Smut for Smut

The University of Texas -- San Antonio's Atheist Agenda organization made some waves on their campus with their "Smut for Smut" campaign. They offered students a chance to trade in their Bibles for pornography. The event was an attempt to challenge believers to examine what's in their holy book

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU_7j5Ctuo4

Hemant Mehta of the Friendly Atheist had this to say:

Who’s joining the group over stunts like this? Probably people I wouldn’t want to be in a group with in the first place — the type that get off on pushing religious people down instead of doing something meaningful and productive.

There are so many reasons people should not be religious. Why not give them a compelling reason to toss faith aside? Letting them know that atheists can be just as jerky as evangelical bible-thumpers isn’t helping the cause.

 PZ Myers disagrees:

If it's not offending someone, sacrilege isn't sacrilege — it's not doing what it is supposed to do, which is to defy an invalid social norm. If everyone thinks that what you're doing is nice and compatible with their superstitions, you aren't going to make them think! And it worked.

The other part of this issue, though, seems to be taken for granted by everyone. If I trade you a photo of a man and woman having sex for your ragged old Bible, who has gotten the better deal? How does that denigrate religion, unless you're assuming that sexuality is a sin, a corruption, a filthy offense to the gods? Hemant applauded the "Fiction for fiction", which I agree is also an excellent idea…but what's the difference? It seems to me that it simply skirted around one hot button for religion, sex; it's a more tightly focused campaign, but I think the whole weird sexual self-loathing aspect of modern Christianity is also something worth highlighting.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments.