An atheist group offered students pornography in exchange for Bibles earlier this month. Atheist Agenda, a group created by students and teachers who are atheist and agnostic, held their fifth annual “Smut for Smut” campaign at University of Texas at San Antonio on March 1-3.

All students older than the age of 18 were asked to surrender their Bibles, Qur’ans, Books of Mormon, Torahs and anything else pertaining to God for a “fair exchange” in pornographic material. The group claims that pornography is no worse than what’s written in religious-based texts, thus the campaign’s name, “Smut for Smut.”

We all have rights to believe what we choose, so long as it’s within legal and ethical parameters. Atheists are as deserving of this right as anyone.

However, this campaign is led by an organization that is allegedly seeking to promote a positive social environment and sponsor events and dialogue on matters of faith, science and reason. The student demonstrators belonging to Atheist Agenda appear to have a contradicting agenda with their Bible-for-pornography swap.

This blatantly spiteful event appears to be more about the degradation of other people’s free thoughts and principles than it is about publicizing their own. Atheist Agenda seems to have chosen the route of shock value and mockery, as opposed to the promotion of atheistic and agnostic principles of atheism, which—it would seem—would be the best rhetorical choice for engaging people in dialogue.

If these students and demonstrators were true proponents of atheism—or any cause, for that matter—would they need a contemptuous gimmick like the “Smut for Smut” campaign to bring awareness to their cause?

Additionally, it is ignorant to assert that what is written in religions texts is wholly “smut” and just as offensive as pornography. Most, if not all, religious texts promote, at some level, deeper truths about humanity and nature—love, hope, kindness and the like. Understandably, the group is rejecting the talk of God in religious texts, but ignoring other messages religious texts offer seems dense.

Atheists don’t reject love, hope or goodwill; in fact, atheists, too, promote such values. Therefore, considering religious texts as being of the same degradation level as pornography sounds not only daft, but all together uninformed.

Sorry, Atheist Agenda, but you seem to have fanned the flames of intolerance and close-mindedness through your “in-your-face-atheism” campaign and, therefore, contradicted your own message of faith, science and reason.

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