^{In some macabre way, guilt is something that many people seem to need. It’s as though to be completely guilt free is somehow not nice! Religious leaders exploit this weakness to its maximum. Inducing guilt helps keep the faithful servile and controllable. Some religions are worse than others, but they all do it to some degree. Roman Catholics declare that everyone is born in sin – that puts you in your place from day one! Then they create a lot of rules that they know will be broken. That creates the guilt. But then, through the confessional, the “sinners” can be forgiven so they can start all over again!}

^{All religions use sex to induce guilt. One SMART member writes:}

^{“As a teenager, when I had sex for the first time, I remember thinking that now I had to marry that girl. I had no choice! My religious upbringing had brainwashed me into believing that by fornicating I had sinned against God and the only way to redeem myself was to get married! My girlfriend had had a similar religious upbringing and felt the same compulsion to absolve herself of her sin! So we married, and two almost totally incompatible people had 6 unhappy years together before they saw the light and separated.”}

^{“What should have happened is that two 19 year olds had a lot of guilt-free fun learning and experimenting with sex. After a while the incompatibility of their personalities would have become apparent and they would have parted, hopefully still as friends, and still remembering with a warm glow the first sexual experiences they had shared.”}

^{In a world ruled by SMART people there would still be a few rules regarding sex. But they would mostly pertain to protecting children and the prevention of unwanted babies.}