Christians at a Texas College Campus find themselves in a battle between good and evil as atheists once again “peacefully” express their opposition to the Bible and religious teachings. Atheists at the University of Texas have instituted a program in which Bibles and religious paraphernalia are exchanged for pornographic materials. Their defense is that porn is no worse than the “smut” present in religious texts.
The campaign is called “smut for smut”, and despite the overwhelming majority of students that are offended by this recent circus, a university spokesman explains that it is legal and cannot be punished. The atheistic group maintains that they will only provide the pornographic material to students 18 years or older. The group plans to continue this activity through the middle of the week.
It is doubtful that mere coincidence has aligned this campaign with the recent erection of atheistic billboards by the United Coalition of Reason at the cost of $100,000. The coalition claims it is their goal to bring nonbelievers together and increase their visibility in local communities, and attempts to defend their actions by remarking on the peaceful message advocated in the billboards: that one does not need God to be good and virtuous. However, the behavior of the atheists at the University of Texas has removed any possibility of cloaking themselves in this defense.
This campaign is part of a systematic attempt on the part of atheists to destroy Christianity, and has unfortunately been successful in a variety of ways.
For one, while Christians continue to make up the majority in the United States, 75 percent to be exact, less Americans are identifying themselves as Christians then ever before. In 1990, 86 percent of Americans were self-proclaimed Christians. Mark Silk of Trinity College has argued that, “In the 1990s, it really sunk in on the American public generally that there was a long-lasting ‘religious right’ connected to a political party, and that turned a lot of people the other way.”
It certainly makes sense that religious groups have often aligned themselves with a party that has been largely pro-life in its message and has proclaimed a belief in preserving a moralistic society. Silk’s explanation implies a connection between atheists and liberalism, and rightfully so.
Additionally, columnist Michael Caputo outlines how atheists have exhausted the legal system to do the following: Won the first federal lawsuit challenging direct funding by the government of faith-based agencies, overturned a state Good Friday holiday, won a lawsuit barring direct taxpayer subsidy of religious schools, removed the Ten Commandments monuments from public lands (though our legal system is modeled from these laws), ended Bible instruction in public schools after 51 years, halted prayer at public institutions, stopped direct subsidy to religious schools, ended commencement prayers at Top Ten University after 122 years of practice, ended distribution of Gideon Bibles in public schools, brought nearly 30 First Amendment lawsuits since 1977, and keeps several Establishment-law changes in the courts at all times.
Blogster Ben Witherington addresses the surge of atheistic sentiment that gained momentum in the last part of the decade. For him, and many others, much of it seems to be nonsensical. “I mean when is the last time you found people ranting and raving for so long about something or someone who, according to them, doesn’t even exist? I don’t see people writing angry diatribes shouting ‘Unicorns aren’t real-get over it!’ In fact I don’t even see many Grinches writing best sellers entitled ‘Santa Claus is a myth’.”
Witherington employs a tongue-in-cheek approach to raise a rather significant question. What is the purpose of the atheistic agenda? The answer is rather alarming. Karl Marx recognized organized religion as a threat to the socialization of the worker because it preached lessons of love and loyalty. Marx believed that loyalty focused on a supreme being would inhibit the formation of a communist state. Stalin learned from this and took steps to limit religion in the USSR, closing churches or converting them into schools or theaters. Religious icons were destroyed and religious meetings were banned. Those who violated these rules lived in fear of being discovered by Stalin’s police. In 2009, the Freedom from Religion Foundation boldly advertised “Imagine no Religion” in Portland, Oregon, obviously alluding to John Lennon’s communist manifesto “Imagine”, which proposes a world of godless communism.
In Emmet F. Field’s Atheism: An Affirmative View, published in 1980, Fields goes to painstaking lengths to repute any anti-atheistic jargon that Christians have used. However, the one claim made by Christians with which Fields agrees is the role that atheism has played in the success of communism. “There can be no doubt but that Atheism is the reason for the success of communism … Atheism is, has been, and will continue to be, the force for progress throughout the Communist world,” he writes.
Of course, not all atheists should be indicted for supporting or advocating communism, in the same way Christians should not be punished for the behavior of a select few. However, many members of atheistic groups fail to realize that they are sheep being manipulated to fight a cause far beyond that which they have accepted as their own. A prime example would be the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a group with socialist and communist ties that has made it a point to eliminate and combat religion. In the book The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values, Alan Sears explains, “From the very beginning, the ACLU had strong socialist and communist ties. As early as 1931, the U.S. Congress was alarmed by the ACLU’s devotion to communism.” The ACLU is the same group that has radically defended partial-birth abortion and abortion rights in general, polygamy and polyamory, and same-sex "marriages."
Atheists have morphed into a militant minority group that has managed to attain by law a louder voice than the majority. The agenda of this group is made quite clear by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Inc., which states in their bylaws that it is their intention to separate church and state and educate the public on matters relating to non-theism. When that is accomplished, what will be left?
Indeed, that is the question.
Photo of Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner (13) and other players in prayer after an NFL football game against the St. Louis Rams: AP Images
