Note from "Mrs. Read'n Research",
"One thing you must know about "Gods" as you study them or worship them, is that they all have their own likes and dislikes when it comes to their particular form of worship. They like what they like, and that's what they want, however you decide to give it to them. This also proves their existence as real entities, but I digress.
So, say one god prefers that you cut your body with a knife during prayer or worship, yet another prefers a form of worship that is not so edgy, at a glance. She doesn't want outward displays of disfigurement so much as to be the center of your life as much as possible, and she likes a flow of prayer with bread or wine offerings. Then perhaps you have another one that wants you to only be faithful to them, to marry them, to be so devoted that you forgo any "natural use" for other humans and become their complete slave, devotees, etc.
What you will notice when you immerse yourself into religious history and various pantheons, is that "God's" names may change from culture to culture, but one thing that they do not change is the means of offering/adoring that they have a taste for. They do not care what ever words you use to describe them as long as your worship takes the shape of whatever fetishes they prefer. Or in other words, they don't care what you call them, as long as you call them ;)
So the names may change, but the symbolic language, our adoration's/actions,the true form of our worship dedicated to them, is all that really matters to them."
The Queen of Heaven and her son originates in the ancient Babylonian Cult from the Queen of Babylon, Semiramis.*["The Chronology of The Old Testament" p.251)
Excerpt from footnotes in "The Two Babylons", p.19 free download-- Please see my review of this book.
"The very name by which the Italians commonly designate the Virgin, is just the translation of one of the titles of the Babylonian goddess. As Baal or Belus was the name of the great male divinity of Babylon, so the female divinity was called Beltis.--(Hesychius,Lexicon, p. 188) This name has been found in Nineveh applied to the "Mother of the gods"--(Vaux's Nineveh and Persepolis, p. 459); and in a speech attributed to Nebuchadnezzar, preserved in Eusebii Proeparatio Evangelii, liv. ix. cap. 41, both titles "Belus and Beltis" are conjoined as the titles of the great Babylonian god and goddess. The Greek Belus, as representing the highest title of the Babylonian god, was undoubtedly Baal, "The Lord." Beltis, therefore, as the title of the female divinity, was equivalent to "Baalti," which, in English, is "My Lady," in Latin, "Mea Domina," and, in Italian, is corrupted into the well-known "Madonna." In connection with this, it may be observed, that the name of Juno, the classical "Queen of Heaven," which in Greek, was Hera, also signified "The Lady;" and that the peculiar title of Cybele or Rhea at Rome, was Domina or "The Lady."--(OVID, Fasti, lib.iv.v.340.) Further, there is strong reason to believe, that Athena, the well-known name of Minerva at Athens, had the very same meaning. The Hebrew Adon, "The Lord," is, with the points, pronounced Athon. We have evidence that this name was known to the Asiatic Greeks, from whom idolatry, in a large measure, came into European Greece, as a name of God under the form of "Athan." Eustathius, in a note on the Periergesis of Dionysius (v. 915, apud BRYANT, vol. iii. p. 140), speaking of local names in the district of Laodicea, says that "Athan is god." The feminine of Athan, "The Lord," is Athana, "The Lady," which in the Attic dialect, is Athena. No doubt, Minerva is commonly represented as a virgin; but, for all that, we learn from Strabo (Lib.x.cap. 3,p.405. Paris, 1853),that at Hierapytna in Crete (the coins of which city, says Müller, Dorians, vol.i.p.413, have the Athenian symbols of Minerva upon them), she was said to be the mother of the Corybantes prototype of the Athenian goddess, was a mother , and was styled "Goddess Mother," or "Mother of the Gods,"--See Wilkinson, vol. iv. p. 285).
*Sir H. Rawlinson having found evidence at Nineveh, of the existence of a Semiramis about six or seven centuries before the Christian era, seems inclined to regard her as the ONLY Semiramis that ever existed. But this is subversive of all history. The fact that there was a Semiramis in the primeval ages of the world, is beyond all doubt (see JUSTIN, Historia, p. 615, and the historian CASTOR in Cory's Fragments, p. 65), although some of the exploits of the latter queen have evidently been attributed to her predecessor. Mr. Layard dissents from Sir. H. Rawlinson's opinion.
Crabb's Mythology, p. 150. [could not locate book, free downloads of Gutzlaff's books on China here] Gutzlaff thought that Shing Moo must have been borrowed from a Popish source; and there can be no doubt, that in the individual case to which he refers, the Pagan and the Christian stories had been amalgamated. But Sir J.F. Davis shows that the Chinese of Canton find such an analogy between their own Pagan goddess Kuanyin and the Popis Madonna, that, in conversing with Europeans, they frequently call either of them indifferently by the same title.--DAVIS'S China, vol. ii. p. 56. read page here [free download at Internet Archives]
The first Jesuit missionaries to China also wrote home to Europe, that they found mention in the Chinese sacred books--books unequivocally Pagan--of a mother and child, very similar to their own Madonna and child at home.--See LePere Lafitau, Les Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains, [?] vol. i. p. 235, note. One of the names of the Chinese Holy Mother is Ma Tsoopo; in regard to which, see Appendix, Note C.
"Gods Plan for Man" p. 819 Dake.
"Scores of pagans joined the church in those days who were used to worshiping the gods of local areas or towns, and who had not completely converted to Christianity. The veneration of saints and holy men became a form of worship. Saints were viewed as lesser deities, their intercession worked with God. Places linked to the lives of holy men were viewed as sacred and pilgrimages began.
The image of mother and child was an idol of worship in Babylon long before Christ. This spread to the ends of the earth from Babylon. The first mother worshiped was Semiramis, the beautiful queen of Nimrod, whose lust and licentiousness were well known. In the "mysteries" which she had a major role in creating, she was worshiped as Rhea {Chronicon Paschale vol 1 p 65} the great "Mother of the Gods" with horrific rites that identified her with Venus, the mother of all that is unclean. She elevated Babylon, where she ruled, to a level of greatness amongst the nations as the center of idol worship and sanctified prostitution. [Hesiod, Theogonia, Vol.36, Page 453 'cannot locate this volume'] The ominous logo of the whore with a cup in one hand was one of idolatry originating from ancient Babylon, as they were shown in Greece, also the Greek Venus was initially represented [Herodotus, Historia, Book 1, Cap. 199, page 92]
In 1825 a medal was struck bearing the image of Pope Leo XII on one side and on the other side Rome, symbolized by a woman with a cross in her left hand and a cup in her right hand and a legend around her "Sedet Super Universum"; or "The whole world is her seat."
I also found this papal coin at an auction with a similar image on the back
From this all nations have created similar worship, but the names differ from country to country.
In India, Isi and Iswara
In eastern Asia, Cybele and Deoius;
In Greece, Ceres or as Irene with Plutus in arms,
In Egypt the mother and child are known as Isis and Osiris;in pagan Rome, Fortuna and Jupiter-puer; etc. Also in Tibet, China, and Japan Jesuits were surprised to find the counterpart of the Madonna and child worshiped as in Rome itself.
Shing Moo, the mother of China, is there represented with child in her arms and a glory around her exactly as if a catholic artist had painted her. Where did these nations get this common worship if not from Babylon before the dispersion in the days of Nimrod? [Gen. 11]
Thus, the worship of Mary in connection with her Son is of Babylonian origin, for there is no such worship prescribed in Scripture."
- Biblical mention of the "Queen of Heaven"
Jeremiah 7:18 "The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger."
Jeremiah 44:19 " And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?"
