Darrel Ray

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Darrel Ray
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Born Darrel Wayne Ray
(1950-08-24) August 24, 1950 (age 73)
Wichita, Kansas
Occupation Organizational psychologist, author
Nationality American
Ethnicity White
Education MA, Ed. D.
Alma mater Friends University, Scarritt College for Christian Workers,[1] Peabody College of Vanderbilt University[2]
Genre Non-fiction
Subject Religion, secularism, organization development, sexuality
Years active 1978–present

Darrel Wayne Ray (born August 24, 1950) is a psychologist who has written several books on various topics. He is also a speaker, podcaster and atheist activist. He helped found the organization Recovering from Religion.

Personal life

Ray was raised a fundamentalist Christian in Wichita, Kansas, by parents who eventually became missionaries, and among family members highly involved in church life.[3] This fundamentalist upbringing informs much of his later writing.[4] In 1979, Ray joined the Quaker church, and later he attended the Presbyterian church.[5] From 1969 to 1984 he taught Sunday school, preached, and was a tenor soloist in several church choirs. He left the church in the mid 1980s and identifies as an atheist.

Ray is the father of two children and also a grandfather.[6] He is also openly polyamorous.[7]

Education

In 1972, he earned a bachelor's degree in sociology/anthropology at Friends University in Wichita, and in 1974 he completed an MA in Church and Community at Scarritt College for Christian Workers in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1978 he finished a doctoral program in psychology at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, earning his Ed.D.[8]

Professional work

Ray was very involved in organizational culture and clinical psychology.[6] He is the author of two books on team building and was the director of The Institute for Performance Culture.[9] He also founded Teaming Up, an organizational and team-building coaching program.[10] Ray co-authored 2 books with Howard Bronstein which describe how to create and manage self-directed teams.[11]

In 2009, he helped found the organization Recovering from Religion, an international self-help group for those leaving their religious indoctrination.[5] He is currently involved in Recovering from Religion as a board director and as part of a Recovering from Religion program called "The Secular Therapy Project" which aims to help patients find secular and science-based therapy.

Ray is also the author of books about secularism and atheism, The God Virus: How Religion Affects Our Lives and Culture and Sex and God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality. Ray's books about secularism and religion explore how religion interacts with human beings on a personal and cultural level. Ray explores how religious institutions and ideas can be used to control human thoughts and behaviors, especially sexual behaviors.[6] Ray pays special attention to placing sexuality and various religions into context culturally and historically.[7] He takes the stance that many human impulses, feelings and sexual behaviors are normal and can be desirable.[12] Ray's books have influenced other atheists, where his psychological interpretation of Richard Dawkin's concept of religion as a virus has had an impact on the atheist and secular movement in America.[13]

On August 30, 2014, Ray launched a podcast about human sexuality and atheism called Secular Sexuality where is he also the host.[14]

He has also appeared as a secular psychological expert on television, including ABC News show, Nightline, where in 2011, he spoke out against exorcisms and took a scientific viewpoint towards psychological illnesses that might look like possession.[15]

Research

In June 1982, Ray and several other authors released a paper describing a study done on male youth offenders in a juvenile correction institute. Ray and the group studied whether population density had any effects on the participants.[16]

In May 2011, Ray and Amanda Brown (an undergraduate at the University of Kansas studying sex and sexuality) released the results of a self-reporting online survey[17] of over 14,500 American secularists, titled "Sex and Secularism: What Happens When You Leave Religion?", concluding that sex improves dramatically after leaving religion, and people who are religious exhibit similar sexual behaviors as the non-religious, but experience markedly increased guilt.[18] The study has been criticized for suffering from self-selection bias,[19] due to its recruiting of participants via the science blog Pharyngula.[20]

Bibliography

Books

  • Teaming Up: Making the Transition to a Self-directed, Team-based Organization (IPC Press 1995. ISBN 978-0-07-051646-5 Hardcover.)
  • The Performance Culture: Maximizing the Power of Teams (IPC Press, May 2001. ISBN 978-0-9709505-0-5 Paperback.)
  • The God Virus: How Religion Affects Our Lives and Culture (IPC Press, December 2009. ISBN 978-0-9709505-1-2 Paperback.)
  • The God Virus: How Religion Affects Our Lives and Culture (Dogma Debate, LLC, November 2012. ASIN B00A8D0D9W. Audiobook.)
  • Sex and God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality (IPC Press, January 2012. ISBN 978-0-9709505-4-3 Paperback.)
  • Sex and God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality (Dogma Debate, LLC, February 2013. ASIN B00BCCW6PC Audiobook.)

Journals

Ray has written for a number of journals, including The Humanist, a publication of the American Humanist Association.[21]

Podcast

Dr. Darrel Ray's podcast, Secular Sexuality addresses human sexuality from an atheist or freethinker's viewpoint. It is produced by Secular Media Group, LLC, an atheist media and publishing company.[22]

  • Secular Sexuality with Dr. Darrel Ray (2014)

References

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  22. ↑ Dogma Debate and Secular SexualityLua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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