I sometimes feel like screaming at the religious. Not because they’re religious, but because they’re so adamant that God will provide for them, their kids, their animals, and so adamant that God has THEIR back because God likes all the same things as them (thanks to the feedback loop of self-projection-as-God), that they won’t lift a damn finger to fend for themselves.

Take the recent death of a 550lb man who sat down in a recliner after an injury to his leg and didn’t move, for eight months, until he died at 800lbs and had to have his trailer cut apart to be removed. The family was too poor to pay the $300 deductible fee to see a doctor about the leg, so the man relied on his faith instead — adamantly believing that God would heal him so he could proselytize afterward, having been through Job-like trials. The man’s wife finally took him to the hospital when he was in so much pain he could barely answer, and he died shortly thereafter.

Granted, part of the problem here was the lack of single-payer health care — such a situation would never come to pass in Canada unless the person involved was just too stubborn to visit the hospital. But no matter how hard the man believed, his wound was not healed and his weight problem was not overcome by the grace of his faith alone. This might cause certain pernicious idiots to claim that his faith was insufficient — that he didn’t clap hard enough, that he didn’t put his trust into his god with enough fervour, that he did not suffer enough. I contend that dying for your god when help is available through Earthly means is more than sufficient martyrdom for any all-loving deity, and that since this deity was supposedly once capable of sustaining and resurrecting people that were faithful, but is apparently uninterested in doing so now, that such a deity either never existed, or has abandoned his flock.

Flock like this woman, who expected God to provide food for her family of five children after she lost her job. They starved, at one point going 11 straight days without food, because the woman didn’t even attempt to get a job, much less rely on any of the social support structures that are designed to help people in exactly this kind of situation.

Flock like this doctor who distributed marijuana, who was supposedly abused in jail and who attempted to bribe witnesses to get himself cleared of his crime. Of course, the “crime” is the possession and distribution of a plant which was, if the deity in question exists, designed intelligently by God, so the very act of treating him as a criminal would be an affront to said deity.

The commonality between all three — none of them would take responsibility for their situations. And in each case, the situations that they want God to fix, could be fixed by taking responsibility and making a goddamn effort to sort things out. Whether by fixing the social structures that are failing to support you, or by finding a job to feed your kids, or by fixing the laws that put people in jail for offenses that by no rights should be offenses. One way or another, whether you believe in your magical fairy god-father or not, you absolutely must take matters into your own hands and effect whatever change you need rather than praying for it.

Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.
-Anonymous