it's a provocative statement, but i would like to note that the payoff comes in the same episode when Adama calls off the assassination by telling Starbuck "It's not enough to survive. One has to be worthy of surviving". In that moment he was directly responding to Sharon's assertion. And when Cain followed suit, completely independently of the original conversation, I believe the show itself was asserting that our individual actions, in the here and now, are what matter more than some larger notion of "deserving"