It’s not enough that a national survey released Tuesday found atheists were the highest-scoring group on basic religious knowledge — now members of Metro State Atheists are being regular goody-two-shoes.

The group began a three-day campus food drive Tuesday dubbed “Food for Freethought.”

The atheists take in nonperishable food items or cash donations from fellow students or other passers-by. In return, they hand out free books.

These are books that have been banned, censored or at least roundly criticized, said group co-founder Joel Guttormson.

The event dovetailed with “Banned Books Week,” the last week of September, when hundreds of libraries and bookstores draw attention to what they believe is the mounting problem of censorship.

When best-selling atheist authors Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett heard about the Metro State event, they sent signed copies of their books for Guttormson to give away.

The atheist group’s little table of books on an Auraria campus plaza attracted quite a bit of attention.

“It think this is great,” said Anna Parsons, 32, a junior at the University of Colorado Denver. “I’m a devout atheist. That’s what I believe in.”

Other atheist groups have held “fiction for fiction” drives, in which they collect Bibles and hand over novels in exchange. But that struck Guttormson, 24, as disrespectful.

“I’d much rather try to change our image by giving food to the homeless,” Guttormson said.

He had heard about the nationwide survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life but wasn’t gloating.

During the survey, about 3,400 Americans were called in May and June and asked 32 fairly basic questions about the Bible, Christianity and other world religions. On average, Americans answered correctly 16 of the 32 questions.

Atheists, people who do not believe in god, and agnostics, those who are unsure of the existence or nature of god, averaged 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons performed next best. Catholics correctly answered fewer than half (14.7).

“Believe it or not,” Guttormson said, “at my house, I have two Bibles, two Korans, a Bhagavad Gita and Hindu poems. I have tons of books on Scriptures.”

According to a 2009 Pew report, people with no religion make up 16.1 percent of adult Americans: atheists, 1.6 percent; agnostics, 2.4 percent; and those who say they are simply not part of organized religion, 12.1 percent.

Yet many people treat atheists like second-class citizens, Guttormson said. “We’re generally not trusted.”

Guttormson said he lost his faith in his teens. The thing he missed about his religious upbringing, he said, was a sense of community.

Now he has a community — about 30 people are part of Metro State Atheists. There are 11 atheist groups in Colorado.

Guttormson said he gets hate mail every time his group does a public event.

“We’re feeding the hungry,” he tells his critics. “What more can we do besides converting that can make you stop hating me?”

Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com