His argument was that God provided me to help him & his family out. I had to many times put aside my beliefs and just focus on where he was and what his family’s needs were going to be. Sadly, social services ended up having to be one of those “god-sent” elements for this man and his family. To this day, I wonder what happened once he was gone & his wife had to hit the job market, with preacher’s wife as the only element on her resume.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. How are you defining the American Dream? Wikipedia pretty much sums up what the notion means to me: “The American dream is the idea (often associated with the Protestant work ethic) held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve prosperity.” By definition, the American Dream requires action.

I think what you’re trying to say is that people want to obtain wealth without effort, that they have this idea that wanting it, that having faith is enough. Is this right? Or am I misreading your intent here?

You guarantee your financial future by planning, conducting research, and following practices that have solid empirical support and accurate assessments of risk. You don’t guarantee it with faith and proceeding in the absence of evidence.

Adding a “journey” doesn’t prevent faith from being false hope–you can have a “journey” and make blind efforts that will get you nowhere. It’s only by using reason and empirical evidence that you can hope to increase your chances of success beyond that of sheer luck. Some people do succeed through sheer luck, but if you want to genuinely give yourself an edge you had better rely on something other than faith.

The one benefit of faith is that positive illusions can sometimes build confidence to take necessary steps to get started or persevere in the face of adversity. But even then, you’re still better off using reason and evidence than relying on faith alone.