What is Babylon?

This one comes from one of my youth (whose personal information including name I will not reveal here)

There are a considerable number of scriptures on and about the city and nation of Babylon (in their inhabitants the Babylonians -- some of them were called Chaldeans as well). So this is a very short answer.

Babylon was originally a capital city of a nation by the same name (think New York city, New York state). It was pagan owned and operated. The Babylonians were very powerful in their day. To read about them they crop up in the last few chapters of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. They here and there all over Jeremiah and Ezekiel. All the events in Daniel happen in Babylon.
They were pagans, they worshiped idols and they respected sorcerers (often promoting them to high places in the government). So witchcraft was standard practice for them. They had a large and violent army that subdued many other nations (including Israel). They became wealthy through a combination of violent conquest and trade. Their standard worship practices included various forms of sexual immorality. As a people they boardered on amorality (no moral conviction)
They were great architects often building many monuments like Egypt. They also came up the the idea that an hour should be divided into 60 minutes.

The church realizes that it is up against a world spirit that is trying to tear us from the Lord. If that spirit got its way we would have a society in America that is very much like Babylon. Sadly it seems to have made a lot of headway in the last number of years.

The humans that like the world spirit, assume that the total absence of moral standards would grant us paradise (think of the 60s generation and their idea of "free love").

At the end of the age the dominate world power will look and act very much like Babylon, so much so that God actually calls a major center of world wide commerce at that time "Mystery Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots" God will eventually judge the world (see last several chapters of Revelation).

So in Scripture Babylon is a symbol of the World system when it is allowed free reign.

Blessings,
David