NYC ATHEISTS MONTHLY MEETING

For Immediate Release
New York City Atheists
Web: nyc-atheists.org
Press Contact: [masked]

What Is the Deep Dark Secret Behind the Lure of Religion?
Psychologist Analyzes How Religion Entraps You

Dr. Darrel W. Ray grew up in the belly of the beast—Wichita, Kansas, heart of the Bible Belt. His grandfather was a preacher in a country church; his parents became Christian missionaries. He thought he would go into the Christian ministry himself so he studied for a Master’s degree in religion. But something strange happened on the way to his becoming a minister: He lost his belief in religion.

Dr. Ray holds that losing one’s belief is not uncommon among clergy; but once they become preachers, they can’t easily get out of the profession. Luckily, he was in his 20s when it happened to him. He changed his field and, instead, got a doctorate in clinical psychology from Vanderbilt University. He is now a successful practicing psychologist whose team of five employees specializes in organizational psychology—coaching and counseling executives.

But what Dr. Ray learned in his year of studying religion—not to mention a lifetime of listening to fundamentalist preaching—stuck with him throughout his doctorate studies in psychology. Somewhere along the line, he saw the connection: that the church uses subliminal psychological techniques to ensnare and capture its victims. The result was his ground-breaking book, The god Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture, in which he analyzes how the church uses psychological techniques to lure and entrap the vulnerable.

Church Manipulates Emotions

“In my view, we atheists have missed the boat,” he says. ”Most of us think that logic is the way to combat religion. My thesis is, logic is NOT the way to combat religion.

“We have to learn to understand how religion manipulates people emotionally,” says Dr. Ray. “If we just argue logically with it, it’s not going to go away. The more you argue with it, the stronger it gets. We need to look at the emotional exploitation that the church engages in and understand it.”

Dr. Ray holds that religion uses guilt, fear, rhythmic sing-song cadences, music and hypnosis-like techniques to inculcate religion. At the Thursday, April 30th NYC Atheists meeting, he will demonstrate how the guilt cycle works—“You weren’t born guilty,” he contends. “You have to learn to feel guilty.”

He will start his presentation by doing a demonstration of typical fundamentalist preaching. “I’ll do about 60 seconds of hellfire and brimstone,” he says, “because I want to show how the verbal cadences and the music give a subliminal message about guilt.”

New Group for Ex-Believers

Dr. Ray has recently started a new initiative called “Recovering From Religion” or RR, in which he hopes to create face-to-face meetings in every city in the nation of people who are trying to get out of their religion. “I’m trying to do the same thing as Alcoholics Anonymous but for people who are trying to get out of religion,” he notes.

Come, hear this fascinating, pioneering psychologist and author who has taken time from his busy schedule to advance his belief that science tops religion and to show to the world how insidiously religion uses old and new psychological techniques to bait the unwary.
EVENT SUMMARY

WHAT: “How Religion Uses Psychology to Entrap Its Victims,”
a talk by Dr. Darrel W. Ray of Kansas City, KS,
psychologist and author of The God Virus.

WHEN: Thursday, April 30th at 6:30 P.M.

WHERE: SLC Conference Center
352 Seventh Ave. (bet. 29th & 30th Streets)
16th Floor

COST: FREE. But we would appreciate a donation of $5 toward the cost
of the conference room if possible.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
Jane Everhart
Director of Communications
New York City Atheists
[masked]
or
Kenneth Bronstein
President
New York City Atheists
[masked]
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New York City Atheists Inc. is a 501C not-for-profit educational association dedicated to the separation of church and state and to promoting the atheist lifestyle and values. All are welcome, including agnostics, humanists, skeptics, freethinkers and those just questioning and seeking.
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