Veneration
The special honoring of saints in Roman Catholicism.
Mass
The celebration of Eucharist and other ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church, in particular a ceremony similar to the Lord’s supper in which the bread is said to turn into Jesus Christ’s actual body.
Astarte
Astarte in Phoenica – Astarte was the goddess of the ancient Phoenicians. She loved Adonis who was slain by a boar (a wild pig), but rose from the dead and then ascended to heaven in the sight of his worshipers.

Astarte in Syria – In Syria, Astarte was the Great Mother goddess and queen of prostitutes. Her worship culminated at the vernal equinox. This is about March 21 of each year, when the day and night are of equal length; we today call it the first day of spring.

Vance Ferrell, Christmas, Easter and Halloween—Where Do They Come From? (Altamont, TN: Harvestime Books, 2003).
Artemis
Artemis in Ionia – Ephesus was the major city of Ionia; and its temple of Artemis (called Diana in Acts 19) was famous, for it was the largest Greek temple ever built.

Adapted from Vance Ferrell, Christmas, Easter and Halloween—Where Do They Come From? (Altamont, TN: Harvestime Books, 2003).
Venus
Venus of the Romans – Venus (also called Aphrodite) was equivalent to the earth fertility and love goddess of the other Near Eastern nations. According to some stories, her son was Aeneas, the ancestor of the Romans; according to others, Cupid. In Rome, every month was dedicated to a god, and April belonged to Venus. She was worshiped as the Mother goddess of the Roman race, since they were supposed to be descended from her through Aeneas. Later, they dedicated their days to gods and borrowed, from the Persians, the sacred sun god Mithra.

Adapted from Vance Ferrell, Christmas, Easter and Halloween—Where Do They Come From? (Altamont, TN: Harvestime Books, 2003).
Pillars
Author: Professor Walter J. Veith, PhD
Summary: Catholic priest Don Bosco had a dream about two pillars of the faith, but those pillars are not Biblical.
 
 

In 1862, Catholic visionary Don Bosco (1815-1888) had a dream about a "Gospel ship." In his dream, the captain of the ship—representing the Pope—guided it through the war-torn and stormy seas of this world. The ship was then anchored between two pillars, representing the twin pillars of the faith. The twin pillars he saw were the Eucharist and the veneration of Mary:

This stately vessel is shielded by a flotilla escort. Winds and waves are with the enemy. In this midst of this endless sea, two solid columns, a short distance apart, soar high into the sky: one is surmounted by a statue of the Immaculate Virgin at whose feet a large inscription reads: Help of Christians; the other, far loftier and sturdier, supports a [Communion] Host of proportionate size and bears beneath it the inscription Salvation of believers.i

The Eucharist

The Catholic Eucharist is the symbol of a defeated Christ. As the mass is taken, Christ's sacrifice is commemorated and, according to the doctrine of transubstantiation, actually repeated when the bread is eaten.

Christ is killed again and again during the mass, but His resurrection, acension, and life are minimized. This can also be seen in the use of the crucifix in Catholicism. The crucifix—an icon of the cross with Jesus still hanging on it—only commemorates the death of Christ, ignoring the resurrection that proves His victory over death and Satan. 

Mary

Mary is worshiped as the queen of heaven and co-redeemer with Christ:

The sinner that ventures directly to Christ may come with dread and apprehension of his wrath; but let him only employ the mediation of the Virgin with her Son and she has only to show that Son the breasts that gave him suck and his wrath will immediately be appeased.ii

She is also seen as "immaculate," or sinless like Christ was on Earth. However, she obtained this sinless statues without the blood sacrifice of atonement, thus making the death of Christ unnecessary in her case. If God would choose to declare ordinary humans sinless, then why did Christ have to die on the cross? This is another example of how the Roman Catholic system has minimized the role of Christ in our salvation and put another idol in His place.

Mary is the modern version of the ancient Babylonian sun god, or one of the female personifications of that deity such as Isis, Artemis, Venus, or Astarte. This is the same goddess worshiped in New Age circles as the great earth mother, as we can see in the following examples.

New Age proponent and psychologist Ken Wilber writes this:

Great goddess Kali...when viewed in her highest form as the wife of Shiva, is a perfect example of the assimilation of the old Great Mother image into a new and higher corpus of Great Goddess mythology.iii

Author V. S. Agrawala writes this:

Mother Earth is the deity of the new age...the modern age offers its salutations to Mother Earth whom it adores as the super-goddess...Mother Earth is the presiding deity of the age, let us worship her.iv

The Catholic worship of Mary is identical. Read more on paganism and Mary, the worship of Mary in Catholicism, or the use of the rosary in Mary veneration.

Biblical Pillars

In contrast to Don Bosco's mystical pillars, the Bible's pillars of faith rest on an entirely different foundation: obedience to God and faith in Jesus Christ. Revelation 14:12 tells us the identifiers of God's true people:

Here is the patience of the saints. Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Read about spiritism in the Jehovah's Witness movement

 


 

This article is adapted from Truth Matters by Professor Walter J. Veith, an international speaker who has studied Biblical issues in-depth in his quest for truth. His popular series Genesis Conflict brings the debate between Creation and evolution to a new climax as he dissects the arguments with a scientific eye. His highly-acclaimed series Total Onslaught sheds light on the state of the world today as we move to a one-world government and an anticipated apocalypse.
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