“Jesus is Santa Claus for Adults”  ― Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

In this view, Jesus is simply a legend or myth; something man has made up.  Many atheists adopt this view as a means of dealing with the historical claims of Jesus’ miracles and resurrection.  In much the same vein as Paul Bunyan or King Arthur, they would admit there may have been an actual person named Jesus from Nazareth, but the Gospels and other writings all amount to man’s historical fiction, making up most of what we now “know” of Jesus.  Thus it is asserted that the religious and ethical system that has arisen around the teachings of Jesus are simply the construct of human ingenuity and fiction and therefore should not constrain the modern man and his ethics.

In the following video, the late Christopher Hitchens sets forth this view.