The Disease and the Remedy

     Tonight while listening to a Chariots of Iron podcast they read a listener letter from a girl who had been sexually abused as teen and how that affected her faith. Rather than shake her faith, this caused her to immerse herself deeper into the church and become very devout. However as she did so she was told "god must have caused this to happen to her because she was not faithful enough and he wanted to wake her up to his glory". It was also implied that she was now unfit for marriage and that she should dedicate her life to god instead.
     This is the same logic that an abuser uses, blame the victim for causing this to happen to her. We see this often when rape victims dressed provocatively are blamed for being raped. In this case the church steps right in and uses the tactics of an abuser on someone in a weakened state, blame her and provide her with the path to make it right. Rather than get her the counseling she actually needed they continued to reinforce that because she had done something wrong, that this was her punishment. She was told "Jesus marked her out to be his special servant". How can any reasonable adult tell a child that this is how Jesus would select her, through abuse.
     It is a common attack from the religious that "all atheists are angry", this certainly isn't so as most of the time I am very happy. However when someone hears of injustices such as these I think that they should be angry. Atheists should be angry because religion is being used victimize someone for a second time. Believers should be angry that their religion is being used as a tool for abuse. I think that any rational adult should be upset by what has taken place in this situation, and this is by no means an isolated incident. This struck close to home for me when I listened to this, in high school I had a friend that was in a similar situation and she was told that it was her fault because she had stopped attending church, and god was sending her a message. So by that logic god is what caused it to happen and god is the answer, both the disease and the cure, convenient. When it takes advantage of the weak, we should all be angry.