To believe in only "Christ and him crucified" is an exercise in putting your head in the sand. Virtually every page of the gospels were plagiarized from earlier pagan myths. By insisting on the literal historicism of the gospels, Christians botched the SPIRITUAL meaning of the more refined pagan myths.
The christos, the Logos, and whatnot were taught by PAGANS centuries before the Christians --- and their thinking about them was a hell of a lot clearer. Simply put, The christos was an allegory of the Soul. The Sun was the natural symbol of the Soul. JESUS WAS ANOTHER VERSION OF HELIOS. That is why he is presented as being born at the Winter Solstice and Dying and Resurrecting at the Spring Equinox. Both SOLAR EVENTS. The story of Christ is another garbled version of pagan allegories of the Soul. You can pretend otherwise, but the fact is, the majority of people today are hallucinated to the point that they have no interest in actually discerning truth.