Why Are We So Afraid to Name Harm?

Why Are We So Afraid to Name Harm? The Spiritual Cost of Explaining Violence Away.

The Questions We’re Afraid to Ask

This series is an invitation to bring difficult questions into the light — gently, thoughtfully, and without judgment.

These are not questions meant to provoke outrage or demand agreement. They are questions that arise when lived experience collides with belief, when easy answers no longer hold, and when honesty feels more necessary than comfort.

Each piece in this series explores a question many of us sense quietly but hesitate to name out loud — not to dismantle faith or spirituality, but to return them to something more grounded, humane, and real.

This is not about having the “right” answers.
It is about being willing to ask.

Why Are We So Afraid to Name Harm?
The Spiritual Cost of Explaining Violence Away

There is something I’ve been witnessing more and more often — not only in public discourse, but in spiritual spaces that claim to be rooted in love, awareness, and healing.

When people are murdered.
When children are raped.
When families are shattered by violence, abuse, or state power.

There are voices that respond not with grief, accountability, or moral clarity — but with spiritual explanations that attempt to make what happened feel purposeful, chosen, or divinely arranged.

I have been told — sometimes directly, sometimes implied — that victims chose their suffering as part of a soul contract. That their deaths or violations were lessons. That perpetrators are merely “playing a role” in a cosmic unfolding that exists beyond judgment, beyond good and evil, beyond responsibility.

This is often framed as spiritual maturity.

I do not believe it is.

I believe it is spiritual bypassing — and at its worst, a quiet theology of dehumanization.

Free Will Is Not Moral Neutrality-
Human beings have conscious thought.
We have choice.
We have free will.

Free will means a person can commit harm — not that harm becomes spiritually justified when they do.

To acknowledge that human beings make choices is one thing.
To say those choices are morally neutral, pre-agreed upon, or divinely orchestrated is another entirely.

When violence is reframed as destiny, accountability disappears.
When suffering is reframed as a lesson, victims are silenced.
When perpetrators are reframed as teachers, cruelty is sanctified.

This is not enlightenment.
It is the removal of responsibility dressed up as wisdom.

Souls Do Not Violate Consent — Humans Do-
I believe there is a profound difference between the human mind and the soul.

The human mind is capable of domination, entitlement, justification, and harm.
The soul — however one understands it — is not.

Rape is not a soul act.
Murder is not a spiritual expression.
Exerting one’s will over another person’s body, safety, or life is not divine.

That is human behavior — and it must remain humanly accountable.

When someone says a child “agreed” to be violated, or that a person “chose” to be murdered in order to advance collective consciousness, what they are really saying is that no one is responsible.

That belief does not heal the world.
It protects power.

How So Many People Fell Into This-
People did not arrive at these beliefs because they are heartless or irredeemable.

Many arrived here through a belief system that has been carefully threaded over generations — a patriarchal doctrine that has long used spirituality to excuse harm, protect hierarchy, and avoid accountability.

This pattern is not new.

Human beings have always struggled with the weight of their own choices. And when those choices cause harm — individually or collectively — we have a long history of reaching for explanations that soften guilt and dissolve responsibility.

Spiritual bypassing offers a seductive escape.

It tells us there is no real good or evil.
That nothing is truly wrong.
That suffering is neutral.
That accountability is judgment.

For people overwhelmed by pain, fear, or helplessness, this can feel like relief.
For people shaped by rigid hierarchies, it can feel like freedom.
For people trying to make sense of a violent world, it can feel like meaning.

But relief is not the same as truth.

Collective consciousness is not collective amnesia.

A Line I Will Not Cross-

I will not engage with spiritual bypassing — not because it challenges me, but because it violates something essential in me.

I do not believe we are here to be harmed so that others may learn lessons. I do not believe suffering is pre-assigned, that violence is destiny, or that cruelty is spiritually neutral. I do not believe Earth is a perpetual classroom where pain is required for enlightenment.

I believe we are here to create — to co-create — with conscious thought, free will, and responsibility. I believe the soul is not a distant taskmaster assigning trials, but a living companion within us, guiding us toward love, care, and ethical choice. To me, spirituality is not about detachment from harm; it is about how we choose to live with one another.

Any belief system that asks me to explain away murder, excuse abuse, or frame violations of the body as sacred lessons is not something I can participate in. It does not deepen love. It does not protect life. And it does not reflect the God I believe in — a Creator who gave us the gift of creation itself, not permission to sanctify harm.

This is my line in the sand.

A Return to the Most Basic Moral Center-
I am not a theologian. But I know this much:

The core moral teaching attributed to Jesus Christ is simple.

Love God.
Love your neighbor as yourself.

There is no exception clause.
There is no spiritual loophole for violence.
There is no doctrine that absolves cruelty by calling it divine.

Creation itself was an act of love — not control.

If we believe we are creators or co-creators in this world, then our responsibility is not to explain suffering away, but to choose how we live with one another.

To protect life.
To refuse to sanctify harm.
To show compassion without abandoning conscience.

What I Am Choosing Now-
I am choosing a spirituality that stays human.
That stays grounded in bodies, consent, and accountability.
That allows grief, anger, and moral clarity to coexist with compassion.

I am choosing not to mistake detachment for enlightenment.
I am choosing not to call cruelty sacred.

And I am choosing — again and again — to stand with the living, the wounded, and the silenced, rather than with any belief system that asks me to look away.

Using spirituality to explain harm away is a cost that no one will ever be able to pay back.

About the Author
Jennifer Belanger is an intuitive practitioner, writer, and spiritual guide whose work centers on discernment, ethical responsibility, and the lived experience of being human.
Her practice is grounded in the belief that spirituality should deepen compassion without abandoning accountability, and that truth-telling is an essential part of healing.
​She writes The Questions We’re Afraid to Ask as an invitation to bring difficult conversations into the light with care and honesty.

If this essay spoke to you, you’re welcome to explore more in The Questions We’re Afraid to Ask series or reflect on what it means in your own lived experience.

www.energytouchintuition.com