^{How many times will world leaders try to broker a peace between warring factions in the Middle East or between the combatants in any of the world’s religious based wars before they realise how futile that effort is. Real peace will only be achieved when free-thinking adults are negotiating and reasoning with other free-thinking adults. Religious people are not free thinking because when making many important decisions in their lives they are not free to use their own intelligence or powers of reasoning. They are little better than programmed robots. How can two robots negotiate a peace when each of them is programmed to believe that God is on their side and Satan controls the other?!}

^{In many disputes around the world, if there was no religion there would be no reason to fight! In a religion-free world rational free-thinking political leaders would be free to empathise with and understand the concerns of their opponents. Imagine a religion-free “Greater Palestine” comprising all of Israel and Gaza. Imagine every mosque, every temple, every religious statue, every reminder of religion either removed or converted to some useful purpose. Imagine these people having their first post-religion election. Whether the candidates’ ancestry was Jewish or Arab would be completely irrelevant. The colour of the candidates’ skin or the shape of their nose would not make a scrap of difference. The only thing that would interest the voters would be how qualified the candidates were to do the job.}

^{This scenario may be viewed by some as unrealistic. But SMART people are optimistic about the future of the human race. It may not happen within the lifetime of anyone alive today, but SMART society is convinced that one day, even in the Middle East, religion will be looked upon in the way we now look back on blood-letting or the Flat Earth Society – ridiculous beliefs of a by-gone age.}