Tag: Seventh-Day Adventism

Lee’s Library – Is the United States the Whore of Babylon

The following are random thoughts generated while reading “Solomon’s Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers and the Secrets of Washington D.C.”

Before I get started let me remind you once again that I no longer consider myself christian nor do I find that the “Bible” contains authoritative truth for me. Having said that, these two facts do not mean that I still don’t ask myself biblical questions based on my knowledge and understanding of Christian dogma. Today is one of those days.

I remember pretty clearly the day that the World Trade Center towers came down. Even I, a non practicing christian at the time, immediately felt as if something just happened of “Biblical Proportions” and, for about seven years following I became an ultra conservative “Christian” of sorts. I will discuss that more in my memoir “The Story of Me”.

Soon after 9/11 however, I began hearing christians quote a famous biblical prophecy, “Behold! Behold! Babylon has fallen and has been laid low and all the nations weep at her destruction.”. The implied connection was that the United States was the modern day equivalent of “Babylon” mentioned in the Book of Revelations and that the twin towers coming down was a prophesied judgment from God and signaled the end was near.

Christians can be a confusing lot. To equate the United States with modern day Babylon is to suggest that the United States is a wicked nation in opposition to God. No other city save Jerusalem is mentioned as much in the Bible and Babylon almost always stands in opposition to God and Israel. How therefore is it that OTHER christians refer to the United States as a “christian” nation who proudly declares, “In God We Trust” and refers to itself in it’s pledge as “one nation under God” yet also say it’s modern Babylon? To understand this I think a brief history of ancient Babylon and the Founding Fathers of America are in order.

It’s ok to groan, I get it.

It is an established fact that many of the founding fathers of the United States were members of a society known as Freemasonry (a society formed in 1717 in part upon the principle of free men and freedom of religion). Their influence and political and religious ideas form a big part of the basis of our modern government.

Most people in America, I would venture to say, are proud of the concept of freedom, especially of religion. Americans take pride in the fact that ALL religions are accepted here and that you will not be persecuted by your government simply because you believe in a different god than someone else. Having said that, it is my firm conviction that freedom of religion is a very UNBIBLICAL concept and the God of the Bible most CERTAINLY does not believe in freedom of religion. If you know anything about the Bible, when God agrees to be Israel’s God he demanded they put to death anyone worshipping another God and to tear down any idols and objects of worship belonging to other gods. You didn’t see temples to other gods in Jerusalem.

Ancient Babylon, however, was much more like modern America and nothing like ancient or even modern Jerusalem. Historical evidence supports the fact that ancient Babylon was once called in Sumerian times Ka-dingirra or “The Gate of the Gods” and they had four major temples devoted to four different gods as well as I believe twelve or thirteen gates into the city, each gate named after a different god. In Babylon, literally no one’s god was better than another and everyone was “free” to worship which ever god they choose. Again, this is technically Americas position too. You are free to worship whom you choose.

So perhaps you can see why some christians made the connection that the United States and it’s position that all gods are equal is more like ancient Babylon than ancient Jerusalem (the city of God). In Jerusalem the worship of other gods would never be permitted and you would be put to death if caught worshipping another god.

It has always struck me as odd when some christians maintain the belief that the United States is a “christian” nation that needs to return to its christian roots. If one understands that Christianity came out of Judaism and that presumably the God of Israel is the same God of Jesus, well it doesn’t make sense that a christian nation would believe in freedom to worship any God you choose.

As an aside, early Christians know as Gnostics came to the conclusion that the God of Israel was NOT in fact the same God that Jesus worshipped. I could also make an argument that Freemasons have a lot of gnostic beliefs so maybe that’s how they reconciled freedom of religion being ok in God’s book. The God of Jesus, they might believe, is ok with the worship of other gods but not that “jealous God” of the Old Testament.

The point of today’s post, loosely inspired by the book Solomon’s Builders is simply that the United States was founded on ideals that one could argue are extremely unbiblical (i.e. that all gods are equal in importance). I am convinced that the God of Israel would not have tolerated today’s American society. I simply cannot ignore my feelings about this every time someone refers to the United States as a “christian” nation.

Rant over

Lee’s Library – Hidden in Plain Sight

The following are random thoughts generated while reading “Solomon’s Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers and the Secrets of Washington D.C.”

Dan Brown’s 2003 book the Da Vinci Code seemed to have set the world on fire with renewed interest in hidden symbolism.  It was an exciting time for me because I’d been talking about a lot these types of things for YEARS and no one seemed interested.  Suddenly it seemed everyone was a little bit interested. 

Prior to Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code I had, for example, repeatedly shared details about the American “Great Seal” and the symbolism on the dollar bill. I’d pointed out the great Eye of Horus on the pyramid and asked why any “Christians” would feel compelled to put the symbol of an egyptian god on their money?  And what exactly did “Novus ordo Seclorum” (often translated as “New World Order”) mean and why is it written in Latin?  It seemed none of my friends (save maybe one) could give a shit.  Most have never given it a seconds thought.

Prior to the Da Vinci Code, if I tried to point out the odd behaviors of so the called “christian” founding fathers, people would scoff and tell me I’m making shit up. Then along comes Dan Brown who LITERALLY just made a lot of shit up and people ate it up by the millions. Suddenly the average man was spouting out interesting (but historically incorrect) “facts” based on what they read in a Dan Brown novel, forgetting that Dan Brown was, in fact, a Fiction novelist. Sure, some of what Dan wrote has a kernel of truth but there was a lot of just made up stuff because it sounded true and made for an interesting book/movie. 

What I have found to be true about Dan Brown’s book is that it is true the founding fathers really did use a lot of occult symbolism when starting the new America.  In fact, occultists new and old actually do hide symbolism in books, movies, national monuments, religious and secular ceremonies and just about anything really.  But why? Is it just something bored people do because it entertains them, or is it designed to communicate a hidden meaning to those who know what to look for? Is it just silly nonsense or does it have religious importance to the person hiding the symbols?  What do the symbols mean and why do we spend time and money putting them all over our government entities?

Watch any opening ceremony of the Olympics and the casual observer will just see unusual dances and images that seem silly or rediculous but to those “initiated” in the the ancient mystery religions you might see lots of symbolism that is hidden in plain sight.  Pointing out the symbols to those who don’t see them or understand them is pointless because you arent able to explain to most rational human beings WHY it is being done.  And so, I would argue, the masses unwittingly watch an occult ceremony take place right before their eyes without seeing a thing.  In Kubrick’s famous words, they are seeing the world with “Eyes Wide Shut.'”

It has been said many times in the things I read and study that there is supposed to be great power in performing occult rituals right in front of the masses and having them ignore all the signs of occultism.  It is important, in the occult, that the masses CHOOSE to remain blind and believe the lie that there is nothing to see here.  One of my favorite movies, “The Cabin in the Woods”, depicts this nicely.  When a group of young people are led to a cabin in the woods to be ritually sacrificed one by one to appease the old gods, someone asks why there are so many warning signs everywhere letting the young people know what’s about to happen to them.  Why not just kill them if you need a sacrifice? Why give them a chance to see the danger ahead and escape?  The answer, according to the movie, is that those being sacrificed HAVE to be given a chance to escape their own horrendous ending and instead CHOOSE the path of destruction anyway.  It makes the sacrifice more powerful.  There is a line in the Bible that this always reminds me of.

“Because they were not lovers of the truth, God gave them over to a strong delusion so they would believe the lie to their own destruction.”

I have often pondered this question from a religious perspective (Seventh-Day Adventist) as well as a more spiritual perspective (ala Buddhism). From an Adventist perspective, all of creation should inherently know that God exists and yet people still doubt him.  Is it because we continue to doubt the existence of God regardless of the evidence given us that God has given us over to a strong delusion to believe the lie that he does not? Is the evidence right in front of our faces but because we are not lovers of truth we simply don’t see it?  Or from perhaps a Buddhist perspective, is the nature of reality in front of us every day that we should inherently understand that this physical reality isn’t “real” and is only an illusion?  Is it because we do not love the truth about our own inherent nature that we have been given over to a strong delusion and made to believe that we really exist in a physical universe and that we are not indeed spiritual beings?

As a final thought, I have contemplated before that Jesus was, in fact, an occult master.  Consider the following.  One time Jesus disciples asked him why he spoke in parables and riddles. His response was essentially to say that it is designed to deceive the masses. His exact explanation recorded in the Bible is “so that by seeing they do not see and by hearing they do not hear”. In other words he speaks so that people hear what they want to hear.  He further told his apostles that the “secrets” had been taught to them in private but that the masses were given stories so they would think they understand .  Is it possible therefore that the Bible simply contains the stories for the uneducated masses so that while seeing (reading) or hearing they still do not truly see or hear?  They believe they understand the meaning but perhaps the real “secrets” were indeed revealed in private and it’s only the public stories for the ignorant masses that survives in our modern Bibles. 

Lee’s Library – Solomon’s Builders

Random thoughts from the book: “Solomon’s Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers and the Secrets of Washington, D.C.”

Growing up Seventh-Day Adentist, I’d heard more than a few bad things about the secret society known as the Freemasons.  While one of my grandfathers was, himself, allegedly a Freemason and despite the fact that my mother refused to believe he was involved in anything “evil”, the general attitude among those in the Adventist church was that the Freemasons held religious beliefs that were certainly NOT “Christian” or inline with the teachings of the Bible.  Of those who were more radical in their views of Freemasonry, they believed that the masons were flat out secret devil worshipers. 

As a young Christian (before I left the church)  I did a bit of study into the Freemasons and saw enough in my own studies to conclude that the two main objections of my Adventist “family” were true.  One, the tenets of masonry are not really in line with traditional “Biblical” teaching. That is still my opinion today though that doesn’t mean the masons are wrong. And second, yes, some (if not most) masons view Lucifer as a “light bringer” and thus one of the good guys.  This does not, however, mean that masons are “devil worshipers” or that they are necessarily wrong.  I think they just have a bit of a gnostic view of the world and so do I. And no, that doesn’t make ME a devil worshiper either.  

Anyway, one of the most fascinating books I ever started reading was a book titled something like “The Secret Architecture of our Nation’s Capital”. I didn’t read much past the first quarter of the book because it was frankly a little dry.  What was fascinating about it however was that the book was quite scholarly with lots of cited references and even endorsements from the head of NASA and the Freemasons which acknowledged that not only was the book accurate, but that it perhaps is the best book ever written on the subject.  The basic premise of that book was that our Founding Fathers established America as a sort of occult (hidden knowledge) mecca and that all over the U.S. Capital are evidence of their occult beliefs (often very UN-Christian despite those claiming the nation was founded as a “Christian” nation) and hints as to what was the true purpose of America.

In my life I have had maybe one real friend who would even consider this sort of information interesting.  Most people I know scoff at the idea that there is some dark or occult (hidden) agenda that is kept from the masses.  Most people I associate with are just not “into” conspiracy theories and have been conditioned to mock all such theories before even considering the possibility some of it might be true or ask “why”.  In any case, when I saw the title of this book, “Solomon’s Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers and the Secrets of Washington, D.C.” I was immediately intrigued. Not only does it hint at covering the same topic of the hidden occult symbols around Washington, D.C. but it hints at looping in occult beliefs about King Solomon from the Bible which is a topic that has fascinated me for years.

Was it true, for example, that King Solomon (one of the greatest kings of Israel) was believed to have dabbled in occult magic and used special symbols or rings and amulets to summon and compel demons to help build a temple to the Most High God?  That was the tradition I had heard after leaving Christianity, but is there any proof or evidence for this or is it merely wild speculation? And, if it were true, what insights might this tell us about angels, demons, and the goings on of the spiritual realms?