(As a former Roman Catholic (kindergarten to 12th grade) turned non-believer, and having no first hand knowledge and experience with any other religion, I can only base this article off of my personal experience with the Catholic church, and its parent, Christianity.)
When Christians (and perhaps any other religion) go to church (and perhaps synagogue, mosque, etc.), they pray to a god that doesn’t exist. And even if it did, by doing so, they worship an idea or entity (if it were real, which it’s not) that sits idly by, while powerless, defenseless children, its dearest creations, are raped and molested by strangers or their own siblings and parents. Not to mention other defenseless individuals, such as the elderly, those with intellectual disabilities, etc.
Ergo, being religious is a direct slap in the face to all kinds of victims, not just when it comes to rape, but murder, war, and perhaps even things like cancer and other diseases and illnesses that probably shouldn’t exist. Death should exist, yes. We can’t and shouldn’t live forever. Natural accidents and disasters are fine, too. But it’s the unnecessary, irrational, senseless things like rape, murder (killing out of legitimate self defense is perfectly acceptable), and war, as well as certain horrible diseases that cause senseless suffering like the Butterfly Syndrome (just to name one) that have no place in the world, as far as I’m concerned.
When a child is raped, and this supposed higher power that 80% of the world population believes in does absolutely nothing, doesn’t intervene, and lets the child painfully endure every physically and mentally torturous second that they are brutally violated against their will, unable to defend themselves, perhaps by their own parent, it’s a direct slap in that child’s face, and victims of senseless acts all across the world, to continue to pray to an imaginary god. What’s worse is to then say how it’s somehow all part of this imaginary god’s plan.
This is probably the main reason why it’s time for human society to abolish religion and the idea of god.
To counter “God gave us Free Will”, tell me how that helps the child being raped, or any other victim?
To counter “God can’t be everywhere”, since this so-called god is all-powerful, then it could easily hardwire humans so they can’t rape, or murder, or go to war, and delete certain unnecessary diseases as well. The genetic code to prevent incest and rape could be something simple like: If juvenile or own child, then no sex. Seems like a simple fix to me! And one that could easily be tested, QA’d, and released to production in less than a day. Perhaps while we’re sleeping.
To counter “Religion brings community, charity, etc.” we can do that without all the dogma. What we should be saying is “We’re all alone in this universe, there is no higher power that’s going to save us, so it’s us against the universe” and then go from there.