Jesus is either an avatar of a god or he is an ancient dead foreign man thoroughly enmeshed in myth. We really don't need to make a choice on that issue in order to decide that doing what he would do is probably not the best possible guide to sensible or moral behaviour: we are neither gods, nor dead, nor myths, nor founders of a new religion.

Jesus has shown himself prone to talk in riddles, to perform miracles, to act aggressively and bizarrely and to get himself killed.

The chap threw a temper tantrum in the holiest place of his religion, making him guilty of the crime of affray, breach of the peace and probably criminal damage. Of course you could also accuse him of sacrilege.

He cursed a fig tree, which surely counts as witchcraft as well as quite shocking petulance.

And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry: And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.

Should Christians throw temper tantrums in their own holiest shrines?

And Jesus entered the temple and cast out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you are making it a robbers' den."

Should Christians get themselves killed to make a point and ensure a new religion get founded in their name?

Should Christians challenge and attack the existing religious authorities claiming they have a higher authority?

Should Christians have known prostitutes wash their feet with hugely expensive scented oil and wipe it off with their hair?

Should Christians collaborate with oppressive foreign invaders and their despotic regimes? Following Christ's teachings would surely imply rendering until Hitler that which is Hitler's.

Should Christians give up their jobs for a couple of years and live off the charity of other people without apparently even thanking them for it? Jesus spent a couple of years wandering about preaching and performing miracles, as no mention was made of him either working for his keep or paying for food we must assume he was living off the generosity of unnamed (and uncredited) well-wishers. He was either a bum or a charlatan or a myth. He was not a wealthy man and seemed to have been traveling with no possessions. I suppose it is possible that he could have saved up his money from his carpentry work in his twenties until he had enough to go on his gap year, but in an age with no travelers cheques surely walking around carrying enough money to feed yourself for more than a year of traveling would be quite risky, don't you think? A far more reasonable scenario is to picture him as an itinerant beggar living off the charity of those who think giving money to the bearded loony with the popping eyes who they say can cure the sick is probably a good move if you live in an era with a short life expectancy and effectively no idea about why or how people fall sick and die. Another reasonable possibility to consider is the advance man, somebody to arrive in town a day or two ahead of the miracle worker to ensure the right rumours are circulating and the likely suckers are identified. Think about it, do you really imagine that five thousand people spontaneously gather in one place with no organisation? To get five thousand people to turn up you need to hit town like a circus.

If you were to follow the example of Jesus how much money would you give to the poor? Clearly the answer has to be a negative amount. Jesus was never described as giving anything away. He was never described as owning much in the first place and it is obvious that the had to be either living off his own savings or living off charity, sharing food and accommodation and probably also arranging for the feeding and housing of a dozen or more hangers-on.

Can I have a bed for night in exchange for a prayer? I don't mind sleeping with the animals, I'll feel right at home. Oh that's so kind. I like my breakfast an hour after dawn. Milk and honey would be fine. Heavenly. Thank you again. By the way, can you help with a dozen of my closest friends? Excellent, now while we're about it a packed lunch for tomorrow would be good. Loaves and fishes? Excellent, Peter will feel right at home.

Think about it, you can't be a freelance tax collector or fisherman, the disciples must also have been living off the charity of others. This was clearly so normal and obvious it wasn't even remarked upon. But think it through, how does a man feed himself traveling in an agricultural community? How do a minimum of thirteen men and some women too manage to keep body and soul together? A clue: they don't do charity, they are charity.

Who else but an itinerant beggar would claim that the way to get to heaven is to give stuff away?

What other lessons can we learn from Jesus?

What does the life of Jesus teach us about love and sex?

Jesus does not seem to have a wife or children. This is unusual for a man of his age in a traditional agricultural society. He travels with a dozen men, one of whom is known as the disciple that he loved. He does not seem to have much to say about sex, love, desire, marriage or being a father. Don't your alarm bells start ringing when you think about that? But of course he does have women in his life, a prostitute and his mother. Doesn't that set your mind at ease?

Come on, think about this, he's a single man in his thirties trailing around with a dozen young men, a former prostitute and his Jewish mother, she thinks he's the son of God, he thinks she's a virgin. It might have been nineteen centuries before the birth of Judy Garland but can't you tell he'd be a big fan?

But you can't be genuinely religious and gay, can you? How many thousands of trusting mothers have thought that? So Jesus is a man without a wife, without children, without a job, without a pension plan and without a home. Is he going to be the ideal example to model our behaviour on? Of course not. Unless you are looking to get yourself killed and found a new powerful but unstable religion he makes a rather poor role model.

So where should we look for an example of moral behaviour? I suggest we ask ourselves what would our future selves want us to have done. Tell yourself a tale of the future as if it is the past and cast yourself as the hero. "This was the day I ..." Narrate your own biopic. What will you want yourself to have done? Whatever label we give to these thoughts they are our own. They come from a part of our personality, the superego. They are not the voice of God or Jiminy Cricket.

We should look to moral real people we admire to help us model ourselves as hero. We should look to genuine heroes in real life who have made tough choices for the right reasons.

Forget the martyrs and religious lunatics who got persecuted for promoting weird religion. Forget the idea that anybody is a perfect model to emulate, nobody is perfect. We should develop a suite of heroes who exhibited different virtues who can help us make the right decisions.

We can't all be Christs, it would be a mad and dangerous world if significant numbers of people tried to be. We should develop an internal suite of personal saints to guide our actions. Take those best features of people around you and use those as the model as well as using more celebrated heroes.

What Jesus would do can't really help very much in a lot of circumstances. You are 16 years old, you are with your girlfriend aged 15, you don't really respect her very much, you put your hand between her legs and she doesn't flinch, she likes it. What would Jesus do? Not very helpful. Jesus touches the girl's gash and it heals up. Not much use at all. What would I want to remember me doing? That is a clearer answer. Having unprotected sex with an underage girl I wasn't in love with would not be the right answer.

Only you can be your conscience. Be your own hero, don't attribute any wonderful things you do to the help of an outside agency that isn't there.

Don't let some son of a sky pixie get the credit for what you did. You can be a great person, somebody you would like to meet, somebody you would like to be. Be your own hero.

What has Jesus ever done for anybody?

All he has done is stolen the credit for human achievements. People can do amazing things, when those amazing things are attributed to non-existent deities humanity is impoverished. Christians do not hold any monopoly on heroic deeds or courageous acts. It is completely disingenuous to attribute great acts performed by Christians to their Christianity and their faith or even to Christ himself and at the same time to pooh-pooh, belittle or steal the credit for Jesus for great acts carried out by non-Christians. For example Rosa Parks and Gandhi, if you claim it was Jesus who helped Rosa Parks how do you explain what motivated Gandhi? I don't have any problems with those cases, it is perfectly clear that both are instances of human courage, if one or both would like to attribute that courage to an external source that is probably down to their own doubt and weakness. By attributing greatness to an external force and owning all their own weakness they have found a way cope with both aspects of their own self.

When Flo-Jo set a new world record she should not have attributed it to Jesus but to her good genes, hard training, mental toughness and world class pharmaceuticals.

It is hard to bury the cynical idea that everybody who gives credit to their actions to supernatural entities knows that they don't believe it and neither does anybody else. “God alone helped me” is the same God as in the phrase “God alone knows why” which is identical in meaning with the phrase “nobody knows why”. “God alone helped me” means in effect that I won't be sharing credit for this with anybody else but I'll appear the very picture of gratitude.

The most nauseating instances of this false attribution would be a Catholic on a lilo blown out to sea being rescued by an atheist winched down from a helicopter “Thank God for my rescue! The devil tempted me and I was weak but my prayers to the Madonna and St Jude were answered!” The winchman wonders to himself what his part in the miracle was.