What bosh. No one's running from anything. That's a phony and sophmoric dichotomy. The notion that Christian religion and historical truth are de facto mutually exclusive is pure tendentiousness.
Christianity has borrowed from other religions specifically Mithraism and get over it. The Early Catholic church did the same thing ...They knew that portions of Mithraism were similar to Christianity ... nope won't work your not quite as slick as the early church. I am a Christian I just know and understand the history of the Church.
Then surely you can cite at least one document from the Early Church which supports that history of the Church which you claim to know so well.
you are running away from facts of History as they are presented to you by certainly well meaning people.
Here are a few notes about the writings of early Christian scholars and Mithra. If you don't know who they are please feel free to look them up and their writings.
Tertullian States
The question will arise, By whom is to be interpreted the sense of the passages which make for heresies? By the devil, of course, to whom pertain those wiles which pervert the truth, and who, by the mystic rites of his idols, vies even with the essential portions of the sacraments of God. He, too, baptizes some¾ that is, his own believers and faithful followers; he promises the putting away of sins by a layer (of his own); and if my memory still serves me, Mithra there, (in the kingdom of Satan) sets his marks on the foreheads of his soldiers; celebrates also the oblation of bread, and introduces an image of a resurrection, and before a sword wreathes a crown. What also must we say to (Satan's) limiting his chief priest to a single marriage? He, too, has his virgins; he, too, has his proficients in continence. Suppose now we revolve in our minds the superstitions of Numa Pompilius [legendary king of Rome, 8th-7th century BCE], and consider his priestly offices and badges and privileges, his sacrificial services, too, and the instruments and vessels of the sacrifices themselves, and the curious rites of his expiations and vows: is it not clear to us that the devil imitated the well-known moroseness of the Jewish law? Since, therefore he has sown such emulation in his great aim of expressing, in the concerns of his idolatry, those very things of which consists the administration of Christ's sacraments, it follows, of course, that the same being, possessing still the same genius, both set his heart upon, and succeeded in, adapting to his profane and rival creed the very documents of divine things and of the Christian saints…
Tertullian [Tertullian, /Praescr./, ch. 40.] states also that the worshippers of Mithra practiced baptism by water, through which they were thought to be redeemed from sin, and that the priest made a sign upon the forehead of the person baptized; but as this was also a Christian rite, Tertullian declares that the Devil must have effected the coincidence for his wicked ends. "The Devil'', he also writes, "imitates even the main parts of our divine mysteries", and "has gone about to apply to the worship of idols those very things of which the administration of Christ's sacraments consists".
Justin Martyr [Justin Martyr, /1 Apol./, ch. 66.] had already complained when he declared that it was Satan who had plagiarized the ceremony, causing the worshippers of Mithra to receive the consecrated bread and cup of water.
Martyr says in his First Apology (LXVI):
And this food is called among us Eucharistia, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, "This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body"; and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, "This is My blood"; and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn.
The devil led the heathen to anticipate Christ with respect to several things, as the mysteries of the Eucharist, etc. "And this very solemnity (says St. Justin) the evil spirit introduced into the mysteries of Mithra."
There is so much more here and there the Christians admit that Mithra worshippers were doing these rites before the Christians or why would they be saying that the devil anticipated the actiosn of the faithful.