First of all, when it comes to if Jesus was a person living at the time, there is documentation that at least put it in another perspective than what you are doing with this post. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
When it comes to the suffering you are referring to, that suffering is not because of Jesus teachings. Meaning, if you really read the new testament, those actions have nothing to do with his message. Funny enough, he did say something like; when I come back, many will come to me and tell me how much they ahve done in my name, while I will tell them; I don't know you.
Another point here is that if you look at the historical development of "suffering". It hasn't been any better in the non-existence of this "christian" religious suffering I get the impression that you are referring to.
It's like if I say I kill someone in your name while you where clearly stating that I shouldn't do it. How could that make you guilty of the act?
So, that the roman empire decided to use christianity as their population control tool is by no means Jesus fault.
And ironically enough, if you look at atheism vs religion, and here I am referring to religion in the true sense, as a population control and power tool, you will find that atheism outperforms religion by multiple times when it comes to human suffering.
There is more to it
That is true, but that doesn't mean that we should jump back to irrational beliefs. Evil can't be cured by stupidity.
I am personally not an atheist, I have my own philosophy, but I don't believe Christianity or any other monotheistic religion is true.
So perhaps both Atheists and Christians are wrong?
Thats very likely to be true. Still there is no fault in trying to understand what the man tried to deliver of meaning. F.eks. in Norway, most christians believe that Jesus where a passifist. Something that is false if you really read the bible. From what it says, there should little doubt about it when it comes to self defense.