They think, “Jesus was cool. I like him, and I’m gonna try to be like him.” Kind of like their guiding light is what would Jesus do? But there isn’t a focus on identification, recruiting others, judging others based on their religion, fear of God, fear of punishment for sinning, respect for clergy as an authority, rituals, worship, etc. Basically, just the example of Jesus’ life.
inb4: Christian lol!! got em!
Right, I’m not trying to indirectly make a point about Christ not being likely to have existed or anything, just making a point about the language: Christ’s existence hasn’t been scientifically proven, it’s just that historians agree that it’s a reasonable guess based on the texts that were left behind and mentioned him.
Archaeologists might use scientific methodologies, e.g. carbon dating, to estimate how old a text is, for example, but I wouldn’t consider this scientific proof that someone existed.