"...The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me that's farfetched." Well, that has happened, but the religion involved wasn't Christianity, and the nutcase was certainly not Jesus Christ.
Karl Marx comes to mind, or Mao, or Lenin, or Stalin, or Hitler, or ...
Bono is a real dope, now that I think about it.