Babylon: Source of All False Religions

"And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and no nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth." (Genesis 11:1-9)
This is the recounting of the event in which the men of the earth, specifically ungodly men, undertook to build a city within which was to be a very high tower that is now well-known as the "Tower of Babel." What is clearly seen from the passage is that the building of this tower was in defiance of God who brought a quick end to it all. Perhaps their intent was to build something so high that another flood would not touch it, as Josephus the Jewish historian suggests, and to seek revenge on God for destroying their forefathers by being rebellious and turning others from God as well.
Or perhaps they were establishing their own kingdom; certainly they said they wanted to make a "name" for themselves. Was this in imitation of the Creator? Was this their attempt to be as God, creating works of their own hands and striving to reach the heavens where God resides in order to be as He is?
Both purposes seem likely.
In fact, the leader of this defiant act was none other than Nimrod whose name means "rebel" or "we will revolt." The Bible does not tell us much about Nimrod, other than the most important point: and that is that the work of his imagination was contrary to God's will and had to be stopped. The bible tells us that he was a "mighty one." Do you remember that description being used earlier in our studies?
In Genesis 6:4-5 the Bible describes the people of the earth just prior to the flood and amongst them are "mighty men" that scholars believe meant "terrible" men. It was because of the wickedness of men like these that God judged the earth by flood and sought to destroy them all. Nimrod is not only "mighty" but is a "mighty hunter" as well; scholars believe this to be better interpreted as a "mighty hunter of men," for other sources (including the Jewish historian Josephus) depict him as a villainous tyrant and the self-pronounced king over the earth.
In all of this we can see him as being used of Satan who was trying to establish his own leader on earth. Satan is always behind anyone who wants to "be like God" for that was the thing that had him cast out of heaven to the earth in the first place (as we will learn more of in our study.) He roams the earth looking for black hearts willing to do his bidding, joining him in his rebellion against God, and he found such a one in Nimrod. That rebellious spirit is known as the spirit of anti-christ which means "lawless" and can be witnessed in all the tyrants that have lived on the earth.
Interesting that the place now known to be where Babylon once was, is modern-day Iraq, a short ways from Baghdad. What Nimrod began, another king of the earth, Nebuchadnezzar (of whom we will learn much in our bible study) continued and it is of his buildings that many ruins still remain. I found a travel link that gives some interesting information regarding Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon that you might find interesting. http://www.atlastours.net/iraq/babylon.html

In fact, Saddam Hussein, before his demise, had hopes (it has been said) of trying to rebuild Babylon. That isn't all that surprising, for even Satan seeks a "home-base" from which to rule. The bible tells us in Revelation that Babylon is the "seat" of Satan. And no wonder.
It is out of Babylon that the false gods Ishtar and Tammuz originate. Ishtar is said to be the "queen of heaven" and is said to be modeled after the wife of Nimrod who was to be worshiped, I imagine, as he himself was. Tammuz is said to be modeled after the son of Nimrod and is worshiped as the "sun god" or "god of fire." There is a mourning ritual connected with Tammuz. The Babylonians marked the decline in daylight hours (beginning with the summer solstice) and the onset of killing summer heat and drought with a six-day "funeral" and mourning period for the sun god, Tammuz. Ezekiel, the prophet of God, was given a prophetic vision in which he witnessed these mourning ceremonies taking place at the door of the temple in Jerusalem:
"Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then he said unto me, "Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these." (Ezekiel 8:14-15)
The beginning of Nimrod's kingdom of Babylon was in Babel (which means "gate or tower of God"). The ziggurats (Assyrian word for "mountaintop") in Babylon rose 297 feet high and used a new construction method of baked bricks and cement or mortar, possibly even asphalt ("slime".) There is a ziggurat still mostly standing from the area that was once Ur of the Chaldees (Abraham's hometown…thus telling you the idolatrous nature of the place Abraham was called out of by God.) The ziggurats were man-made structures with a temple on top through which people sought to enter into heaven (in an occultic sense.)
Nimrod's kingdom included Nineveh from which clay tablets have been found in the excavation of the ruins of the temple library of the god Nabu (biblical Nebo, thus God's desire to destroy them as seen in the Book of Jonah) and the palace library of Nineveh telling the "Gilgamesh Epic", the poetic description of a man named Gilgamesh, who is thought to be none other than Nimrod, and whose arrogance, ruthlessness and depravity were of such grave concern to the citizens of this kingdom that they sought help from their (false) gods.
The Bible has much to say about "Babylon", and of the spirit which created Babylon. Revelation 17:5 speaks of "mystery Babylon" who is "the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth;" harlots being the term used of idolatrous, aka adulterous, false religions; adulterous because they that belonged to God turned instead to other idols or gods. False religion began in Babylon and its root has never died. Babylon was the perversion of things that God had ordained. Its root was defiance, depravity, arrogance and pride, enslavement of others, worship of idols, rather than of Almighty God: this is the same root of every Satanic system that has existed on earth.
From that root has come all the false religions that ever were. It is the source of all idolatry, whether of public demonstrative idolatry such as cults are made of, or of the private internal idolatry of individual hearts that are turned from God and focused instead on other gods such as wealth, fame, material possessions, etc.