The triumph of Christianity in the west didn't have anything to do with the person it worshipped?

Paul did that.

Still going to vote Jesus. Aristotle should have lost to Einstein, who should have won this by a landslide. Now Alexander or Jesus will, which is just plain stupid.

Jesus

The ideas of Jesus are more important than the ideas of Aristotle. Bottom line.

Still refusing to vote on the grounds that the son of a god has an unfair advantage.

@Maher - that is correct.

@mendax - the "correlation =/= causation, therefore Jesus didn't influence the west" argument seems overly facile. How do you account for this: the cultural and social transformation of the west was effected by people who intentionally read and re-read the teachings of Jesus as recorded by his disciples? They did this on purpose, repeatedly, because they thought it was important. Generation on generation of real, live intelligent people were ideas influenced their ideas. Suggesting that imperialistic policies unrelated to christian teaching seems to disrespect the people who lived at that time.

Yeah, Jesus wasn't the direct cause of, say, the invention of the cyrillic alphabet. (short version: it was invented by a monk named Cyril who thought that some barbarians needed a written script into which he could translate the bible.) By the same method we'd now have to argue that Aristotle wasn't the direct cause of a greek philosophical tradition or scientific inquiry, because correlation doesn't mean causation. If we're not going to allow that successive generations categorically cannot be influenced by the teachers they read, then our fake internet project "the greatest people in history tournament" was just annihilated by "correlation doesn't mean causation." How do you propose we determine someone's influence? dollars? possessions? raw conquest? achievements unlocked? what counts as greatness, if not the influence of their ideas on the people who followed them?

Why is Aristotle read? Why is he admired? Because he was one of the first scientists, someone who started scientific inquiry, the method by which the West became developed. Western civilisation was nothing much until he, along with his contemporaries, were re-discovered. Western civilisation, that which ascribe to the glory of Jesus, went basically nowhere for almost a millennium. Such great influence Jesus had there, so important. He did nothing for western society.

Why do we remember Jesus? Why is he revered by the majority of the globe? Because Romans converted and spread his teachings, and 1500+ years after Jesus's death it happened to be Europeans who were the imperialists. Imperialism that couldn't have happened without the work of people like Aristotle.

@teacon7 - this whole process is *based* on bias. We all have our own definition of 'Great', and most of the arguments come from people projecting their own definitions onto the other option, and finding it short.

And I've been fairly open about mine - I have consistently voted against religious figures because I believe their influence is fundamentally predicated on an erroneous worldview. I'm an equal opportunities atheist in that respect ;P

Jesus wins

I am an atheist but the lessons he taught were extraordinarily important. Many twisted his words, but that is not his fault. Aristotle was smart and logical, but many of his ideas set bad precedents for my boy Galileo

Pete U, I implore you to reconsider that position. Jesus was a moral teacher, as well as a religious figure. And as I said before, morality is the most important thing in life, it is the source of our values, and without values, there is nothing.

@Thucy - What, that I consider Jesus' word and deeds to be driven by a fundamental error in the perception of reality? I'm not rejecting morality (far from it), but if something good comes from something incorrect, does that make it great? After all, all societies have moral codes - it is a fundamentally human construct, and we only judge Jesus' influence as great because the code we agree on is based on Western Christian teaching.

And values are relative after all - whereas the true nature of reality (whatever that may be) is fundamental and unchanging, and the thoughts that take us closer to that (be they Aristotle's, Newton's, Darwin's, Curie's, Einstein's or any of the great minds that didn't get nominated) are truly great.

Jesus just established the basic principle of christianity... there are over 41 k denominations of christianity, only one of them woudl possibly be what he taught, although if i had to guess every one of them are drastically different from what he said. also, the main reason of why christianity became popular is because of the people in high positions who converted. jesus did none of that, he only gave some of the teachings. Aristotle's theories, while not alwasy correct, are still way more verifiable than jesus's clims, and have also lasted about as long. he also did all of the work in establishing them. i'd vote for aristotle.

Aristotel

This is ridiculous. For all of you claiming Jesus' teachings were only spread because of empires, HOW DID ARISTOTLE'S WORKS GET OUT??? If the Greeks hadn't been successful, and then the Romans, no one would know or care about Aristotle.

"because the code we agree on is based on Western Christian teaching."

Hence why Jesus is the greatest person in history. Your own sense of right and wrong owes a direct debt to the ideas of Jesus of Nazareth.

Also, Aristotle wasn't even that good of a philosopher lol. If you were going for a philosopher you should have done Socrates

Naughty Thucy - taking quotes out of context.

If Jesus had never existed, a moral code would still exist, and it might well have been the same - not killing, not stealing, looking after the weak, respecting the old - turn up in many non-Christian codes

And the vote is Aristotle vs Jesus. I'd've preferred Einstein, or my nomination of Darwin, but, hey, them's the breaks. Socrates didn't make it this far, so is a complete irrelevance to this discussion.

Anyway, I've explained my reasons. My vote stands, and will not change.

Pete U - the same argument could be made about ANYONE's philosophy. To say that person X was the ONLY person that ever would have though of A,B, C is ludicrous. so by that measure, nobody can win this contest.

@Krellin - which is why Alexander and Shakespeare can be judged on their records - one as a brilliant general, and one as the finest playwright of all time* (*subject to someone better coming along).

Once we signed up to this bit of fluff, subjectivity was always going to play a part (C'mon we had Jesus v Buddha, and not in a South Park style smackdown. Mohammed was in the mix too. At best, no more than one of those 3 can be right)

Pretty sure Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet, so they believe two of those are right...

Christians believe He was the Son of God, the Almighty given human form - can't both be right...

KC is correct. Just to show how much influence he had over the Muslim world over Aristotle. Jesus gets my vote.

@Thucy: I will reconsider my vote, iff you could show for the three most fundamental teachings of Jesus that they coincide with the three most important Western values and that neither can't be found among non-Western philosophical thoughts on an equally high place. Make it a short and brief ("Russian style") argument, pls.

It's been 24 hours.

Final score: Jesus 11, Aristotle 8

Semifinal winners:
*. Alexander the Great
*. Jesus

Grand Final: Alexander vs. Jesus

Jesus.

Jesus.