Dear Derek:

Well first, we need to change your question. Christian beliefs are not the "exact" same beliefs as other religions that predate Christianity. Such an assertion is in error and a gross exaggeration. But, I know what you meant.

We can only know God when he reveals Himself to us. If he does not reveal Himself to us we have no way of knowing what God is like. Before the time of Jewish prophets and the time of Moses, the only knowledge we knew about God is what came naturally. God tells us in the Bible that he has written the basic knowledge of Himself into our souls. In other words, we inherit through a sort of genetics of the soul the basic knowledge of God. God tells us that the existence of Himself is also seen in his creation. But, without God giving a more direct revelation it was impossible to properly interpreted that information. Thus, without a guidebook these peoples began to think that God was in the stars, the sun, the moon, and the trees. Those pagan people were interpreting God as best as they knew how.

When God approached Moses and gave Moses the Ten Commandments, He revealed himself for the first time in a more concrete way. He gave Moses rules by which God's people were to follow, and thus we came to know a lot more about God and his ways than ever before in the history of the human race. But that too was only a glimpse of God.

The fullest revelation of God given to his people, this side of eternity, was through Jesus Christ, his Apostles, and his Church. Even with all this wondrous revelation that God has given to us today we still see through glass darkly. The fullness of knowing God, the beatific vision, will be given to us only when we enter into the heavenly country.

The ancient religions that pre-date Christianity and Judaism could not be expected to properly interpret God and his divine will because they lacked God's revelation of Himself, his Word (Bible and Sacred Tradition), that allows us to know Him in ways never before possible.

The similarities that you are asking about come from that knowledge that God has given them "genetically." They know there's a God because they can feel it "in their bones", but they had no one to instruct them on correct interpretation and doctrine. The pagan peoples see the existence of God in creation, but again they have no instructors to help them to properly interpret what they see. Without that guidance they misinterpret the Sun, Moon, stars, and trees as gods. They do not know any better and cannot be judged according to our contemporary understanding of God. We must remember that we today would believe exactly the same thing as those pagan religions had we not had the gift of the Word of God.

I offer an example. We know that sacrifice is required for the redemption of mankind. We know that Jesus offered himself up as the Lamb of God to take upon himself the sins of the world and to satisfy that justice by his sacrifice on the cross for us.

You can see a progression throughout history. First we see the pagans offering sacrifice to the gods in a way that we would find objectionable. Then we see the Jews sacrificing animals but doing so with correct theology. Next we see the love of God who offers the ultimate sacrifice so that all of these various sacrifices that were in the Jewish religion were no longer required.

The ancient pagans had this gut feeling for the need to sacrifice because God had placed within their souls the basic knowledge of Himself. This innate knowledge lead the ancient pagans to sacrifice, humans or animals, but they did so out of a crude understanding of propitiation, which is the act of atoning for sin and wrongdoing. Their understanding was only a pin-prick into the light of truth. They had neither the capacity nor the understanding to see more. 

This is why when the crops failed they believed that their village had sinned in some way and the crop failure was retribution by God. Sacrifices were be offered to appease God, to gain His divine favor once again, ant to avoiding further divine retribution. Sound familiar?

Where did the pagans get this idea? They didn't get it from the Bible because it did not exist. They did not get it from Spirit-filled judges because God had not yet ordained them. The idea came from deep down in their souls, into that deep recesses where God planted the basic knowledge of Himself, the basic knowledge of right or wrong, and a basic knowledge of what is needed to do to regain God's friendship when we sin, and the strong desire to seek that reconciliation.

That's the reason for the similarity— the source of the knowledge of the ancient pagans had, and the source of our knowledge today, is the same source — God. The only difference between the pagans and us is that we have the revealed Word of God, and the living Church, to which God has given authority to interpret and to teach divine revelation that we may be guided into a correct understanding of Him and his ways.

Another analogy can also work here. When a five-year-old child asks the question, "where do babies come from?" The parents do not give that child the full measure of understanding that we have as adults in answering that question. We give that child only that much which he can understand according to his age. As the child grows and matures his understanding will grow and mature as to how human reproduction takes place.

God has done the same with his children. He first gave a very simple explanation upon our hearts. As the human race grew and became more mature God gave us further and more detailed information, and established his Word in a more direct manner through the Prophets of Old, and then in a codified way with Moses and the Ten Commandments. Finally, God gave us the fullness of the Revelation of Himself that we are ever going to get on this side of eternity through Jesus Christ, his Apostles, and his Church.

Just as a child may be told correct information about the "birds and the bees" but only as much as is suitable and appropriate for his age, only later reaching maturity to understand the fullness about the "birds and the bees," so God does with us. And whether it is a very simple explanation or a highly complex and mature explanation the source is still the same.

The similarities between what the pagans believed, according to their imperfect knowledge, and the more sophisticated, direct, and complete information that we have today, is because God is the source of that information, both then and now. We just have the advantage of a more correct interpretation because God's fuller Revelation of Himself, and because of the Church, the guarantor of the Faith..

Also, remember that even a broken clock is right twice a day 

I hope this helps.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary