I was doing some random internet surfing and accidentally stumbled upon two different and totally unrelated pieces of writing which suggest that atheists can’t be farmers. Who in the what now?

This letter to the editor in a Georgia newspaper implies that the country would be better off if it were run by farmers, who, apparently, are paragons of moral virtue. The author, one Tom Stafford, asks a series of probing rhetorical questions, including: “Have you ever known a farmer that was an atheist?” Not me personally, Mr. Stafford, but I’ve only met maybe one or two actual farmers in my entire life. However, I know of more than a few farmers and - let’s call them “plantation owners” - in your state, Mr. Stafford, who once used slave labor and were very Christian about it.

Not to mention, of course, that the premise of the letter is flawed: farmers do run this country. It’s called the Iowa Caucus, and it’s why we have to hear about ethanol every election cycle, and it’s why the overwhelming majority of plant and animal agriculture is subsidized by the same government that people who write letters like this one usually claim to despise.

Then this little piece of writing asks the question, “Are there no atheist farmers?” And it goes on to call farming the “ultimate triumph of faith.” So, I guess each and every one of the many colleges of agricultural science are all just teaching the one course over and over again: The Almighty Deity and Your Crops 101.

I also guess that neither of these people has ever heard of Frances Farmer, either.

Recently, an announcer at a baseball game suggested that “It’s a lousy night to be an atheist!” The old canard about there being no atheists in foxholes doesn’t seem to ever go away, and according to this poll, either 50% or 41% of Christians surveyed (before and after watching a specific CNN story) said that atheists should not be allowed to hold positions of authority in the military. Speaking of CNN, this hysterical CNN panel discussed the topic of discrimination against atheists without actually including any. I guess they were going for some kind of irony award or something. And of course, we’ve all seen the polls which say that Americans will put aside their own homophobia and vote for a gay man for President before they’d ever vote for an atheist.

And to top it all off, the city of Birmingham recently decided to prevent its employees from looking at atheist websites.

Conservative Christians in America are very good at playing the role of the victim. They love to whip out some good old inflammatory and factually incorrect rhetoric like this: “It is now illegal even to kneel and pray in front of a clinic that performs abortions.” Um, no, I doubt it. And they love to suggest a whiff of discrimination where it never existed: “Religious stamps not outlawed after all.” Gee, really? Whew.

Funny, then, that this is the same group of people who aren’t going to vote for Barack Obama because they believe him to be a secret Muslim. Because I guess it’s only discrimination when someone else does it.

For every fake example of discrimination that they can dream up (thinking about Jesus is now illegal!), I can point to actual examples of discrimination perpetrated by them. Discrimination is as simple as saying that an atheist can’t be moral (and therefore, can’t be a farmer - ??), or enjoy a baseball game, or can’t be the President simply because he or she has no religion and admits it out loud. Discrimination is saying that atheists shouldn’t hold leadership positions in the military, in government, or even in the church.**

And outright bigotry is saying “there is no vow that the militant atheist will not violate if he perceives any risk to his material well-being.” Maybe I’m just one of those overreacting, angry atheists, but that statement sounds an awful lot like this one: “All this results in that mental attitude and that quest for money and the power to protect it which allow the Jew to become so unscrupulous in his choice of means, so merciless in their use of his own ends.”

So, what, then, in this world of Christian virtue, are atheists permitted to do? Can an atheist be a ballerina, or own a falafel stand? Please let me know what I am allowed to do, good believers of the world, because clearly, after thousands of years of global religious dominance, everything is going really, really well for everybody and I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of that.

** Ed. Note, Aug 3:  Reading this now, this sentence makes no sense.  Note to self, read posts carefully before publishing them.  Atheists should not hold positions of leadership in churches.  I was thinking of gay people and the brouhaha over gay clergy, and my brain got mixed up.  Readers should not be surprised.