Anna L. Davis: Offended On Behalf of Atheists

One popular tactic for "concern trolls" is to pretend to know what some other groups "should be" feeling and then proclaim that they would certainly have such feelings if they were in the same position. For example, a concern troll might proclaim that gays should be offended over outrageous behavior of activists at a public demonstration -- this serves to divide gay activists and thus undermine their activities while appearing to be sincerely supportive of their agenda.

Anna L. Davis uses such a tactic with atheists by suggesting that if were an atheist, she would be "deeply offended" that a college atheist group offered to trade adult magazines for Bibles. The purpose of such "concern" is to disparage the tactics of the atheist group while pretending to support their goals -- but if she doesn't actually support their goals, why should anyone take her objections to the tactics seriously?

I want to look instead at the underlying message behind this campaign: that the Atheist Agenda sees nothing wrong with handing out pornography in exchange for the Bibles.

Granted, pornography itself is a controversial issue. Let's just take religion out of it for a minute and look at the research. On one side you have research that pornography is a healthy outlet and does not affect crime. On the other side, you have the research linking pornography to sex crimes. "Research" in this case refers to medical, criminal, and sociological journal articles not linked in any way to religion.

So are all atheists in the pro-pornography camp? And are all atheists on board with the "smut-for-smut" program that happily hands out pornography in exchange for Bibles?

Source: Bigger than Me

It's important to note that Anna Davis' "evidence" for linking pornography and sex-crimes is exclusively with convicted child molesters and their recidivism rates. In other words, she has no evidence that pornography causes sex crimes or even child molestation, only that people who are already convicted child molesters are a higher risk for recidivism the more pornography they view. In contrast, she admits through her first link that every scientific study done so far shows that increasing access to pornography doesn't correlate with increased sex crimes -- and sometimes correlates with decreased sex crimes.

Anna L. Davis presents the two as if they were somehow equivalent, a "he said, she said" situation of conflicting views with equal weight. The truth is almost exactly the opposite: pornography does not increase the risk of sex crimes for the general population or the average person, but might increase risk slightly with someone who already has a history of one very particular sort of sex crime. Presenting this as if there were some sort of unresolved controversy or legitimate disagreement is dishonest -- but it is common in evangelical Christian circles, as we have all seen in how they try to critique evolution.

So what reason is there for any atheists to be "deeply offended," much less for a Christian to presume to tell atheists that she would be "deeply offended" if she were an atheist? Well, if there were some reason to think that many of the people (presumably mostly Christians?) offering Bibles to exchange were also convicted child molesters, then the atheist group might be regarded as increasing the chance of further sex crimes. I'd be upset over that. But, if the people handing in Bibles to exchange are a normal cross-section of America, then there is no reason to think that there will be any ill effects -- certainly no more than reading the Bible.

Some people disagree with this event because it draws negative attention and criticism, but we should all know by now that there is nothing atheists can do that won't draw negative attention and criticism. Even billboards with the mildest possible message leads to attacks and vandalism. Thus, negative attention cannot itself be a legitimate basis for objection; instead, the question is whether the negative attention is balanced out by simply getting increased attention and whatever goals the group in question has -- more membership, more attendance at meetings, more discussion about the issues they care about, etc.

So far, not a single critic, atheist or theist, has shown that any of the negatives outweigh the positives. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but none of the objections have been anything more than concern trolling or baseless speculations. If nothing else, the unusual and creative nature of events like this should be praised so that people keep trying to come up with new things. Even if the "smut for smut" campaign isn't all that effective by itself, it may be part of a larger trend to come up with things that work really well.