And lately it's been getting really bad having to re-tell the reasons for the PTSD diagnosis to doctors who go "oh, well, a lot of people _say _they have PTSD"
(Not to mention: a lot of people get really touchy with the idea that religion can be “traumatic” at all.)
1000x. I think religion gets traumatic when it is all about dressing up guilt and shame for behavior control. That is when it gets traumatic.
Parents using shame to get specific behaviors from their kids (or prevent certain behaviors) are turning a very powerful tool against their kids, and it hurts everyone.
I'm no-contact with _both_ my parents, over this issue, and they're not even able to perceive that they used shame, constantly, against all three of their children, and continue to do so.
There is one comment on the board calling out the article's negatively towards magical thinking as bigotry. To folks that are recovering from religious trauma, it's straight up lived experience.
Truthfully? I find it very difficult to see religion as anything other than traumatic, because what I went through was so bad and different than what most people think of when they think of “religion.” I don’t know if I have any real objectivity in the matter.
I do feel that there is something interesting in that line of thought, however. Perhaps it has to do with the intensely personal nature of religious conviction, and the existential subject matter it deals with?
All and all, communities in general can create trauma. Its odd to me that many religions tend to be especially good at it.
On the other hand, some religions I respect greatly for their desire to improve the lives of their adherents. Reform Judaism and their commitment to tzedakah and tikkun olam, Sikhism, liberal Christianity, and so forth.
Religion is a mechanism to transfer culture (though not exclusively so). When it cuts out its feedback mechanisms in its governance structure, it inevitably becomes toxic.