Twist ending guess: Christianity is built contextually on top of paganism so you would understand Christ's mission. To understand Christianity you have to understand the pagan world. You can't just scrub Christianity clean of pagan roots to assuage atheist naysayers.
Cruxificion is pagan. Christianity inverts it.
The ark's angels present nothing in between them where contextually other pagan cultures would have an idol right there.
The ark held both sets of laws as a contextual change from ancient near eastern practice of putting laws on display in front of the idol as well as the king's palace (this symbolizes that God is both God and King).
The wise men were pagan. God used astrology as one of the means to inform the pagan world that the messiah has come.
Christmas day being the winter solstice steals no thunder from Christianity. Christ came into the world on the darkest day of the year as a symbolic message.
What is the first persuasive argument we see in the gospel about who Christ is? He is the Logos. very much pulling from pagan philosophy.
Lots and lots of pagan cultures were so oppressed under their demons they were jumping for joy for Christianity. It literally sets the captives free. It does what it says on the tin. Any pagan date sharing is intentional as a statement that society has moved from paganism to Christianity.
Now there are some dumb things you see. Like the idea of a virgin birth being a 'common' theme. Mothra was not borne of a virgin, he was born of a stone. Or other virgin stories where its like the seed of the demigod was spilled underneath a tree. Just modern nonsense to muddy the role that Mary played.
And you can go overboard with the pagan connections, but that is not the same as identifying the roots for what they are and how Christ has changed the whole world and will continue to do so.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk. If you'd like more of these, go listen to Lord of Spirits and the Roots of Everything until you can take no more.
