There are atheists in foxholes. Ricky Gervais proved it last night.

I know that many believe that when someone is in mortal danger they often find God out of desperation. But last night while Ricky Gervais’ career as a television host may have been dying a very public and nasty death, the former humorist signed off last night’s nationally televised awards show by saying, “Thank you to God for making me an atheist.”

Gervais wasn’t really funny throughout the entire evening. He was just rude.

So rude that it even seems to have ticked off Tom Hanks. I mean seriously, how do you tick off Tom Hanks?

And if you needed more evidence even Robert Downey Jr. thought he went too far. Seriously, do you know what you have to do to have Robert Downey Jr. say you went too far?

Gervais started with some low hanging fruit with some well worn jokes about Charlie Sheen and porn stars and alcoholism, an anti-semitic joke about Mel Gibson, a gay joke about Tom Cruise, and a rehab joke about Robert Downey Jr. And it went downhill from there.

And then to sign off thanking God for making him an atheist? What? I guess it’s supposed to be clever but it’s just kinda’ dumb isn’t it? And the other thing is that the joke may have had some relevance if many of the award winners had actually thanked God but I don’t recall that any did.

Maybe if Gervais had hosted the Country Music Awards where God gets mentioned in the songs, by the presenters, by the winners, and I think even the ushers give a short testimony when seating you. So there the comment may have had some relevance. But nobody as far as I can remember mentioned God at the Golden Globes so his joke was a complete non sequitur and didn’t really fit.

Yeah, so it was about as awkward as the rest of his performance.