re: Which human being has made the biggest impact on human history?

Jesus by a long shot. Jesus was the ultimate rebel, the ultimate anarchist, the ultimate Shift from a few chosen people to hope for everyone. Even if you dont even believe in any god at all, you have to believe that jesus was amazing.

After that, i'd say newton, as an earlier poster said.

But its jesus by a long long long shot.

Newton of course had a certain appreciation for jesus.

Eta: i see a lot of the ole ghengis khan up above. From a pure gene pool perspective, yes. From an idea perspective, no. Ideas trump genes. On the otherhand, maybe khan understood what he was doing. And his sole purpose was to propogate his ideas through genes. Thats legit.

Einstein. He believed in god, and thought jesus was just a bad arse. Einstein was right.

Eta2: i see some very good posts above contending or suggesting paul as being the most influential. I think paul was very important, but even if jesus disnt rise (which is maybe true) and paul just rolled with the story, i dont think paul created the artifice of everything jesus stood for out of whole cloth. Jesus was real in those ways that matter. Namely anarchy, paradigm shift, hope, and a big frick you to everyone who felt entitled, based on, well, nothing except blood. Hence the blood of the lamb in juxtaposition to the old testament riffs on blood.