Atheist Agenda, a group of college students from the University of Texas at San Antonio, recently conducted a “Smut for Smut” campaign in which members offered students pornography in exchange for Bibles.
According to wire reports, the group believes religious texts contain violence, spark wars, advocate for the mistreatment of women and are therefore no better than pornography.
Despite some protests from Christian students, university officials say the group has the right to conduct the swap because it is not violating any laws and has the right to free speech and to assemble.
Supreme Court won’t take up Ten Commandments dispute
The Supreme Court decided Monday it will not take up a dispute over the display of a Ten Commandments monument outside a county courthouse in Oklahoma.
According to wire reports, a federal appeals court ruled in 2009 that the 8-foot stone monument in Stigler, Okla., was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
A local resident and the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma filed the initial suit, and despite lawyers from the county asking the Supreme Court to hear the case, the judge dismissed the case.
Survey Says
Thirty-seven percent of people say religious organizations can do the best job of providing services to people in need; 28 percent say non-religious, community-based organizations can best perform this task; and 25 percent say federal and state government agencies can best provide services to the needy.
The balance of opinion about this issue was nearly identical in 2001 (37 percent religious organizations, 28 percent government agencies and 27 percent non-religious groups). In 2008, roughly equal percentages said religious organizations (31 percent), government agencies (31 percent) and non-religious groups (29 percent) could best provide help for the needy.
-- Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
Good Book?
“Jesus: A Biography, from a Believer” by Paul Johnson
Is Jesus relevant to us today? Few figures have had such an influence on history as Jesus of Nazareth. His teachings have inspired discussion, arguments and war, yet few have ever held forth as movingly on the need for peace, forgiveness and mercy.
Paul Johnson's book offers readers a lively biography of the man who inspired one of the world's great religions and whose lessons still guide us in current times.
Johnson's intelligent and conversational style, as well as his ability to distill complex subjects into succinct, highly readable works, make this book the ideal match of a major historian with a major subject. The result is an accessible biography and an insightful analysis of how Jesus is important in the present era.
