The Babylonian gods like Ishtar and the Phoenician gods like Baal were rivals to the Hebrew Jahweh (Jehovah), and hence got demonized by the victorious Judeo-Christian culture. Who knows? Baal might have been a nice chap, even if he was too fond of flies.

The Persians had this interesting Zoroastrian religion, with a dual godship -- a good one and a bad one -- who balanced each other out. The prime movers were called Demiurges. But Persia produces people like Khomeini, so who can say how liberal their religion was?

There is no excuse for the worshippers of the earth-mother Astarte who castrated themselves in public. (She metamorphosed into several aspects: Ishtar, Cybele, Diana, Aphrodite, Mother Teresa [no, just kidding], and others -- but the result was the same: The bitch-goddess rules.)

Whoever they worshipped, the Babylonians seem to have been very tolerant (except in matters of trade and conquest) and allowed freedom of religion, even to those Jewish upstarts who claimed there was only one god (or actually at that time, before true monotheism, that their god was better than everyone else's).