it's easier to find obvious faults when something is held close for examination. Shoving this one in our faces has given us greater opportunity for close study. Other brands of hokum may include an actual space ship to rocket the most a faithful away or a con man who this one final time miraculously went straight, rituals with one rolled pant-leg, or alien spirits living in volcanoes. But we don't talk about them so much as they keep their weirdness in the shadows.

No not really, Christianity is full of contradictions that cannot be reconciled and has a hard line book they must follow (filled with said contradictions). Paganism, as a belief structure, was essentially buried so individuals are working of off their own ideas that can be as varied as the practitioners (afaik, I'm not a neo pagan). Christianity isn't bad because you have to believe on something, no matter what the reddit atheist will tell you, it's bad because of what you have to believe.