This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
As an atheist and recovering Sunday School graduate, I love Jesus.
For starters, he never spoke well of religious authorities. His name for the spiritual 1 percent was "whitewashed tombs" — rotting corpses dressed in a veneer of paint. I like that.
Then there's his posse, a rag-tag bunch of boozers, prostitutes and homeless people. Jesus claimed that Earth belonged by rights to them, his "salt of the earth." I like that. Jesus was homeless. His McMansion was in heaven, and he told people that theirs should be, too. I like that.
Jesus was a magnet for adoring women, some of them apparently of easy virtue. I like that.
Asked by the Moral Majority to condemn a woman caught in adultery, Jesus replied that whoever was sinless should cast the first stone. He himself didn't volunteer. I like that.
Rich in womanly adoration but poor in everything else, Jesus taught that the social pyramid would one day be turned on its head. I like that.
To his faithful Jewish audience, Jesus said that the true saint was a Samaritan. I like that.
There's much for unbelievers to like in Jesus. I'm just not sure what his righteous followers see in him.
Ed Firmage Jr.
Salt Lake City