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Original poster

Who is/was the most important person ever?

167 replies

waltzingparrot · 13/07/2023 14:18

Just listened to an interview and a 'name' was suggested as being the most important person ever in our planet's history.

If you had to name one person as being the most important, who would it be?

Presumably without what they invented/did/said, our life today would be unrecognisable.

I immediately have a list of a dozen or so really important people throughout history, but I don't know how to rank them and come up with a no 1.

OP posts:
PrincessFiorimonde · 14/07/2023 00:53

Wow - what a question! I've only just seen this, so I need to have a good think and read the thread tomorrow. I love a good history debate. (In other words, just marking my place.)

Geppili · 14/07/2023 01:07

Ofgs David Bowie, pf course!

Pallisers · 14/07/2023 01:11

daisychain01 · 13/07/2023 22:09

Tim Berners-Lee, and it's mindblowing that he is still alive, walking the earth when you think how he has transformed billions of people's lives.

An incredibly modest person.

I've met him a few times and have sat next to him at a dinner party. On the other side of him was a musician. This was a few years ago (well post pandemic). He assured us that AI was going to run the world and poetry, music, fiction was all going to be given over to AI/computers (we had quite the discussion). Turns out he might be right. Shame on anyone who made this happen. I don't respect anyone who wants to hand over humanity to computers.

Groutyonehereagain · 14/07/2023 01:13

Emmaline Pankhurst

WandaWonder · 14/07/2023 03:34

Charles Darwin or the person that invented wine

Princessconsuelabananahammock9 · 14/07/2023 04:32

Jesus

AllOfThemWitches · 14/07/2023 04:51

Jesus and Taylor swift

Dorisbonson · 14/07/2023 04:52

Gutenberg

Gracewithoutend · 14/07/2023 05:03

Antibiotic inventors and developers. Ehrlich, Fleming, Florey, Chain, the US govt and Oxford uni. And maybe others. God bless them all.

PhotoDad · 14/07/2023 05:28

ErrolTheDragon · 13/07/2023 23:07

Or maybe Saul of tarsus, without whom Jesus would probably have remained one of the many apocalyptic preachers around at the time who are now consigned to obscurity. Foisted the divisive idea of monotheism on far too much of the world; it's doubtful Islam would have arisen without Christianity as a precursor.

If we're taking that approach, then there's a case for Constantine the Great. If he hadn't (like Saul/Paul) had a vision of Jesus, then it's likely that Christianity would have been wiped out in the fourth century, or remained a group of squabbling sects (as it was under Paul/James). Constantine effectively made it the state religion across the whole Empire and called the first Church Council to establish a universal agreement about doctrine.

History would have been very different if his vision of Jesus and his vision of Apollo had happened the other way around!

Whereisthesherry · 14/07/2023 09:07

PhotoDad · 14/07/2023 05:28

If we're taking that approach, then there's a case for Constantine the Great. If he hadn't (like Saul/Paul) had a vision of Jesus, then it's likely that Christianity would have been wiped out in the fourth century, or remained a group of squabbling sects (as it was under Paul/James). Constantine effectively made it the state religion across the whole Empire and called the first Church Council to establish a universal agreement about doctrine.

History would have been very different if his vision of Jesus and his vision of Apollo had happened the other way around!

Show quote history

Could we make the argument for John the Baptist? Jesus was his disciple, his apocalyptic philosophy orginated from him. You could say that John the Baptist was Christianity patient zero. Without John the Baptist Jesus would never have been Jesus.
The Great Courses does a brilliant lecture series on the history of early Christianity, from the historical perspective.

DownNative · 14/07/2023 09:21

Fizzadora · 13/07/2023 20:57

Alexander Fleming. Life on earth would probably be well on the way to being wiped out by now if he hadn't discovered penicillin. There's still a bit of time though if we don't find some other way to do it first.

He didn't.

It was his assistant who did, really as Fleming was actually away at the point the discovery was noticed.

Original poster
waltzingparrot · 14/07/2023 09:37

Lamelie · 13/07/2023 23:05

@waltzingparrot who was named in the programme?

The director Christopher Nolan said it about Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb.

"Like it or not, J. Robert Oppenheimer is the most important person who ever lived. He made the world we live in, for better or for worse"

OP posts:
ErrolTheDragon · 14/07/2023 09:41

The atom bomb would have been invented at some point, though different timing would have affected history from 1945 on.

Original poster
waltzingparrot · 14/07/2023 10:03

JeandeServiette · 14/07/2023 00:37

I can't think of a suggestion.

I've got completely distracted by working who they said, OP.

Was it Charlemagne? Genghis Khan?

Ah sorry @JeandeServiette .... I thought if I said the name straight up we might all go "Oh yes, him" or at the very least get hamstrung to come up with anyone else.

It obviously had the opposite effect on you!

OP posts:
PresentPrincess1 · 14/07/2023 12:54

Hitler?

JeandeServiette · 14/07/2023 14:24

It obviously had the opposite effect on you!

I'm obviously contrary. Grin

Aitchoo · 14/07/2023 14:56

What's their name....you know....the one who figured out fire....

BitOutOfPractice · 14/07/2023 15:04

MotherOfCatBoy · 13/07/2023 21:37

Guthenberg

Although i have to say my first thought was also Jesus because of how the Church structured the Western world. Eastern religions are collective rather than individual - individualism is very Western - so would have to agree with the pp who said Jesus and Mohammed.

maybe Charlemagne? Forerunner of today’s Europe tool shape under his reign.

Printing with moveable type, so often attributed to Guttenburg was invented in Korea more than 100 years before he was born @MotherOfCatBoy . In China possibly even earlier.

charlestonian · 14/07/2023 15:04

PresentPrincess1 · 14/07/2023 12:54

Hitler?

That was my thought too, in terms of the shaping of geopolitics

ErrolTheDragon · 14/07/2023 15:07

That was my thought too, in terms of the shaping of geopolitics

Obviously had a big effect on recent history but was it more than previous individuals such as Napoleon, Ghengis Khan etc?

AxolotlOnions · 14/07/2023 15:15

It's doubtful that there was a single person who sparked the Jesus myth so I'm thinking maybe Genghis Khan, maybe Mohammed.

CattyCattle · 14/07/2023 15:19

I'm sure I read in The God Delusion that there's no evidence to prove Jesus existed.

I agree about the inventions that would have been invented anyway.

Florence nightingale didn't invent hygiene either.

I'm voting for Khan, his seed still lives on and on and on 😂

Lovehearts82 · 14/07/2023 15:20

Edward Jenner and Alexander Flemming. That's who I would say.

Marsyas · 14/07/2023 15:30

LMNT · 13/07/2023 21:11

There is zero evidence. Writings are not evidence.

Show quote history

I am agog to learn what IS evidence then! I would have thought most of our knowledge of people in history comes from "writings". Whether that writing is on paper, papyrus, stone...

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