Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of HTML. Anyone who reads this can't argue that he hasn't influenced their life in some way.

http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee.../Overview.html

I'm off to the titty board to 'appreciate' his work some more.

lol buffto. but i will.

i don't think we would call the individual who "discovered" fire a "man." as we all know, human evolution went through many phases, but had four main sections: primate, neanderthal, cro-magnon man, and homo sapien. as the individual who harnessed fire was technically either more closely linked with primates, or neanderthals, than homo sapiens, we could not really call him a "man."

so, in essence, you are denied. :D

oh, and i think i have you all beat... (maybe)

Euclid. Without him, there would be no geometric math. Like it or not, from about 350 BC on, no one person had more of an effect on life. Sure, there were philosophers, martys, and holy men, but they wouldn't have had a well-built house without the man.
No printing press, no modern construction, no atom bomb, no semi-conductors, no nothin'.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here..... QED

would the world really be THAT different a place if we didn't get our daily dose of porn, random nonsense, and inacurate news?

yeah, to say the webpage has revolutionized the way we live and conduct business is one thing... but the most influential thing in history? I'd have to say no.

How about that really fit guy that said, "You guys can have those skinny little monkeys, I'd rather have that big one that stands up straight and has the big milk-bearing breasts."

Man that was a while ago, but he still influences my natural selection process.

Influence is what influence does.

I agree with the Gutenberg’s, printing is the killer app that allowed the masses to read and understand all of the ancient and contemporary views (1436). Technology may not be considered high brow enough to compete with religion or great thinkers but if we are talking influence. From War in Peace to the Bible to the back of your cereal box, Printing is influence.

Influence: Hence, in general, the bringing about of an effect, physical or moral, by a gradual process; controlling power quietly exerted.

Religion is also the basis of our laws and a source of hope for billions of people. Don't write it off so quickly.

Ahkenaton, if that's how it is spelled, the egyption pharoe who reformed the state religion of egypt towards monotheism - only for it to be reform back to polytheism after he snuffed it - apparently moses sprang up on the banks of the nile some 50 years after his death or so...

Probably a lot more influencial than anyone else...

Or The Buddha, (there's some debate suggesting that Jesus stole a lot of his ideas from buddhism during the 18 years the new testament mentions nothing about his life, 12-30 is it...)

I continue to contend that Hans Albrecht Bethe forever changed the way every man, woman and child on the planet thinks when he invented the atomic bomb. I doubt there is not a person on the planet that doesn't know what nukes are or what they can do. That's influence. It's anonymous influence, but that wasn't part of the original question as I read it.

He was the commencement speaker when I graduated college. Facinating guy.

sorry i didnt read all of that someone might of said this already but isnt muslim or hindu the largest religion in number of people because only the western world is christian most of the far east and middle east is muslim or hindu and they have more thatn half the people on earth

the name of the religion is Islam, a Muslim is one who practices Islam. Hindu is a different, polytheistic religion mostly practiced by people in India and the south pacific. The two are unrelated.

Nevertheless I wouldn't attribute the development of any religion to any one man, not even jesus or muhammad.

I would have to go with members of the Sumerian culture (although most remain nameless). They were the first people to invent the wheel (although it is speculative), writing, irrigation, mass religion, advanced architecture, our calendar, the circle being cut into 360 degrees, and all that other fun stuff. Their conquests also brought together much of the "known world" back in the day, increasing trade and the flow of information instead of new inventions being localized in one area.

The answer is JFK

The teachings of Confucious aren't today seen as much as a religion as a way of life.

Part of my blood is Chinese so I have looked into the past to see how it has been in Asian countries.

The teachings of Confucious are so wide spread and so well accepted that many people who have never heard of him are often teaching the same things.

Pretty much all Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and what not all instill the same values into their children even if they practice different religions. The teachings of Confucious have lasted a long time and are used today though many don't realize it as many have gone main stream or have been generally accepted / used in other religions as well.

The first one who discovered what a penis was for and how to use it. He is our first procreator.

I'm going to have to agree with CSflim and say Newton. This guy dabbled in almost everything. He was one of the two that created calculus, he had his laws of thermodynamics, and whatever else. gravity is the most famous i suppose.

Also, on the less physcial side, i'd have to say that Maxwell guy was pretty darn important too.

Without either of these people's influences over the world, we might still be living under candle light at nights.

The one's who have the most influence are not seen or recognized doing so.

I believe Jesus was defnintely the most influential man in history.

while i do believe hitler was extremely influential, its a stretch to say that he was the most influential person ever - because he lived so recently, he hasn't had the chance to effect nearly as many people as those with a head-start of over a thousand years.

Also, didn't Stalin do everything that Hitler did, plus some? Everyone who mentioned Hitler, then, should realize that he pretty much crouches in the shadow of Stalin, and would logically change their vote to the russian dictator rather than the german.

Just to throw a few more names out-

Karl Marx, and his Communist Manifesto.

Constantine, the monarch who pretty much saved Christianity single-handedly.

How about Thomas Edison?

definitely Jesus

George W. Bush!! Just kidding... I'd have to say Albert Einstein.. think of all the sciences he opened up.. oh yeah same with Newton. Him and his apple...

Mitochondrial Eve's boyfriend.

You couldn't really say that anyone who invented or discovered something was influential. It was the creation or discovery that was influential. Without Columbus, Cabot or another would still have discovered the New World. The printing press, the atomic bomb, and the wheel would have been invented even without Gutenberg, Einstein or some nameless Mesopotamian.

IMHO, its the peddlers of ideas that have the most impact. Religious men like the Buddha and Jesus, political minds like Marx and Locke, philosophers and authors and ideologists. Ideas are more flexible and fragile than technological progress.

And I would avoid people in the last century, even the last millenium. A world without Caesar would be almost unrecognisable, but a world without, say, Ronald Reagan would be different but similar. Influence grows with time, the historical snowball effect.

bill gates

ahhh the irony! i wonder if xman even read the post right above his before spouting off such a witty, unique and hilarious remark!

the individual who first harnessed fire was burned to incineration before they could identify who he was and he never got credit for it

you can't really pick scientists as influential, because someone would have come up with their theories sooner or later. science is cumulative - people are always building on each others work. religion, on the other hand, is taken at face value as truth and never reworked. so religious figures are probably more influential on society.

titty board? what titty board?

Bill Gates or Ghandhi....both extremely influential and effective.

Most influential man ever!
 

The man, the myth, the legend:

http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Events/1494...609154_400.jpg

I think this whole thread was
[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0VADLAuEa2ZX8c2CZqUuoF1HDKT1qV0A*xuJf4OhYOq3qdkVISMrnq0ojDAnPwZ!ceNk6O9Y7Q6xbhA6TpMXpXEnGa7aJ*XP*arzE4U587aQxG9!P8h2wmCYZtdUOanh*/owned-baby0.jpg?dc=4675434651889219935[/img]
with this post!

I would also like to bring up a notable entry in this little debate.
In a few hundred years there is a high probability that robotics will have come a LONG way and that society will be literally crawling with mechanical objects controlled by radio frequencies. The man who essentially gave birth to robotics by realizing that energy could be transmitted through the air was Nikola Tesla. Oh and just an on the side thing, he also harnessed the power of water at Niagra and thus created Hydroelectricity.
No bigee

Oh and as for all the people that listed Bill Gates, you guys should watch that "Pirates of Silicon Valley" TV movie that came out a while ago. It shows how Gates pretty much stole every idea that is credited to him.

Woah woah woah...Bill Gates is credited with ideas now? I just thought he was some law breaking, anti-competition, pro-monolopy evil business mogul? No?

What exactly do people believe Gates created?

I think the answer is obviously Jesus.

edit: Lay off Bill Gates, he has a 24+ billion dollar organization and has routinely broken the record for largest donation to a charitable organization by an individual. I don't care what he did to make his money (the coding and the programs werent really what made Bill Gates a genius, the fact that he got a contract with IBM that had percentage clauses in it and a clause that allowed him to sell his products to other companies -- That was and is the genius of Mr. Gates), it isn't important compared to what he does for others

The most influential person is indisputably:

Dean Kamen

Inventor of the Segway. The device that changed the world!

Calling Ahkenaton Henotheistic is a touch revisionist. Any henotheistic leanings were likely just marketing to keep nonAtenic priests from having him murdered by his own guards. Ahkenaton was pretty darned montheistic, and the backlash that resulted was ugly. I would definitely think his ideas influenced Moses. There is no way Moses could have avoided the concept growing up where and when he did.

Do not take this as a comment that Ahkenaton was the most influential man in history. I do not think so. I would lean towards Abraham and/or Locke

I can think of two people I'd consider to be the most influential in history. Between the two of them, it's a toss-up.

1. Muhammad. Unlike Jesus or Buddha, he was successful in both the political and religious axes. To this day in Islam, there's no meaningful separation of culture, politics, and religion from one another.

2. Genghis Khan. His conquests delineated and realigned political and geographical boundaries. If not quite the most influential person in history, he's at least the most influential person of the millenium.

Caveman the fire tamer
Caveman the wheel maker
Caveman the Breeder

not in that particular order

oh yeah and Friedrich Nietzsche, everything happened in the 21st century because of his writings

Muhammed is probably most influential
 

I think Muhammed is the most influential man in history. He even got #1 in in Micheal Harts book Top 100: A list of most influential men in history. This is what he says:

Excerpt from Hart's book:

My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels...

Muhammad founded and promulgated one of the world's great religions, and became an immensely effective political leader. Today, thirteen centuries after his death, his influence is still powerful and pervasive... Like all religions, Islam exerts an enormous influence upon the lives of its followers. It is for this reason that the founders of the world's great religions all figure prominently in this book. Since there are roughly twice as many Christians as Moslems in the world, it may initially seem strange that Muhammad has been ranked higher than Jesus. There are two principal reasons for that decision. First, Muhammad played a far more important role in the development of Islam than Jesus did in the development of Christianity. Although Jesus was responsible for the main ethical and moral precepts of Christianity (insofar as these differed from Judaism), St. Paul was the main developer of Christian theology, its principal proselytizer, and the author of a large portion of the New Testament.

Muhammad, however, was responsible for both the theology of Islam and its main ethical and moral principles. In addition, he played the key role in proselytizing the new faith, and in establishing the religious practices of Islam. Moreover, he is the author of the Moslem holy scriptures, the Koran, a collection of certain of Muhammad's insights that he believed had been directly revealed to him by Allah. Most of these utterances were copied more or less faithfully during Muhammad's lifetime and were collected together in authoritative form not long after his death. The Koran therefore, closely represents Muhammad's ideas and teachings and to a considerable extent his exact words. No such detailed compilation of the teachings of Christ has survived. Since the Koran is at least as important to Moslems as the Bible is to Christians, the influence of Muhammed through the medium of the Koran has been enormous It is probable that the relative influence of Muhammad on Islam has been larger than the combined influence of Jesus Christ and St. Paul on Christianity. On the purely religious level, then, it seems likely that Muhammad has been as influential in human history as Jesus