The Atheist Agenda, a UT-San Antonio student group, recently offered pornography in exchange for Bibles on campus in what it called “Smut for Smut” (thanks to Boing Boing for ferreting this story out, though it is a little old).

Apparently intending to piss off both feminists and Bible enthusiasts, their website notes some of the testy reactions provoked by the stunt:

"Overall we had a lot of fun doing this, talked to a lot of interesting people. I learned that there are grown adults who believe that dinosaurs and people existed on this planet at the same time. Had a professor of the women and gender studies yell at us to take a course in logic and ethics -- without giving us a chance to respond (she stormed off and proceeded to call us names in front of her class). We got plenty of smirks and thumbs up. It was a success beyond our dreams and prayers (ha!)."

Not really sure how I feel about this one.

I like the increased public presence of atheists—especially when so much media space seems reserved for believers of one stripe or another. And though I don’t think we should flood the public sphere with porn, there’s something mildly humorous about seeing prudish feminists getting hysterical over some run-of-the-mill smut, which, by the way, was handed out in envelopes (Am I being sexist there?).

Whatever the case, free speech being what it is, I suppose they can do whatever they want. But I think this is ultimately a counterproductive strategy. Just on the face of it, provocatively equating pornography with Bibles is just intellectually incorrect. Whatever the keen insights of Swank or Penthouse, and despite the mounds of mindless doggerel in the Bible, even the most narrow-minded of atheists must admit that there is some legitimate ethical wisdom accumulated in the good book.

But on a deeper level, this stunt strikes at the heart of how atheists understand themselves in relation to religion. It often seems they are unable to construe themselves as anything other than a negative, counterbalancing force against the faithful. This is mistaken. When people say they don’t believe in astrology or think the Flat Earth Society is a bit daffy, they don’t characterize themselves as anti-astrologists or round-earthers, they merely dismiss those beliefs as erroneous and go on about their business.

Atheists should take note of the live-and-let-live approach and group the virgin-birthers and intelligent designers with the flat-earthers and zodiac-lovers, courteously decline any and all attempts at proselytization, and proceed godlessly just as they would otherwise.