Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

Marriage and divorce is being discussed in another thread. This relates to that issue.

This book is available on Amazon and comes in a Kindle addition

Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality
by Darrel Ray ED.D.

Why are all the major religions consumed with sex? What makes sex so important, whether Buddhism or Islam, Christianity or Mormonism? What is the impact of religion on human sexuality? This book explores this and more. It ventures into territory that has never been examined. You will be surprised at how much religion has influenced your sexuality, who you marry, the pleasure you get or don't get from sex, and what you can do about it.

Top customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Healing for a grieving soul!
ByLuison January 6, 2014


Before reading this book I have read the following books that relate to the topic of Sex and God: How Religion Distort Sexuality:
1. Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature
2. The Death of Sex and the Demise of Monogamy
3. The Myth of Religion & The Common Sense of The Soul
4. Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships
5. The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature
6. Sex, Lies, and the Bible: How Human Sexual Behavior is Controlled Through the Corruption of the Bible
7. Sex Texts from the Bible: Selections Annotated & Explained (SkyLight Illuminations)
8. Taking Sex Differences Seriously
9. Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage
10. Divine Sex: Liberating Sex from Religious Tradition
11. How Sex Works: Why We Look, Smell, Taste, Feel, and Act the Way We Do
12. Sexual Liberation: The Scandal of Christendom (Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality)
13. The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
14. The Erotic Word: Sexuality, Spirituality, and the Bible
15. Anatomy of Love: The Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery, and Divorce
16. Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray
17. Sexual Nature/Sexual Culture (The Chicago Series on Sexuality, History, and Society)
18. The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People
19. Three in Love: Menages a Trois from Ancient to Modern Times

So this book is just another about the same topic, but it is not just another book! It is the definitive book about human sexuality and its liberation. Many people have ruined their respective lives and countless of other significant people and have hurt themselves and their intimate friends and spouses that it is unpardonable. The sad part is that they have done it by an act of crass ignorance!

Darrell Ray is a very prolific author. If you get a chance cootie he has been on the Atheist Experience show a few times. If you go to Youtube you can watch these episodes for free.

His thesis is pretty well argued in my opinion. Make you feel guilty about feelings and desires your nature makes you have and religion can control you. If a woman shows her cleavage or she has a tight butt there isn't anything wrong in liking to look at it or wanting to have sex with her. Shouldn't feel guilty about it at all. I should feel guilty if I look at her in a way that makes her uncomfortable and scared and am just not gentlemanlylike. Look but don't stare and be respectful. And look with our eyes and not with our hands unless given permission otherwise.

I originally read this book & the God Virus in the earlier stages of my de-conversion journey. I've come to the personal conclusion that Bible literalism is the root cause for many of the problems that are common in groups like the c of c.

First, it's impossible to follow the bible wooden literally. There is one slippery slope after another that leads to ridiculous interpretations like the c of c stance on marriage divorce & re-marriage. There is this old joke about how fundamentalists view sex. It's dirty, disgusting, immoral, & filthy that"s why you have to save it for the person you marry.

That is too close to the truth to be funny for a lot of Christians.

I don't recall the exact relationship but some of Ray's close family members were c of c, so he's had some personal experience with that kind of thinking.

In the past few months I've changed my focus to the psychology of religion. Why are people attracted to religion? Why are people so vulnerable to being indoctrinated into religions dogma? And the huge role Confirmation Bias plays in all of this. In a realitively short period of time I've found a lot of answers for questions I have as well as other interesting information.

Cross-breeding improves the health of many species including animals, humans and plants. The Irish Potato Famine was caused by mono-culture of one kind of potato. One germ type took out the whole crop. There are many types of potato and some are resistant. As a friend of mine puts it. It is not survival of the fittest. It is survival of the diverse.

King Tut was the result of inbreeding. He had a club foot. His father married his sister. This comes from DNA studies of mummies. This is also a problem with European royalty and animal populations that are getting to few.

Even plants are sexual. They can be hermaphroditic. With corn the tassels on top of the plant rain pollen on the silk. The tassels are male and silk female. The kernel you eat is the baby of the plant. Each one has a strand of silk.

Some animals are hermaphroditic. I picked up two snails doing each other at the same time.