It was now 2016. I was self-employed and working a lot. Even if I wanted to go to congregation, I just didn’t have the energy. But because going to church as a family was something I felt we ought to do, we did do it once during marriage, at least.
I was still in the Faith and I believe that year we did our own Passover observance at home. After that, I just dug more into the questions I was having.
My faith versus every other.
As I mentioned in my Post: My De/Conversion Story 11: A Repurposing., I spent a lot of time online arguing with my Christian counterparts on the validity of their doctrines. I was good at proving my points and correcting people on their misinterpretation of verses.
But I had one of those moments where I realized that, just like how I believed I was in the right Faith, someone with a different Faith believed the same way. If we both believe the same way with similar reasons and experiences, how can I really say my Faith is right and theirs is wrong?
Also, I knew Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Catholicism was wrong. But I had to be honest with myself. Did I really KNOW they were wrong? I told myself:
“The same microscope I placed on other Beliefs to say they were wrong, is the same microscope I had a responsibility to place on my own”.
It’s easy to claim my faith is superior. But what proof did I have? I needed to research and make comparisons.
For those reading this, you need to understand now that my intent was to prove my Beliefs were true and the Bible was the Truth. The questions and doubts I was having was geared more towards Contemporary Christianity at first; not all religions. They put emphasis on the Greek; I had emphasis on the Hebraic. Their Jesus was Christianized; my Yeshua was Jewish.
Once I got passed Protestant Christianity, here is where I needed to place the God of the Bible above all. I needed a starting point.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
I don’t remember the things I initially searched out but I do remember the things that really impacted and shocked me. One of those things was the Egyptian Book of the Dead. I didn’t even have to read that far in to realize something was suspicious-about my beliefs.
It surprised me because it said things that I thought were only unique to the Bible or I was so naive to think this was the case. It said things like:
“Thine enemy the Serpent hath been given over to the fire.”
I don’t even have to explain the significance of that sentence found in the book. Satan is the Serpent and the fire is the lake of fire in Christianity.
Also:
“Those who are in thy following sing unto thee with joy, and they bow down their foreheads to the earth when they meet thee, the lord of heaven, the lord of the earth, the King of Truth, the lord of eternity, the prince of everlasting-ness, thou sovereign of all the gods, thou god of life, thou creator of eternity, thou maker of heaven wherein thou art firmly established.”
Wait! King of Truth and maker of heaven? This is all things I ascribed to my God. But this is in worship to Ra.
“Homage to thee, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and Prince of Princes…..”
This really messed me up. Every Christian and Messianic Believer is familiar with these titles. I’ve never heard these titles referenced to any other god but mine. This is in reference to none other than Osiris.
I was appalled at what I read. This led me to question what the Bible said about Egypt. If the Hebrews did spend 400 some odd years in Egypt, then what are the chances that they left with some of the Egyptians religious beliefs and incorporated it into their own?
King David.
I was further perplexed by Egypt’s role in the Bible. God explicitly warns the people to never go back into Egypt but from the Patriarchs to Solomon (Shelomoh) to Yeshua, all have some relationship to Egypt. Josef and Miryam fled to Egypt with Yeshua.
King David, the Psalmist says: “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me…” One thing you will notice on a Pharaoh’s coffin is a rod in one hand and a staff in the other. I can’t prove a direct link based on that alone but all these correlations to Egypt kept my wheels turning and turning.
There was so much about Egyptian spirituality that I was just not aware of. “Just how much influence did Egypt have on the Hebrews during their slavery?” is a topic worthy of discussion.
The 10 Commandments.
There are things about these tablets that I’m not knowledgeable enough to speak on. But I had believed that these Laws came from God. I knew from the Bible that even Avraham/Abraham seems to adhere to laws set forth by God before Moshe went and received the tablets on Mt. Sinai.
There’s even a belief in Judaism that God sent his Law to other nations who rejected it before giving it to the Hebrews. That’s almost a way of saying the Laws of Yahweh were already in the world but Israel embraced it.
My good sense won’t allow me anymore to believe that no other nation had righteous laws to live by before the time of Moshe, the Canaanites, Egyptians, etc… The OT makes it look like Israel is at the center of world history. There’s reasons for that and I just couldn’t accept it anymore.
As a side note, one can argue that the Bible is full of xenophobic literature.
Astrology and Numerology.
When you think of numerology and astrology, you think of things pertaining to the occult but when you pay attention to the Bible, you find these elements throughout. I really believed that these things were either Satanic or Occultic in nature. But here they were in my Bible.
We know that the number 2 symbolizes “witness” and the number 7 symbolizes “perfection”. 7 is a prominent number in the Bible. 7 Spirits of God, 7 Churches,…etc. Can’t forget about the number 12. 12 tribes, 12 Apostles, 12 gates to the New Jerusalem….etc.
Astrology in the Bible?
Ask any believer and they will flat out deny there is astrology in the Bible. Don’t be fooled. It’s one thing to be on the outside looking into Christianity; it’s another thing to be on the inside looking out and then on the outside looking in, with a better perspective having first been inside. Truly, the Bible mingles with astrology.
When a believer speaks about the Hebrew Zodiac, they want to say something like: the Gospel is told in the stars and they’ll use passages from Job to try to reinforce that God had put these signs in the heavens.
Hard to argue with?
Yes, but that’s until you dare consider that some things in the Bible are based on astrology as well as astronomy. When you consider this and learn the story of the Mazzaroth and its constellations as they move through their circuits, you may find some very interesting tales about the fate of mankind.
This is not the original information I found when I was looking into these things years ago but this video covers all that I took into consideration:
By the time I reached this point, my Faith was definitely rocked. I didn’t know how true this information was but I wasn’t going to be foolish and straight up deny that people went through the trouble to look into these things. This public information wasn’t an attack on my beliefs or Satan trying to get me to reject my Faith This was for educational purposes; for anyone to take it as they wanted.
One thing is for sure, this had it’s impact on me to this day.
Yahweh is the God of Saturn?
I was getting rocked left and right when I was digging for the truth. Everything I came across had information related to the Bible but showed it from perspectives I wasn’t privy to. I built my whole faith around everything that agreed with the Bible. I’m just glad I was open enough to allow my beliefs to be challenged. I felt myself slowly being liberated from false beliefs.
Since I had newly began recognizing God as Yahweh in my prayers due to my reformed beliefs, I wanted to know if this was originally his name or if this God was borrowed. I came across videos linking him to the God, El. Which is connected to the many epithets of the Hebrew God. For example: El Shaddai, El Elyon, El Gibbor.
I discovered that El was the God of Saturn. That made me curious because I had to wonder if this was the original reason for Sabbath worship. Saturday is named after the God of Saturn who was Kronos in Greek mythology. Interestingly enough, he is also known as the Father of all the gods which seems oddly familiar. It is understood in some circles that Saturn is the God of Judgment. I thought my God was the Judge but if you connect those dots, it makes sense.
It was after looking into this subject that I became suspicious that all the god myths were based on what we saw when we looked up at the sky: Angels are stars and the gods are planets. Prophecy is divined from the constellations.
This brought me to the edge of complete disbelief. I took another step into the unknown.
Zoroastrianism.
The more I sought proof of my God’s existence and authenticity of the Bible the more it became evident that when I laid out my findings, it could all be summed up in one category: Superstition. From there I coined the phrase:
“Religion is what happens when you take your superstitions to the next level”.
In the final leg of my quest, I decided to seek out the oldest religions. I grew more suspicious of the Bible and the stories told in it. Were these just myths handed down from other beliefs? It was during this time that I came across the Epic of Gilgamesh and began to understand there were other variations of the flood myths and Creation story.
In Christianity, there’s this belief that Satan tries to imitate God based on a scriptural reference that he wanted to “be like the most high“. So, that meant if you saw something similar to your beliefs being practiced somewhere else outside of it, then it was some sort of satanic perversion of the so called “Truth”.
To me, that became a clever way of keeping people from considering that what they were practicing was just handed down and repackaged from older belief systems. It’s casually dismissed by Biblical converts because once they buy into the belief that the Word is “Truth”, there is pride and arrogancy that comes with it.
I came across Zoroastrianism which according to Wikipedia, is dated around the same time as Judaism and is apparently older than Christianity. Yet, what was shocking to me was the fact that they had concepts of Heaven and Hell, angels and demons, a creator God,…etc, that I thought was exclusively biblical. Not that I didn’t understand other beliefs had views of the afterlife but the similarities between my beliefs and Zoroastrianism was notable.
I found their belief in a Day of Judgment to be overwhelmingly similar to mine. At that point, it was pretty much over for me.
The Bible talks so much about making sure you’re not being deceived but the fact that it hails itself as the Truth, is the greatest deception of all.
Goal’d Rusher
And even though there are yet older belief systems, the bus stops at Zoroastrianism for me. Especially when it sums up so simply all my efforts to live righteously before God in it’s Threefold Path of Asha: Good words, Good thoughts, Good deeds.
What about you?
When did you come to realize that what you believed was handed down from other beliefs? At what point did you call it quits? What were your references?
It’s not easy coming out of religion when it’s all you’ve known. I know the struggle. Would you briefly tell your experience?
Comment, subscribe, and share. The next post is on it’s way. Thank you so much.
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