But "following Jesus" means following a real person, not an archetype of perfect goodness. The way you believe, you're basically an atheist--you don't believe God/Jesus exists--but you're following an ideal morality that you have labeled "Jesus." If you followed perfect seflishness instead, and called THAT "Jesus," you wouldn't be a Christian either. You can't just label whatever it is YOU value "Jesus" and then say you're a Christian because you're following "Jesus"--you have to actually follow the real, live, son of the real, live, God. You can't be a Christian if you don't believe God and Christ actually exist. That's not me being a snob, that's a matter of definition. A circle doesn't have four sides just because it calls itself a square.