I think its important for Christians to be aware of these myths [Mithraism and the early mystery religions] so they aren't taken off guard when its presented to them....so it doesn't shake their faith. One of the things athesit do is laugh at us when we aren't aware of these things saying, how do you know YOUR reglion is the right one if you haven't investagated these others? Part of that is to lurer you to learn about other reglions (and they hope you decide one of them is better then your own). But they try to claim these other reglions are proven just as much as ours....like for instance Budda was a real man and did live...though as far as some of the so called mircle he did, that is much harder to prove. With Jesus and His mircle there were many witnesses and man of the places and people in the bible are proven historically outside of the bible.