One time I knew someone who already had two kids that they barely had the funds to take care of. Then one day they were talking about their love life and how they really can't afford another child. Their religion apparently meant that birth control was out of the question, so they came up with this 'brilliant' idea. "We'll just have to risk it and see what happens. If God means for us to have a third child, we will." Really? You can't afford a third child. You realize there are ways to make it very unlikely that you will conceive a third child, yet you pass the buck on to divine mandate... There is someone in this situation that bears responsibility, but this responsible party is not some deity. The one responsible is them. If they choose to risk unprotected sex, they are liable. Inventing someone else to blame if things go awry is simple irresponsible, yet this occurs far too often.
There was also a case where a former employer tried to pass the buck as well. Let me say first that they were horrible business owners. They were completely out of their depth, and sabotaged themselves more often than not. One day their pastor stopped in and conversation moved toward the state of the business. My employer was confiding in him about the state of the business and had stated that they were not sure what they had to do or change.Did their pastor have advice? He sure did, but it certainly wasn't good advice. "Don't do anything different. Stay faithful and God will provide." Seriously? Yep, that was the best advice he could come up with to a very real problem that could effect not only the business owners, but the employees as well. Unfortunately, they followed this poor advice. First they had to downsize the staff. They downsize again. Eventually they had to either sell or shutter the doors. In the end they were forced from the industry and sold. Again, we see someone shifting responsibility away from themselves, to a supernatural medium. When all was said and done, they had no one to blame but themselves, whether they ever realized it or not.
Most recently, I was struck with another surprising shifting of responsibility. I was watching TV with some people I know, and a teaser came on to advertise that the news show coming up had interviewed female military members that were raped by males in the military. Then came the statement that took me completely off guard. "Well they wanted into the military, what did they expect? Those kind of guys don't care about that." What!?! Are we really going to go down the road of blaming the rape victims for what happened to them? All because they were guilty of the crimes of wanting to defend their country, and for having a vagina. This is truly despicable. You don't blame the victim... you have to hold the offender responsible in a case like that. How is the argument that no one should be surprised because of the assumption that uncouth men are in the military, thus women being in the military made it inevitable that this would happen even remotely logical or responsible. Woman have the right to serve, just as men do. These women broke no laws. But the men in these cases committed rape, which is a crime. So the responsibility and blame lays clearly with the rapist and not the raped.
Sadly, society always seems to be in a race to shift responsibility away from the self (who are actually to blame), and in some shocking cases, attempts are actually made to blame victims. This needs to be corrected, and soon if we are to return to a path of progress.
-Brain Hulk
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