Speaking of immasculated...

An atheist student group at the University of Texas-San Antonio are trying to get college kids to trade in religious tests for pornography.

I'm not going to name the student leader here (although his name is featured prominently in the interview) but can we agree that, whatever your religious beliefs or lack of beliefs, that this young man and his colleagues are, in the strictest and most exact sense possible, complete and utter dim-bulbs? As I see everyone is nodding their heads yes, I'll continue.

I mean, first off, this is a college campus, where presumably women's groups (as well as religious groups) occasionally speak out about the destructive nature of pornography, the ways in which drugs and violence are often used to exploit women in these situations. Do these simpletons really think that this is going to put them in Scotch with the women's groups?

The person interviewed says a number of delightfully ridiculous and arrogant things, obviously so enamoured of his own prurient cleverness at, among other things, comparing the Bible to smut (I suppose it was passages like, "Love thy neighbor" and "Thou shalt not commit adultery" set off these geniuses. Maybe the Song of Solomon got them so worked up, their fevered little minds couldn't differentiate this passionate portrayal of married love from their regular subscription to Celebrity Skin. No there's no link to that.) Also, he make it clear that he picks up girls "constantly." Oh, yes, we're sure about that. How could they resist lines like, "Come on over to my place baby and I'll trade that Navigator's New Testament you've got for some old copies of Swank!"

Actually, I will be very surprised if the young man has so much as touched a woman. I say that in all sympathy, having been spectacularly unsuccessful with the opposite sex in college, but whereas my shyness has (obviously) worn off, I'm not so sure traits like naked arrogance and ignorance, as displayed by the young man from San Antonio, will be so easy to shed. Especially if network news personalities are going to happily provide them with the publicity they crave, just to have an excuse to use the word "porn" in a news story to drive up the ratings. (...Apparently especially high in San Antonio.)

Mind you, people have a right to believe whatever they like in America. If this young man wants to convince himself in worn out tropes such as that the Bible "contradicts itself on nearly every page" (Whatever you think of it, that claim is ridiculous on the face of it, like saying the Bhagavad Gita was written in Welsh) or display his ignorance by suggesting that religious documents were "Bronze Aged tribal nonsense, these things written by people in tents ages ago" when the New Testament was written well after the end of the Iron Age and the high points of Greek philosophy (and although I'm a Christian and don't believe in it at all, it's worth pointing out that the Koran was written well after that in the most advanced society of the time), he's fully entitled to display such astounding ignorance and smile whilst doing it.

Of course, we are entitled to rights also, such as the right to be outraged or in my case to laugh sadly in the young man's direction at such counterproductive nonsense.

Listen, I realize it's college, and all college students are far less intelligent than they think they are, especially after all the underage drinking and staying up all night playing Risk and video games, and finding plausible arguments to convince Tucker Carlson that they're strumpet magnets, but at some point you just have to stop and point out that not every idea makes you a clever dick...an unfortunate choice of words in this case, but true nonetheless.