The Celtic practices are apparently in some doubt these days, since "fake news" had already been invented in Roman times. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wic

The Celtic practices are apparently in some doubt these days, since "fake news" had already been invented in Roman times. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicker_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicker_man for more details) In any cases, burning some poor bloke as a sacrifice to the gods seems of a different order than building the main thrust of your symbolism (ie, crosses everywhere) around the death of your main prophet figure. Many religions did the former, very few seem to have done the latter.