Most influential man ever?
 

Okay here is something I have been pondering for awhile. Who do you think the most influential man ever was? I personally think it is Abraham. I mean he started a religion that became one of the first great religons, Judaism, which over the roughly 4000 to 5000 (ish.. If someone knows a more exact time frame please do add) year time period it has been around has influenced billions of people both directly through the relgion and through its two daughter relgions of Christanity and Islam. Plus the fact his family line has become one of our main stay "races" , jews. If anyone wants to disagree feel free to please be prepared to give an answer to who you think more rightly deserves this place.

I assume by influential you mean someone who, by their actions has been able to change how people think and lead their lives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and the most influential person ever would presumably have effected the greatest number of lives . . . . so i reckon it has to be (and I hate to say this because they are not my personal faves) . . . Jesus . . . Bill Gates . . . or Elvis.

Love it or hate it, largest religion in the world == Christianity.

Jesus.

Yep, its cliched to say it, but Jesus really has had a greater impact upon the world than anyone else.

PS Why do we have to pick a man? Women do great things too.

I would vote for the Buddha or even Muhammad as most influential.

Time magazine, or one of those sort of things, had a huge article on Abraham a few months ago. It basically said that his break into monotheism (while not the first) was possibly the most influential move in human history.

Update:
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020930/
It was the cover story on Sept. 30, 2002. The above link will take you to where you can purchase it, but i figure you can just go to your local library and check it out.

Wow. I find that I really don't have any kind of opinion on this topic. My mind just can't wrap itself around that great a number of people, I guess. Weird.

Well I think I will break from religious slant and argue that Aristotole was that the most influential man ever. Aristitilian ideas were adopted by the early catholic church as well as the muslim religion. Although we may not consider Aristotole much today, the foundations that he laid in philosophy are the bases of much of our culture today. There is even some evidence that his work made it into asia and was influential there as well. Just playing devils advicate more than anything because it would nice to think that a philosopher was the most influential person.

Lebell,
If you are talking quantitative influence and answering with jesus, I submit that would be incorrect. Numerically, it's probably Confucious.

In any event, if these so-called "great religious leaders" are the world's most influential, then I would submit their influence has been overwhelmingly negative, as religion tops the list for inciting brutality, torture, and murder among human populations.

I would submit Moses in place of Abraham and Paul in place of Jesus.

The actual two people didn't change worldviews so much as the main authors of their biographies (in the case of Paul one could argue his history of early church thought supplants the particular life events of Jesus in regards to theological discourse).

But how could christianity exist without judaism?


*sigh* Lets not be moronically pc, thanks. You KNOW what I ment.

Some interesting points, Art.

Did you have a source regarding the relative numbers of believers Art? I was going from memory when I posted. And while I am an admirer of Confuscious, I'm still not sure that he has influenced more people, but it's an interesting thought.

As to your other point, it has merit. Do you think though that it is cause and effect or human nature? Certainly human brutality is not the sole perview of religion. Some (if not most) of the horrible events of the 20th century were perpetrated not under a religious guise, but under a political one.

We all know it couldn't but that wasn't the question. But I can agree with your logic that Abraham as the grandfather of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam could arguably be considered the most influential man in History.

But then again, from my own perspective, Abraham was a prophet, whereas Jesus was the Son of God in human form. Hence in my mind, Jesus gets the nod.

Aye. And let us not forgot that through history while many things were done and they said it was for religious reasons many of them were really just to gain money,land or power. We could just as easily say those things are evil too.

Lebell, the first point is simple population demographics, I believe.
A lot of time we don't consider the vast numbers of people who actually constitute the largest continuous culture the world has ever known. I'll check some numbers, although exact continuous population figures are hard to access from Asia circa 500 BC to the present.

The second point is more speculative, but it's not the first time it's been made. As to the reason; I'd say the nature of the human beast is more brutal, torturous, and murderous than any animal that has ever lived. (again a simple quantitative measure of acts of violence against our own and other species). Given that fact, any reason that would allow this to be justified on a cosmic scale seems like it would be just the thing to assuage the part of us that needs to "rationalize" our behavior. Grist for the forebrain's mill, as it were...

i vote for me. i wow the multitudes.

(honestly, i dunno. I wanna say Jesus but its not true, the world is a big place)

I diffently did not disregard asian culture when I was posing the original question to myself. And it is true that asian culture is the most non intertwined with other cultures even to this day. It is also true that asia makes up both the largest land mass but also population mass on earth. However, all the smaller ones combined (or mostly combined) outnumber it (in my non scientific opinon of course) considering you are looking at the americas, europe, the middle east and parts of africa.

There should be more studies into inviduals and there personal influence. More then just how many people they touched but to the degree that they did.

The current Jewish Year is 5764 which is from September 2003 through September 2004.

if i had to pick most influential man EVER thats a very difficult choice, so i will be simple and say Adam, the first man :p

since religion is brought up...
The monotheistic religions (having one god) are Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Parsees, Sikhism, and the Bahai. Are all based on Judaism which was the first monotheistic religion; similarly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have the same god, which is... God... that being said we might as well just say God is the most influential... man, being, whatever.


check out this page for religion stuff
http://www.krysstal.com/wgods.html
i dunno about the site but that page is a great overview and has a buncha stuff

Ok,

If God is in the running, I change my vote :D

Hmmm. I think for the sake of argument we should leave God out of it.

It starts to get ambiguous at a point,
and it's difficult to attribute which history is true
for those so far back.
I would rather mention someone who had done something verifiable & specific.

Such as Gutenberg, and his invention of movable type press.

This was probably the most significant product of the millennium
The Grandfather of the Information age.
This allowed information to be mass produced.
An incredible leap forward.

I would have said Jesus, but without abraham you couldn't have had Jesus, so my vote would be for Adam. If it wasn't for him we would all live in paradise, right?

I don't know for sure if some religious figures stated in this thread even existed.

Actually it would still just be Adam and Eve (if the story is true). They were immortal and (essentially) told not to have sex. When they did they were cast out...

I would have to say that Confucious or Aristotile are way up on the list...

I agree that while Jesus is an important figure, his cult would have died a slow death if not for Paul.

As for Abraham, Adam, etc. these are just characters in etiologies... there is no reason to suppose they were real people. So why attribute them this sort of significance? It might be better to say the person or persons that created these stories and characters is quite influential... or the person or persons upon which the myth of Abraham was created... but to say there was actually an Abraham seems a bit of a stretch (well for me anyway).

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.

edited as it was an incorrect answer.

Actully I have seen secular evidence for the existance of Abraham. He is ingenerally considered to have been a real person who did exist. Same for Moses. Adam less so. Jesus WAS a real person. As was Muhammad as was Siddhartha Gautama. I find it funny people who get to the point of hating religion so much they start to deny that the prophets that started it didn't really exist. I mean so far we have yet to deny Muhammad or Siddhartha Gautama but I have no doubts that in 1000 years there will be people with refer to Muhammad as a fictional charector just because they dislike the religion.

For the record... I didn't deny the existance of Jesus, Muhammad or Siddhartha. They were real men. Prophets if you will.

I didn't bring up either Muhammed or Budda as I didn't have a comment on them. As for Jesus my point was clear. I think his cult would have died out if not for Paul and his followers. Jesus was a seed and Paul was the farmer.

My arguement against characters leads more to Moses, Abraham and Adam. There may be some tenuous evidence of their existance (well except for Adam) but I find it too tenuous to consider valid.

The bible is too flawed a text to treat as a history. There have been way too many revisions and rewrites (and each and every one with a different bias or agenda) to trust it as a history.

If there was someone like Abraham then I would consider him in the top five most influential people to be certain. At this stage I prefer to put Abraham on the level of Adam. A very powerful character in the bible narrative.

But I did. And there was a reason why I did. Of course you don't deny them. They are more recent phenomenons Islam is only about 1500 years old which is real young in the religious world. Budhhism isn't much older. So we don't deny them. My question is why deny someone simply because it is older? I mean in 4000 years I bet people will be debating with there really WAS a Siddhartha Gautama. What I am saying is most everything I have read about Abraham(Most of which was from 100% secular sources) generally consider him, atleast most likely, a real person. And to deny he was real merely because he is a religious figure and from over 5000 years ago is ... I dunno. Not good.

Hmm, I think I'm going to break with the pack and suggest Johann Gutenberg. He invented the printing press, which brought knowledge to billions of people who wouldn't have had it before. That includes knowledge of the various religions mentioned in this thread. Bibles were very costly things before Gutenberg, and only the very wealthy had them.

I find it incredible how people can call Jesus a great man. Jesus can only be 3 things. 1. God, 2. a nut who claimed that he was God, 3. evil dude who calimed that he was god for own personal gain. So, lets cut the crap, if you don't beleive that Jesus is God then don't even mention his name....argh

Just wanted to point out that you are not breaking from the pack TO much considering that rouge allready pointed out Guttenberg. I defintly concur he had great influence. But one question is this. The printing press seems rather obvious (in retrospect aleast) so is it possible that it was inevitable and he just happened to be the one?

Oops, my apologies to rouge, I missed that part.

As to whether or not it was inevitable, you could say the same thing about any invention or philosophy. But the influential people are the ones that made it happen.

Mahatma Gandhi

My vote goes to Scorates.


Incorrect. Judaism was the first widely accepted monotheistic religion, but not the first monotheistic religion.

Adolf Hitler, although not a good influence he had a major influence on every person that has lived since the mid 1900's.

He changed the way an entire nation thought and had altered the mindset of the world forever. He could convert people on will and turned millions of people into mindless slaves.

Just to point out it Rogue , not rouge...big differance...

haha, your welcome rogue....

John Locke.

The first man (actually I should say among the first men, but certainly the most influential) to challenge the divine right of the ruler, a concept that had existed since the stone age.

Who doesn't know who Hitler is?

the individual who first harnessed fire. Deny that one.

who ever invented the plow. Agricultural surplus was probably more catalytic to the formation of civilization than another single thing.

when it comes down to numbers straight up, i would have to abraham as well. even if he wasn't a "real" person, there at some point was a person who started the monotheistic movement.

Technically the first exculsively monotheistic religion was started my Moses, not Abraham...

If you are saying Judaism was the first monthestic religion, you are wrong. Judaism was the first popular monotheistic religion.

ME! Kthx :p Power trips rock, man.

Ok, seriously? Ugh, depends on how you think the world came into existence, does God exist, a million and one variables. Filling in these variables with my personal beliefs, ugh, still a tough call if I have to choose a human being.

Ok, here's a killer: how do you define human being? If you go with exclusively homo sapiens, I don't think you can include most founding religious figures. That automatically makes Gutenberg the most influential IMO. How about if you go with the start of the Homo genus? Wow, that goes back a ways... my vote goes out to the evolutionary Adam and Eve, if there is one. Otherwise... ugh, you know how when you get too philosophical there's that nagging voice in the back of your head that keeps screaming "DOESITFUCKINGMATTERYOUFUCKINGIDIOT?"? Well, that's what's going on for me right now. gnight :)

Haha. good call, Buffto.
On a purely philosophical level, however, i have to agree with those who say Abraham. If someone can be the spawn of belief systems that, every day contribute to the deaths of lots folks all around the world (and particularly in the middle east), and on certain days bring millions of them together in joyous reverence, I'd say that they're fairly influential. it may seem a rudimentary connection, being as other people helped out, but not at the same time, but it's there nonetheless. to those who would argue Buddha and prophets of other eastern faiths, from my standpoint, the fact that there's more commotion from abraham's folks than their's, in my eyes makes it more influential.

No, Judaism was the first exclusively monotheistic religion, but only after the exodus from Egypt. Prior to that event all religions were henotheistic.

Zoroastrianism was the first exclusive monotheistic religion. Dating anywhere from 1500 BC- 600 BC, it is older than Judaism.

Well, Moses supposedly recieved the word of God around the year 1200 BC, so that may make it older than Judaism. Certainly the two religions have a lot in common, but early Zoroastrianism has the same henotheistic leanings as early Judaism.

Is this based on the Torah ( I believe that is what Jews refer to the first part of what has become the christian bible ) or based on current dating techniques? ... because Zoroaster has been dated back as far as 1500 by our current dating techniques.

1200 is an approximation based on Egyptian history and archaological finds in the Sinai and Southern Israel/Palestine.
It is generally accepted as the best guess as to when the Exodus occured.

Zoroaster is actually dated between 1500 BCE and 600 BCE, but most linguists agreee that his dates are between 1200 and 1000 BCE based on the style of his writing.

Hmmm.. I'd love to say Democratese given that he came up with the atomic theory of matter about 2400 years before anyone finally got around to taking him seriously but I guess the whole taking him seriously thing kinda cramps that a little...

Charles Darwin.

Gangus Khan
The mongolian leader who conquered the most last mass ever possible by man. He brought new religion, and culture to whereever he conquered
great man

Gangus Khan
The mongolian leader who conquered the most last mass ever possible by man. He brought new religion, and culture to whereever he conquered
great man

can't vouch for all time. in the last 1000 years, Gutenberg. printing press with movable type was the key to providing the mass movement of thought and ideas for hundreds of years prior to electricity and computers.

The first farmer!

At some point, some hunter-gatherers were hunter-gathering and one of them said "you know maybe we should just live in the same place and grow shit for a while instead of stalking mammoths and what-not." And everyone laughed at him.


-saladami

I have to agree with this one. To this day, when people want to demonize a world leader they use Hitler as the yardstick. Negative influence is still influence and usually sticks in people's minds more that positive.

Abraham, Jesus, Johannes Gutenberg.

Jesus... Due to the of phenomenon of misinformation known as Christianity.

The group of men that, over time, penned what has evolved into the Bible. They are responsible for more laws, customs, culture, thought, art, acts of kindness, fear, guilt, war, hatred, genocide, and murder in the name of their creation (the major monotheistic religions) than any other people in human history. Unless you're a member of a tribe somewhere in a remote part of the world, their creation has touched your life in SOME way. And even those tribesmen have probably got a missionary living with them, or have been contacted by one, in an attempt to get them to convert from their godless ways.

-Mikey

Henry Ford. Where would we be without the assembly line.

Bill Gates. Revolutionized the world more in 15 years than anyone in history has come close to doing.

can't just name one person as the most influential. so i give you this......
philosophical.....sun tsu
technological...... prometheus (or whom ever harnessed fire)
and regarding keeping the animal in man......... hugh heffner

Alright, here is my humble answer. The man that has most influenced all of humanity is Adam. It was by him that sin entered the world, and every human ever born has been affected by that. Jesus hasn't reached everybody yet. And the oldest monotheistic religion is Judaism, based on the biblical account of Melchizedek. genesis 14 reads "And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. He blessed him and said, "Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand." Melchizedek, according to Paul, was a priest of the most high God. Melchizedek is often considered to be an pre incarnate epiphany of Jesus, meaning that the king of salem and high priest of God could have been in that place for any length of time. He was there before abraham, and worshiped God before abraham.

As I was scrolling down, I was thinking of Hitler also. No single man has so shaped how we reign in leaders, and interact amongst each other. His vision of people proved influential for almost every aspect of our modern culture. In that we all now knew what NEVER to do or let happen again. Man's inhumanity to man has never been so personified, and chances are slim that humanity, from the lessons learned of Hitler, will ever allow such a monster to wield so much power.

Gutenburg, is definatley on the list. As are the Wright Brothers, and who ever invented the internal combustion engine. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Abraham, Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha too. Ghandi and Mother Theresa certainly fit the bill.

These two cats are pretty importatant too:

Lucy, 3.5 million years old, and the recent discovery Ramides, 4.4 million years old hominid fossil, are discovered in Haddar, along the Awash River. They completed the missing link between Apes and men.

I think though that King John at Runnymede on June 15, 1215 takes the cake. This is when the subjects of King John were placed under the rules of liberty, and limits of the state outlined in the Magna Carta.

Well if you believe the Bible I would say possibly Noah in that he is still the father of the human race in that after the universal flood all human kind came from his children. Second to that I would say Jesus. The most influential man TODAY? I would say Sadam Hussein. The US uses him as the excuse for being in Iraq and there has been international debate over whether we should be there or not. Everyone seems to have taken a side.

ok everyone, you ALL know who Murphy is. ^_^ definitely most influential person. I cant remember that far back, but im sure there was no mention of them having to be proven as existant, but as far as influence, he's got all the cards.

I would say Newton.

But them, I'm interested in science. What would I know?

Im not trying to steal Bills thunder as he is very important, but he didnt revolutionize as much as people give him credit for... he did however help evolutionize the world into what it has become.

First adam and eve weren't kicked out because they had sex, they were tricked into eating something they weren't supposed to. Second i think jesus and paul were most infuential. If one thinks it is buddah or Gandhi, explain how they have had more influence over more men then Jesus

Re: Most influential man ever?
 

I'm largely inclined to agree.

Confucious

remember the Chinese? There are alot of them.

Egyptian Pharoah Amenhotep IV is considered the first to have monotheistic tendncies on a wide scale. His monotheistic religion was rejected by his successor, Pharaoh Tutankhamen, though small groups of Aten (sun god) followers continued. Some believe that Moses was influenced by Aten's priests.

Amenhotep IV ruled from 1352-1336 B.C., which is a good 150 years before Moses is supposed to have been around.

MPEDrummer

Thats some good research.

who's to say there's a single most influencial person? Remove just about any person from the gene pool and you've altered the future. History is a group effort, we're all the most influencial people in the world.

Hitler hasn't impacted the whole world as we'd like to think.
I teach Business English in Taiwan, and yesterday I took 15 minutes to explain who Hitler was and why swastikas are considered bad in the West. The Chinese remember Japan instead. The atrocities committed by Hitler aren't really important to people in Asia. They've had their own regional share of grief.

i have to agree with sparhawk on darwin...it would seem to me to be an awfully large assumption playing the religeous angle...

It wasn't exclusive monotheism, though, more like henotheism. The first truely monotheistic religion (by modern standards) was Judaism (though someone made a pretty good argument for Zoroastrianism a month or so ago...).

The first person to figure out the fermentation process. Think about it, alcohol has become a fixture in all societies, and not just what is consumed. Alcohol is/was used for sterilization in medicine.

(And I wasn't even going to mention that it has helped guys get laid from many centuries.)

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?