Good Friday, as according to Thomas Jefferson

Good Friday is a Christian religious holiday that marks the cruxification of Jesus and his death on the cross.

It's one of the most important holy days in the Christian faith, since it not only commemorates Jesus 'dying for our sins' but also sets up the celebration of his resurrection the following Sunday.

It's an interesting time of year for me, because as with much of Christian faith, I appreciate the story of Good Friday, but not the superstition surrounding it.

I'm a Christian in that I believe Jesus Christ was a real (albeit mortal) man whose life was at least reflected in the writings of the New Testament - but I'm no "Christian" because I don't believe he was the son of God, I don't believe he "bore our sins in his body" and I certainly don't believe he was resurrected from the dead.

This is an opinion shared by many - including iconic ginger Thomas Jefferson.

Although many ignorant folk celebrate him as a "good Christian American," the second president of this great nation was nothing of the sort.

Although no atheist (he often referenced a higher power, "nature's God" and providence) Thomas Jefferson was definitely no Christian, either - and argued that while there were worthwhile parts of the Gospels, the majority was "the fabric of very inferior minds" and sifting one from the other was like "picking out diamonds from dunghills."

Conservatives will disagree - and cheerfully pluck out-of-context quotes to illustrate Jefferson's supposed Christian faith - but they're wrong.

If you need proof of that, look no further than one of the many remarkable books Thomas Jefferson wrote - the one commonly referred to as "The Jefferson Bible."

The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth was his attempt to rationalize Christian theology with his pragmatic, rational view of the world. To that end, Jefferson carefully consolidated the life of Jesus from the accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and removed from them all reference to prophecies, superstition and anything supernatural.

Basically, it portrayed Jesus as a human philosopher who preached brotherly love, peace and tolerance - and as such, his "bible" ends on Good Friday, when Jesus died on the cross and his body was gently lifted to the ground by Joseph of Arimathaea.

There was no resurrection. There was no ghostly appearance to the disciples in the upper room. He certainly never encountered Paul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus (and that pretty much confirms what I've always suspected - that Paul was a self-serving parasite whose religious sermons had nothing to do with the teachings or beliefs of Jesus.)

Jesus simply died - murdered cruelly and unfairly for preaching peace and understanding. Which, in many ways, makes his death monumentally more significant. That's why I prefer to think of Good Friday as Jefferson did: The closing chapter of Jesus' life; not the foreshadowing of a comic-book style comeback.

The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth ends like this:

Then Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.

Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.

There laid they Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.

A poignant end to an important story; and a way to make Christianity relevant even to those of us who don't believe in any of the religious mumbo-jumbo related to it.

Great American Gingers No. 1: Thomas Jefferson

Unsurprisingly, my school didn't spend much time teaching us about American history. "We lost" was about the gist of it, followed by the much more seemly study of King George III's descent into insanity.

Now I'm living in America, however, it's about time I learnt what most American kids do in High School - the history of the great American nation.

It's pretty exciting stuff. I've started off with Steve Wiegand's U.S. History for Dummies, which gives an astonishingly brief and inconsequential overview of the major events - I will have to return to and study it in more depth later with The Great American Handbook by Cheri Sicard, A History of the United States by Philip Jenkins, New York Times bestseller Don't Know Much About American History by Kenneth C. Davies and all three volumes of Magill's The American Presidents.

All courtesy of North Brunswick public library, I might add.

So far, I'm up to 1800 and one thing has become apparent. Thomas Jefferson was (to use an American expression) 'the man.'

And, more importantly than that, he was ginger.

Yep, another of history's outstanding gingers. He joins the ranks of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Christopher Columbus and Winston Churchill. A truly astonishing man and an even more astonishing redhead (although his ginger bouffant had turned white by the time he was in his early thirties.)

Thomas Jefferson was, of course, the third president of the United States. More than that, he was one of the founding fathers and the author of the Declaration of Independence. John Adams (soon to be second president) commissioned him to write it in his stead, saying: "I am obnoxious, suspect and unpopular. You are very much otherwise... ...you can [also] write 10 times better than I can."

That's what gave birth to the most famous document in modern history and the concept that 'all men are created equal' - even though hundreds of Americans, including Thomas Jefferson, owned slaves. In mitigation, though, it's worth remembering that Jefferson was an outspoken opponent of slavery (despite owning them himself) and unsuccessfully motioned for it to be outlawed in the Virginia legislature in 1769.

Thomas Jefferson also gave birth to the Republican party - although his streamlined and sensible political party has become distorted, hypocritical and entirely contradictory to the original Republican ideals it once stood for.

He was also an atheist - or, more specifically, a 'deist.' He suspected there of being some higher power, but entirely rejected Christianity and organised religion. Instead of superstition and blind faith, he believed man was placed on the earth with the power to discover things for himself through reason and rationality. He believed overwhelmingly in the complete separation of Church and state. The fact that Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence is further proof that America was founded on secular principles.

All in all - and considering I'm not even up to his first term in office yet - Thomas Jefferson seems like a legendary man. Brilliant. Charismatic. A true American hero. As John F. Kennedy once said, when welcoming some impressive guests to a dinner at the White House, "you gentlemen are the finest group of genius and talent to sit at this table since Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

Thomas Jefferson on The Bible

"The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine."

"In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills."

Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814