There are more Christians than there are Muslims in this world, bruh.
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Who is the most famous person in human history?
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There are more Christians than there are Muslims in this world, bruh.
Which Muhammad we talking about that is not real?
Also, pretty sure Jesus is real. Tim Tebow told me he was. Who the fuck are you to question Tim Tebow?
Herr Schwarz
Banned
Is that it? I'm sure a lot of people were called Jesus back then. You can't just thread that needle.
Da fuq Muhammed is real too.
Is Vishnu and that elephant guy real too? There might be some ancient documents talking about vishnu from back then.
crisdecuba
Member
I've found both your posts funny.
Atom Heart Mother
Banned
Outside of Religion? Maybe George Washington, Mozart, Beethoven, or Shakespeare.
crisdecuba
Member
AreYouForReal.jpg
Just in case, historians generally agree Jesus existed as a man. And there is an even greater consensus re: Muhammad (again, a man, not a deity).
Herr Schwarz
Banned
Ok sorry I brainfarted a bit there. There was once a regular bloke called Jesus who was preaching some new ideas and got crucified for it. The rest of the details being spotty.
Obviously there's a big difference between actual Jesus and Astral Jesus who is clearly the more famous of the two.
Anyway back to OP, my vote is for Ronald McDonald.
Thelonelykoopa
Member
Genghis Khan
bitbydeath
Member
Most kids wouldn't know Christmas is about a guy named Jesus.
Christmas is all about Santa bringing them presents.
Ergo, Santa is the most famous.
Jesus. It's not even close, not even if you count the entire world including the East.
On Hitler, how relevant was WWII in the Eastern world? Do Chinese and Indians and Southeast Asians care that much about it aside from what involved Japan? Maybe most educated people in the East are still aware of what happened in Europe, but it's probably not studied like it is in the West. With Jesus on the other hand, there are plenty of Christians in the Eastern world, and any Muslim who has read the Quran is aware of Jesus.
On Hitler, how relevant was WWII in the Eastern world? Do Chinese and Indians and Southeast Asians care that much about it aside from what involved Japan? Maybe most educated people in the East are still aware of what happened in Europe, but it's probably not studied like it is in the West. With Jesus on the other hand, there are plenty of Christians in the Eastern world, and any Muslim who has read the Quran is aware of Jesus.
RustyNails
Member
This is a very bad post.
I agree, western figures area probably known in a lot more countires, because western culture has a homogeneous core, especially when we talk about something like the roman empire. However, even though asian cultures don't share as many important figures, the ones they do might be known to a lot more people due to the huge amount of people who live in the region. I'm not saying Mao is more famous than jesus, but that he's probably more famous than a lot of other people we may think. For instance I find it somewhat hard to believe that he's not famous in India, it's kind of hard not to learn about the man who governed your neighbouring country for more than 30 years.
He is probably one of the best contenders for the title, but saying he is the most famous because of language bound expressions or how you count the years are not the best reasons. In the western world we may say we are in 2017 AD, but in some eastern languages it's 2017 western time or something like that, they don't relate the year to jesus but to our calendar itself. And it's the same for christmas, non-christian countries may celebrate christmas, but that doesn't mean they know a thing about jesus, they just know about a western tradition of exchanging gifts in a specific date in december.
I think buddha is also a good contender, even though the number of buddhist practicioners is not even close to christians or muslims. Buddha is known to a lot of people in China, Japan and India even if they practice other religions. Also, if I'm not mistaken there even used to be a buddhist calendar used by countries in southeast asia.
Host Samurai
Member
Obama
Hitler
The Beatles
Arnold
The Rock
George Washington
Abe Lincoln
Hitler
The Beatles
Arnold
The Rock
George Washington
Abe Lincoln
Netherscourge
Banned
Adam.
-As in Adam and Eve.
-As in Adam and Eve.
Steeped in a Sea of Games
Member
Obviously, it's Ronald McDonald.
And_Gignac
Member
Carly Rae Jepsen.
You should probably inform yourself more about WWII.
Obliterator
Member
Guys. 1 is Jesus and 2 is Muhammad. Like flat out. There's not even room to debate it really.
People mentioning stuff like Hitler, yeah he's well known and certainly up there but he doesn't touch Jesus or Muhammad. You can go to every continent on Earth and vast swaths of people know exactly who both of them are. From children to the elderly.
Jesus beats out Muhammad because he is a figure in both Christianity and Islam so both are familiar with him.
People mentioning stuff like Hitler, yeah he's well known and certainly up there but he doesn't touch Jesus or Muhammad. You can go to every continent on Earth and vast swaths of people know exactly who both of them are. From children to the elderly.
Jesus beats out Muhammad because he is a figure in both Christianity and Islam so both are familiar with him.
It's pretty easy to not know about Mao if you're a subsistence dirt farmer without a first grade education tho. This starts to get uncomfortable but something like 30% of Indians are illiterate. Pakistan and Bangladesh are significantly worse. I don't wanna say those people don't "count" for purposes of this discussion, but I have no intuition for what their cultural literacy would be.
CadetMahoney
Member
Ja Rule
Thelonelykoopa
Member
Yay another person said it. Though he only applies if you dont count Jesus, Muhammond or Buddha. Outside of those major religious figures Genghis Khan was a man known and feared in East Asia,India,Middle East, Russia and his name traveled all the way to Western Europe. He established one of the largest empires on the planet and his horde quite possible caused the Black Death to move into europe which was one of the starting points of the Rennaisance.
RickFrick'n
Banned
Just to be clear, when y'all are saying "Buddha" you mean the OG buddha, right? Gautama Buddha? I only ask because, for the longest time, I wasn't exposed to Buddhism and my idea of who "Buddha" was was way off base. It took an embarrassingly long time before I discovered that there was more than one Buddha, and that the Buddha I always pictured wasn't the original.
I don't know if my anecdote ties in to the discussion very well, or if my experience is atypical, but it may be a point of confusion for westerners that there are multiple buddhas and the most famous buddha is referred to by title instead of his name.
I don't know if my anecdote ties in to the discussion very well, or if my experience is atypical, but it may be a point of confusion for westerners that there are multiple buddhas and the most famous buddha is referred to by title instead of his name.
Thelonelykoopa
Member
When people say buddha they are referring to Siddhartha as opposed to other buddhas like Amida.
I'm not going to claim to be informed about what the average East Asian history education looks like, but assuming Asians are not informed about what happened with Germany feels like assuming Westerners are not informed about what happened with Japan. Japanese imperialism was very far reaching in the WWII era and impacted tons of Asian nations, including China and India. "What involved Japan" is a huge deal in the east I find it unlikely that eastern history curriculums would ignore the whole western half of such an important topic.
Buddha might be as big.
crisdecuba
Member
Reasonable, but who would you pick if you had to choose right now?
Obliterator
Member
He's certainly up there, but I don't think hes as ubiquitous as the other 2. Certainly not Jesus at least. Jesus has a major presence in every continent other than Asia, and even there its not like he's unknown.
Buddha is a very big one for sure, but in most of the world other than Asia he's certainly behind the other 2 by a large margin.
I would say Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha in that order. But Buddha is probably very close to Muhammad
Indeed, illiteracy and how far one can get in their own education influence a lot in this discussion, I didn't consider that before. Unfortunately that doesn't apply only to asian countries, latin america and african countries also have lots of problems regarding education. Here in Brazil the illiteracy rate is not as high as what you have mentioned for india, I believe our illiteracy rate is around 9%, but that refers only to illiteracy, if you consider functional illiteracy it gets a lot worse and it goes up to 27%. Considering that, historical figures tend to be a lot less known and at the same time christian figures have an advantage, as most people from rural areas tend to be more religious around here.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
People arguing that Jesus is not a real person while a great majority of people who studied him for a living, historians and the like, are in consensus that he did in fact exist puzzled me.
Like, why? Is it because it is offensive to your no-religion! rules of life to acknowledge his existence, even if it's only purely academical?
So weird and petty.
Like, why? Is it because it is offensive to your no-religion! rules of life to acknowledge his existence, even if it's only purely academical?
So weird and petty.
Thelonelykoopa
Member
I meant in this thread not in actual practice, sorry if I wasn't precise.
crazy monkey
Banned
Jesus.
Essentially that is what's going on yes. It seems to be a weird understanding of secularism that comes out of the "New Atheism".
While the comparison I will make fails to consider swaths of historical background and context, I liken the stories to what internet culture did with Chuck Norris.
Atom Heart Mother
Banned
the beatles are more famous than Jesus, John Lennon said so
Obliterator
Member
I think one thing that throws that off a bit, is that a lot of people aren't actually aware of who Ronald McDonald is. Most people that know the brand couldn't tell you anything whatsoever about the man and don't probably know his first name even.
The brand McDonald's is huge. The person McDonald himself? Not at all really
Switch Back 9
a lot of my threads involve me fucking up somehow. Perhaps I'm a moron?
You know when something is right in front of you and you don't notice it? I feel as though I am waking from a pleasant dream into a drab and slightly wretched reality now.
Fallout-with-swords
Banned
Jesus plus one, Jesus plus two.
Roberto Larcos
Member
André the Giant went into mainstream culture in a way that not many have before or since.
I'd argue anyone with a crossover. Brock Lesnar is well-known by UFC fans, while Andy Kaufman was a celebrity in his own right in the 1980s.
Gordon Shumway
Banned
🙏
Arguing that jesus didn't exist is kind of weird as there are evidences that someone named jesus really existed. I can understand if you question if he really did the things the bible says he did, but not if he's real or not. It's even worse to doubt about Muhammad, which has even more evidence as he is a lot closer to our present time.
And I don't think Ronald Mcdonald is that famous, a lot of stores don't display him anymore and I think some countries never really pushed for him in adds that much. I remember that when I was a kid it took me sometime to learn he had a name and don't even get me started on the name of the rest of his gang, I still don't know the name of the purple guy in portuguese.
And I don't think Ronald Mcdonald is that famous, a lot of stores don't display him anymore and I think some countries never really pushed for him in adds that much. I remember that when I was a kid it took me sometime to learn he had a name and don't even get me started on the name of the rest of his gang, I still don't know the name of the purple guy in portuguese.
Taking Brakke's argument into account and my lack of knowledge about the culture in many asian countries and their rural areas, I would pick jesus as the safest bet. I imagine the rest of latin america is somewhat like Brazil when it comes to rural areas, so even if people didn't get too far in school most of them probably know about Jesus, Mary and the saints because of the strong catholicism in our culture. On the other hand I'm not so sure if, for instance, rural areas in India would all know about buddhism or if they would be an hinduism only kind of place depending on the region.
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