Bad Relationship Signs

My friend Hemant Mehta – the Friendly Atheist ( http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/)  – posted this video – about how to tell you are in an abusive relationship.

Interesting – having been in an abusive relationship – I literally didn’t catch on until the very end what he was getting at. I thought I was odd that Hement kept referring to the abuser as a “he” as both men and women can be abusive in relationships. But then I thought – how brilliant that Hemant is talking to women being abused by men. A woman can’t do this because we need to hear it from a nice guy – that yeah – our guy is in fact abusive and we should dump him.

So – the end shocked me.   View the video here:

Now – let’s discuss.  It’s interesting for me – because I was never indoctrinated. But I saw a presentation by Sarah Morehead – with Recovering from Religion (http://recoveringfromreligion.org/)  Her presentation was all about how religions groom people to need them in the same way abusive people groom their victims to “need” them.  It’s frightening really.

I don’t normally post about religion and I don’t normally post stuff I consider to be anti-religious – because – I am only anti-religious when religion is anti-human and most religion seems to me to be fairly benign. However, the indoctrination techniques, precisely because they are abusive – are abusive.  And I think we all, non-believers and believers alike – should own up to that and perhaps – say – it’s not ok. If a religious belief can’t stand on it’s own and it has to abusively groom and indoctrinate it’s adherents – then perhaps we should stop calling them adherents and start calling them victims.

The goal is self-control

If you can’t control yourself and succumb to temptation, the solution isn’t to remove temptation; the solution is to work on your self control!

A while back there was a news story about a Saudi cleric who recommended baby girls be clad in baby burkas. (see: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/342731#ixzz2JwH9Rk7i)

Why? Because apparently there are a number of Muslim men who are raping their young daughters. And it’s becoming a bit of a problem. Now, one of the solutions to this problem has been to advocate changing the law to make it illegal for a man to kill his wife or child or abuse them, which is apparently currently legal under Saudi Arabia’s version of Sharia. This seems like a rational step. Make it illegal for men to abuse women.

However a Saudi cleric has another idea. Since some Saudi men can’t resist themselves even around tiny little babies, that babies and young girls should wear burkas so that the men in their lives won’t be tempted to rape and torture them.

And here is where Humanism differs from a religious approach. We believe in personal responsibility and in respecting individuals. Rape and any form of sexual abuse against anyone of any age is not ok because it dehumanizes the victim on a very basic human level! It’s about control and power and ultimately about disrespect.

Further Humanism doesn’t tell 5 year old girls that they are responsible for their father raping them because they should have been wearing a burka!  We instead tell the father – he is responsible to protect his daughter and to not harm her in any way.

Asking everyone around you to accommodate the fact you have no self-control is to make other people responsible for your actions and choices. It is an immature response to bad behavior. It is like a 10 year old you have told not to touch something breaking it and then blaming you for leaving it out for them to play with in the first place.

Mature people take responsibility for their actions. The solution isn’t to ask half of humanity to not tempt you by their very existence. The solution is to work on your self-control so that you can be in the presence of your five year old daughter and not think of raping her! Or better yet – how about working on your self control and compassion and respect for others so that raping any girl is not something you would ever consider!