The New Mt. Sinai

According to Exodus, Mt. Sinai is where God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses. So was built one of the pillars of the entire Judeo-Christian edifice. From my point of view, there are some that can use adjusting (Why do You have to be the only God? Plenty of room in the playground. And why are You so uptight about graven images?), some seem hypocritical (“Thou shalt not kill” alongside all the smiting You recommend in the Old Testamant? Hello?), some are dubious (You’re okay with people owning slaves, but concerned about other people coveting them?), but truth be told, they’re not a bad start. If the former President had honored even two or three of them, things would have gone better. But he was 0 for 10 and nobody seemed to care that much.

 

But what interests me is not the hypocrisy or the notion of  a “few bad eggs” or “people just needing to try harder to be good Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, etc".). There is something rotten at the core that needs addressing.

 

At a recent Men’s Group, we discussed the role of organized religion in our life and emerged 9 for 9 atheist. We are lapsed Jews, recovering Catholics, indifferent Protestants, with a heavy lean towards Buddhism and paganism. We all found, in our own way, organized religion to be two-faced, falling far short of its original tenets and without apology, doing exactly the opposite. (See the Jewish “Thou shalt not kill”/ the Christian “Love thy neighbor as thyself”/ The Buddhist “Realize the Buddha nature we all equally share”/the Muslim “ Express love towards good and hatred towards evil”/ the Hindu “Harmony in Diversity, Unity within oneself, with others, with God” next to the Inquisition, the Crusades, Native American genocide, African slavery, Nazi extermination, Japanese invasion, the Hindu caste system, the Muslim restrictions for women. For starters.)

 

I once saw a T-shirt that we all should consider wearing. It said:

 

“Religion. Together we can find a cure.”

 

Recently I’m noticing that instead of the mass hypnosis of organized religion as the normal state of humanity, all the baggage of shame, guilt, self-loathing, greed, environmental destruction, war and killing that previously was justified as God’s will now being recognizing for what it is. And even has a name and initials—RTS: Religious Trauma Syndrome.

 

That’s progress! Once we name something as a symptom of an avoidable and curable disease— or at least manageable— we have the hope of finally understanding how destructive and debilitating it can be to our individual human psyches and our collective welfare. We cannot understand or deal with or begin to change that which we have no language for, so just as the term “systemic racism” allows us to look at an ongoing historical pattern far beyond our personal bigotry, so does “religious trauma” give us the possibility of identifying the things that organized religion has done, does do, can do, that indeed qualifies as trauma. Though the sexual assaults within these religions and certain fringe cult brainwashing is part of that, the actual terms encompasses something much wider and indeed, built into the definition of much religious practice. 

 

The website www.therapist.com lists 10 symptoms of Religious Trauma Syndrome. And so from the 10 Commandments that purport to show us the normal and proper way to live that God revealed on Mt. Sinai, we now enter the next evolutionary stage where much of religion’s principles and practices are now a medical issue to be treated at Mt. Sinai Hospitals (and others) throughout the country. 

 

Read on.