How it feels to make an anti religion joke, in a non-religous workplace, with religious coworkers.

My experience is that when comedy fails, it's the comedian's fault. Even when the material is terrific and the crowd is lame, the fault is the comedian not reading the room.

A comedian blaming the crowd is like a carpenter blaming the hammer.

Not living up to your name
Sometimes, the crowd is the joke
Well the hammer in question has a wooden head and a metal handle.
- I have a metal handled wooden mallet, bet it's done more actual work than 99.9% of hammers.

You need better co-workers.

Indeed.
They do but they also need to learn how to function professionally and not have fend people just because they figured out how. Doing so doesn’t make them special or clever, it just makes them an asshole even if their coworkers are also assholes.

Don't make anti religion jokes at work unless you're with people you know well and that they will be ok with it, and you're in a private area.

Yeah, best not to socialize too much in that way. I used to work a contract government gig and would usually be the only person there at 5am to avoid traffic/get home early for kids and the only other person to come in pre-8am was an extremely religious person (well, and a janitor who believed in nephilim who had human decendants who walked along us--- but he didn't socialize, so much a listen to crazy shit while cleaning)

Anyway, you better believe I didn't share my dark athiest humor and still got along fine somehow, maybe since I let out just enough edgyness to be interesting without being alienating. It's indeed walking on eggshells, but so is having pro-trans views, anti-capitalist views, etc.; that's what we have online circles on Lemmy for.

This joke isn't to say that I don't get along with my coworkers. Just that a joke about religion and prostitution being two of the oldest professional only surpassed by farming, didn't go over well.

Have you considered not being an asshole?

Jokes don't necessarily make you an asshole, even with sensitive topics, it's about good faith in it being light-hearted. Jokes bridge the gap in talking about topics that are uncomfortable normally.
For example, I have a good friend who is disabled who I game with. My friend group calls him Cripple, and I'll also give him a hard time about by mentioning things about his specific handicap and he'll call me an ableist fuck, but he knows it's not being said in a mean way.
What's worse to him? Being treated different just because he's handicapped. He'd rather have that banter and feel like part of the group, not isolated.
- No, they do. They do. If you know you're in an inappropriate setting and still do the joke, joke's on you. It would be exactly the same if it was the other way around.
  Don't joke with things people care about if you're not willing to come off as an asshole. You're not doing a Netflix special. You don't have 'jesters' privilege' if no one sees you as a jester, but as a coworker.
- Of course. It all depends on context.
Why would I?
- Good question.

What the joke & structure? What’s the setup? What’s the punchline? Asking legitimately so I can hear your comedic take.

The punchline was about how religion and prostitution are two of the oldest professions known to humanity only superseded by being a farmer.
- What’s your setup? I do joke writing as a hobby.