Whether or not some shmoe named Jesus existed seems unimportant. The guy in the bible named Jesus is clearly a mythical person.

I'd have to agree with dyshade for the most part. While religion did shape some of our world, science has done an assload of shaping. From 1 AD to 1300 AD there was not much change in life, probably even a decline in living standards. Did Jesus come back to inspire the world to whip into shape? No, humanists, rationalists and other doubters (along with some devout) changed the world. From that point on, science has been the guiding factor on earth.

And if gargoyle is sitting back to watch, I'm going to sit back and masturbate.