Has anybody ever read any Joseph Campbell? I'm thinking specifically of you, Quincy, because you seem like you'd enjoy him. Try Hero With a Thousand Faces or especially The Power of Myth. He does a wonderful job of showing how the stories that are important to us as humans show up again and again and again, in religion and folklore and mythology, and Catholicism (as I'm sure you know) both consciously subsumed elements of popular pagan religions and organically, unconsciously mirrored much older elements in the development of its canon. If you don't like reading, he did The Power of Myth as a PBS miniseries too! Fun for all! :O)