I am responding off forum to this tangent, so I won't say as much here (cheers from the bleachers, I am sure!), but
@noway2 's objections are actually very very very old. The FIRST objection from outside the Judaeo tradition against Xty was that it was a rehash of the old Babylonian and Mystery religions. This was the gnostic charge, and was the first attempt to rebut the gospel that came from the established academics in ancient Rome. Charges of repackaging myths of dying gods and virgin births and god man and a general mishmash of random elements that have echoes in the gospel message were certainly contained in these pagan traditions and stories. I remember being shocked and distressed upon learning this myself (post conversion), and started digging. After all, if it is only fairy tales and fables, I DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE IT (though to be honest.... or as honest as I can, anyway, I am not sure where I would go for an intellectual framework of the universe which makes sense... I had to admit that to myself in the process as well). So, I struck out and began reading the original charges and claims from the pseudopigripha (extrabiblical texts), as well as some of the early church fathers who countered those charges.
I was astounded. In my typical arrogant and ignorant foolishness, I assumed that ancients were kind of stupid. I guess I had kind of a Darwinian view of intelletual development, moving from grunts and gestures on up thru eating raw meat and burning heretics to our refined genteel urbane sophisticated rationalism... (I laugh at myself now). I was blown away by the intellectual precision, wisdom, wit, and razor sharp insight I found, both in the pagan skeptics and in those who answered. I was also ... disturbed... not the best word but the only one I can find now.... with how DIFFERENT they approached stuff, yet wound up at the same core issues. It was my first experience of "you are really really really a dumbass, you little twit" and it was good for me (lol). So when you see me being arrogant, contemptuous and dismissive of some of the amazingly ignorant and vapid nonsense posturing at times... not in this thread, mind you... just other times, please know that I really don't think I am smart and you all are dumb. I in fact think that although you are dumber than horseshit and posturing like an idiot about it, we are actually both
phenomenally dense and ignorant and I probably have read marginally more than you about this stuff but both of us are in fact cretins.
Anyway, I read the first real intellectual apologists of the church, consisting of Origen (a towering genius who was a weird weird weird dude who was in fact a heretic in his view of the ontology of God... he was so bent out of shape about sexual lust that he cut is own balls off, but later said he had sinned in doing so) and Clement of Alexandria. I found that both of them were just rehashing the works of Justyn Martyr, from around 150 A.D. (about 30 years earlier than Clement). They went point by point thru the Eleusian Mystery religions and Egyptian mysticism and the older stuff and showed how these claims to be the origins of Xty were illogical, often based on false historical claims, self contradictory, and at odds with themselves. It was such a devastating critique that the movement functionally collapsed LONG BEFORE Rome became "Christian" and the system became legally banned.
So why is it around today? Because nothing is ever new. The JO Frasers (Golden Bough) and others wound up going back to the old gnostics, picking that discredited crapbag of refuted nonsense up, dusted it off, and said "LOOKEEE AT WHAT I FOUND!" ... without every bothering to mention the refutations and apologetics that had blown it out of the water as an intellectual system. You will see it everywhere on the interwebses. I would be far less contemptuous of it (maybe... maybe it is just an ugly stain on my nature and I would always be an arrogant jerk!) if JUST ONCE the Joseph Campbell types even acknowledged that the tripe they peddle has been refuted, or at least countered vigorously, back in the second century.
That would be the place to start if we could somehow automagically become "objective" about these things. However, as Calvin and others point out (and
@noway2 very graciously affirms), no one starts out here "objective" about this issue. People generally stake out a position based on other things and then try to build a system that supports their preferred narrative. I have found that it is the rare man who will even admit to such a thing, but that is about as close to "objective" as we are going to get.