Move over Alcoholics Anonymous. Now there’s a recovery group for people who want to escape their religious addiction and live a life free of gods, demons, sin, and the constant threat of an eternity in hell fires.
Founded in March of this year by Darrel Ray, a psychologist and author of
The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture, the group, which is called Recovering Religionists (RR), now has chapters in almost a dozen places, including Raleigh, North Carolina; Conroe, Texas; Kansas City, Kansas; Atlanta, Georgia; Joplin, Missouri; and New York City.
Ray may be onto something big. A 2007 PEW study found that 16% of Americans no longer belong to any specific religion, making them one of the country’s largest minorities. And the number is still growing, in fact, faster than any religious organization. Which should make it any easier for people to admit that they’re non-believers. It doesn’t. The stigma is too great.
Ray, who was raised in a fundamentalist Christian church and spent time with the Quakers and the Presbyterians, told the Kansas City Star, “It is almost easier to come out of the closet as gay than as an atheist, especially in the Midwest. My hope for RR is that when people are ready to leave religion they have a group for support.”
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off site, courtesy Beyond Chron.
