the-resurrection
Explanation
The Joke
A man tells a pastor that he is starting to question his faith. He says, "I just don't believe Jesus turned into three monkeys in a robe and beard, then returned to life." The pastor responds that questioning faith is normal, but asks: "Even if you accept the miracle of resurrection into monkeys, wouldn't the robe be really loose?"
The conversation continues with further absurd details -- the monkeys had been dead for three days, they were not really dead but just hiding, and "they were friends." The parishioner asks the preacher if this means atheists worship Satan, and the preacher enthusiastically says yes. The final panel shows the man telling his mom that "a mean person told him very clearly what atheists do," and the mom says "okay, submit, submit."
The Humor
The comic satirizes religious indoctrination by presenting a version of the resurrection story that has been garbled into complete nonsense -- Jesus becoming three monkeys in a robe -- and showing how the authority figure (the preacher) deflects every reasonable question with increasingly absurd answers rather than addressing the underlying doubt. The humor escalates as each attempt at clarification produces an even more ridiculous explanation, yet the questioner keeps accepting the answers. The final panel, where the man's mother tells him to just "submit," adds another layer of commentary about how religious belief is often maintained through social pressure rather than persuasive argument.
References
The comic parodies the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection of Jesus, the belief that Jesus rose from the dead three days after his crucifixion. The "three monkeys in a robe" is a deliberate absurdist corruption of the story, possibly playing on the idea of the Holy Trinity (three-in-one). The claim that atheists worship Satan is a common misconception that the comic lampoons.