Do people tend to pray to people who haven't been deified? I suppose so, given the number of saints who get prayed to. But then Jesus occupies a higher rung on the ladder and supposedly had/has divine powers, so...
The point being that no one prayed to Jesus, until centuries later. It would seem to me that he could have been the example set to allow other humans to be sainted or deified. It is telling though that during the first few centuries, people either accepted or rejected that Jesus claimed to be God, but it is highly unlikely that humans themselves came up with such stories. It seem that the stories, if made up centuries later, turned Jesus into a charismatic leader. I just don't see it actually working that way during Jesus' actual historical life, if one continues to claim that those stories where just fabricated.
It is a fact to this day, that the RCC does not recognize Jesus as the cornerstone of the church, but Peter. If Jesus was such a great leader, should he have not clarified to the church to get the story straight, instead of the church being mislead for 2000 years? Peter was not even that well known for starting groups of Christians, yet he must have. It was the writings of Paul that did more to solidify the church than anything Peter did, or at least the church did not think much of Peter the first few centuries.
Jesus' mother Mary received a lot more attention and deification that Jesus did, even within the first couple of hundred years. If Jesus was the ultimate example, then it would seem humans never had to deify him. His works and actions already did that. Humans only sainted other humans, if they measured up to the life of Jesus. Jesus himself told people to pray to God in heaven and never claimed to be "lifted up" or deified except on the cross, which was only considered a curse. If you take away the extraordinary stories, Jesus would just be considered a mad man with a sad ending. You would also have to say that Pilate calling Jesus innocent and the accusations of sedition as untrue was also made up. Seems that would call into question the Roman legal system as well. I doubt they wanted a martyr on their hand, and the NT never makes Jesus out to be a martyr. It did call him a savior though.
If anything the movement could be considered a moral change movement. It could even be as complicated as a change in religious governmental control movement. It can hardly be described as an overthrow of a government or even a religion. It was a change from the inside out, like the overturning of slavery, bigotry, or even discrimination. Even though it would become dogmatic and unchanging in the face of a government that would force people to be moral, it hardly started out that way. Governments of that time where not moral bastions. It would seem that if religion was in use at all, it was a way to monopolize the economy, instead of forcing morality on people. Governments were power grabbers and keepers of peace, if such a thing is possible to do with force.
