cultural-identity, demographyCorrelation, not causation? Comedians are highly intelligent (generally), and atheism correlates with intelligence/education levels.
Media bias toward “liberals?” An amazing number of the most well known comedians are atheists. Carlin, Hicks, Martin, Kinnison, Hedberg, Minchin, Fry, Laurie, Izzard, Monty Python (the whole lot), … and on and on…[edit] did I forget Gervais?
I think we don’t carry the mental baggage forcing us to conform to social convention.
We are not held hostage by fear and guilt being forced into conforming.
We either didn’t have our sense of humor shamed out of us, or we have healed from it and many of us use humor as a tool to deal with it.
Another possibility is we are all so damaged we’ll find anything funny.
Comedians tend to be lateral thinkers, taking their own unique slant on things. Thus they will tend to reject the conventional, and think for themselves. Which tends to lead to atheism.
We’re intelligent, and we’re funny. It’s that simple. Note that not all Atheists are “liberals” in the American sense. A number of them are libertarian (not that I really understand why, but that’s flamebait for another day).
Logic!
As George Carlin sometimes say: “I can back up my claim with my flawless logic!”.
“God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.”
– Voltare
We’re not too afraid to laugh, and laughing is the first step to recruiting others to join with with you. I think it quite possible, however arrogant it may sound that we’re simply less likely to have the extraordinary, or the mundane pitched over head.
Take the late Hedburg - your example - for example, if you create religion around escalators you’re probably less likely to think of a broken dysfunctional one as “temporarily stairs”. It isn’t that he is a good comedian because he isn’t a worshiper of the divinity of automatic escalation mechanisms. It’s that he’s more likely to be an atheist if he examines religion with the same mindset that he walks around in malls with.
Many ‘alternative’ comedians have tried to push the boundaries of what they can get away with, what is considered acceptable and tasteful. Traditionally, religion has always had a ‘no-go’ zone as far as comedy is concerned. Many are just knocking down that perception of respect that faiths have demanded in the past. As audiences have become more secular it’s not such a big deal any more.
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