philosopher
Explanation
The Joke
A bearded man says "I like to think of Jesus not so much as a prophet but as a great philosopher." A woman responds "If true, what would that mean?" The scene then shifts to a "Suggestion Box" labeled as such, with a caption reading something like "Suggestion Box." The final panel shows Jesus on the cross, and someone says "Sure, but are we experiencing crucifixion, or just the experience of being crucified?" -- treating the crucifixion not as a religious event but as a philosophical thought experiment.
The comic takes the common secular reframing of Jesus as "a great philosopher rather than a religious figure" and follows it to its logical (and absurd) conclusion. If Jesus were truly treated as a philosopher, then even his crucifixion would be subjected to philosophical analysis rather than treated as a momentous spiritual event. The person at the foot of the cross engages in a phenomenological distinction rather than showing any concern for what is actually happening.
The Humor
The humor lies in the absurdity of applying detached philosophical inquiry to an urgent, visceral situation. The distinction between "experiencing crucifixion" and "the experience of being crucified" is the kind of hair-splitting that philosophers love but that is wildly inappropriate when someone is actually being crucified. It satirizes both the tendency to over-philosophize and the glib modern habit of stripping religious figures of their religious context while claiming to still take them seriously.
References
The philosophical distinction in the punchline echoes phenomenological philosophy, particularly the work of Edmund Husserl and his focus on the structures of conscious experience. The broader joke references the common secular claim, popular since the Enlightenment, that Jesus can be appreciated as a moral philosopher independent of Christian theology.