheism was, when it meant that he had lost a source of comfort over the recent death of his child, replied
"...truth is better than much profit. I have searched over the grounds of my belief, and if wife and child and name and fame were all to be lost to me one after the other as the penalty, still I will not lie."

From the same letter, Sept 23 1860:
"My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonise with my aspirations"

Answer 7

You kind of prove a point made by Napoleon. An atheist himself, he said "Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich", and he abandonned his own plans to create a secular state because he realised if he did it would also require him to solve these social injustices.

So what you are in effect saying is that it is alright to sit by while people are uninsured, ill fed, overworked and kept poor as long as you give them the sop of religion. I say get rid of religion and get on with solving the social injustices. The US - closely follwed by the UK - have become the most socially unjust places on Earth.

Answer 8

What pray tell, does God do to the poor sick dying struggling person? Just look at Africa and all the other people living in slums.
Is there any evidence, of God doing anything to help them?

Answer 9

I'm very sorry about your medical and other problems. I think that Americans should have an absolute right to good health care. However, all that you've done is show why you *want* to believe in a god, not that one exists.
.

Answer 10

well, perhaps you have a point for having imaginary freinds if you are unfortunate enough to live in the US, but for those of us with universal health care (the rest of the civilized world), you just made the point for us not wasting our time and energy on fictional characters.