Guilt by Denomination

In religious debates, a common tactic is for the theist to claim that their belief grants them a sense of well being. They claim it makes their day to day lives are better and to be without religion, there would be a gaping hole left in them. Well a study by organizational psychologist Darrel Ray, Ed.D and undergraduate Amanda Brown have determined that any ‘gaping hole’ would have been supported by its own weight in guilt, at least when it comes to sex.

9,500 people fully answered the survey devised by the researchers to determine if their sex lives had changed since leaving religion (14,500 people, in all, participated but not all completed the survey). What was found is after leaving religion, their feeling of guilt after sex was greatly reduced. As an added bonus, 50% claimed to have had better sex then they had while being believers. It seems when you don’t believe a magic man in the sky is watching you, you won’t feel bad about getting it on with your partner.

The survey took samples from 94 countries though the majority came from the United States. The sample sizes came down to 5.1% from Canada, 4.7% from the UK, 2.7% from Australia, and the remaining countries never comprised more than .75% of the sample group.

What denomination a person held affected their level of guilt rather strongly. Those who came from a more fundamentalist background felt the most relief while more open belief systems such as Unitarianism had the least guilt attached to their sex lives.

It was also found that the kind of sexual behavior people would partake in would remain the same. So losing religion did not lead to new kinds of sex, just more satisfying sex. This is important to note as many who are locked in a faith believe the would become sexual deviants without the aid of their religion.

When asked about their sexual education, it was reported that those from more conservative households were the least likely to be informed, where as the more progressive and especially non-religious tended to be more informed about sexual matters. This did not reduce the age or number of sexual events, as both had approximately the same, just those from non-religious or non-denominational houses were more informed beforehand.

One expected outcome never did show itself. After losing religion, the guilt left behind quickly faded. Most reported there being no long term affects on their sex lives from having been a part of a religion. So we can safely say that it doesn’t matter how long you have been a believer as once you stop, the sex will always get more rewarding

So the next time a theist claims that religion has improved their lives, you can whip out this study (hopefully only this study) and show them the fun you are having without all that guilt.

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References:

Sex and Secularism

By Darrel Ray, Ed.D. and Amanda Brown1

IPCpress.com