first account of Jesus was written about 150 years after Jesus death.

150 YEARS!! that could be several generations.

Why the delay if it was clear that he was the important individual?

There is not much difference between Nazi-style submission to authority and total, eternal submission to the invisible universal dictator.

The truth is what you're told.

Religion was meant to supplement states man, aside from armed forces, as means of control. By having established a fervently god-fearing population, deterrence are in effect, people will self-correct/ self-censor them self and less policing effort required to advance people to your means.

Tell them to march to death, and they'll likely conspire against you, but instruct them from childhood that it is the will of god, who reward them virgins in their after life, then they'll ready to do anything for you.

There aren't much moral for mental slavery.

Just, take a brief look at these failed apocalyptic predictions, anything ranging from astronomic/(pseudo)scientific predictions, religious prophecies, to reaction to catastrophic natural events and societal collapse has been taken for sign of apocalypse.

http://www.abhota.info/end1.htm

http://www.2think.org/hundredsheep/skeptic/predictions.shtml

And the hype of 2012 will most likely turn out to be nothing more than a neat marketing trick.

If Mayan were still here, this will simply be a Y2K problem for Mayan software engineers, similarly one would not expect the world to end just because UNIX system time 'reset' to '1970' in 2038.