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THE survey, led by Recovering from Religion founder and psychologist Dr Darrel Ray and Amanda Brown from Kansas University, indicated that people’s sex lives improve dramatically after kicking religion to the kerb.
The main reason for this is that atheists aren’t saddled with guilt during and after sexual activity. According to this report, the study discovered that non-believers are more willing to discuss sexual fantasies and are more satisfied with their experiences.
Both atheists and believers admitted that they carried out the same activities such as masturbation, watching pornography, having oral sex and pursuing affairs.
But followers of religion did not enjoy the experiences as much due to the stigma created by their belief systems, the study found. It left them with intense feelings of regret after they had climaxed.
More than 14,500 people took part in the Sex and Secularism study. Questions included: How do religious parents educate their children compared to non-religious parents? When do people start sex and is there a difference based on religious training? How does religious guilt play into the whole equation?
Strict religions such as Mormons ranked highest on the scale of sexual guilt. Their average score was 8.19 out of 10. They were followed closely behind by Jehovah’s Witness, Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist, and Baptist. Catholics rated their levels of sexual guilt at 6.34 while Lutherans came slightly lower at 5.88. In contrast, atheists and agnostics ranked at 4.71 and 4.81 respectively. Dr Darrel Ray
The findings dispelled beliefs that feelings of guilt could continue to plague people after leaving their religion.
Ray  said:
We did think that religion would have residual effects in people after they left but our data did not show this. That was a very pleasant surprise. The vast majority seem to shake it off and get on with their sexual lives pretty well.
He added:
Our data shows that people feel very guilty about their sexual behaviour when they are religious, but that does not stop them, it just makes them feel bad. Of course, they have to return to their religion to get forgiveness. It’s like the church gives you the disease, then offers you a fake cure.
Ray was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home, but left religion in his 30s.
He founded Recovering from Religion in 2009 to help people who needed a support system to help them deal with the aftermath of leaving religion. Hat tip: Kosmider
According to this report, the study discovered that non-believers are more willing to discuss sexual fantasies and are more satisfied with their experiences.