Originally posted by dragonrider
Actually I have NEVER shared any conspiracy theory about hardly anything with my father (he is the extreme skeptic), most certainly not anything regarding the Freemasons. Most of what I was pressing my father for regarded what it was like before he left and the reasons for him leaving.

I suspect then that it's a matter of principle -- not that there are huge secrets, but that he really isn't interested in talking about this.

Remember that different generations have different ideas and ideals. I grew up in the military, and if you pressed me about my reasons for joining or leaving an organization, I might not care to give you the details (particularly if it was something where I got into a sequence of nasty arguments with someone.) I take it that he'd probably do the same about other experiences (such as military experiences.)

My dad was in Army Intelligence (G2) for a long time and has NEVER mentioned anything beyond the fact that he was in that division and was an advisor in Vietnam during the war. Since that bit of history is some 35 years old, there's no harm in talking about it but my dad just doesn't.

Perhaps our resident masons can clue me in a bit???

Byrd, while I at least respect the fact that you know that Masonry isn't what the "Anti-masons" claim it to be.

We are not even on the same level as the VFW...Byrd you misguide yourself too far in the wrong direction.

Masonry itself holds no "power" but it's not like masons are a bunch of old sots sitting around remembering the "good ol' days".

In my lodge, and it's a fairly small lodge around here...there is nothing short of Ranchers and Lawyers, and half of the members are nothing less than millionaires.

So just from looking at WHO masons are, it is dissapointing that you so liken it to the "boy's club" down the street.

Masonry teaches you something, I explained, it's not something you can share, you have to learn it for yourself.

And that is the "only secret". It's not the handshakes or passwords all of which can be found in the Bible and have been published since 1725, it's that "thing" that you must learn for yourself.

That thing that no man can give away.

Just gotta ignore this now.

I suggest we dont hassle these people (Agent Smith tone) It could be vurrrry....unfortunate for you

Move along kids, nothing see here, just a drunk driver

According to my mother, it seems like my father may have been asked to leave the lodge, as he did so, not on happy terms, about the time he married her.

I cannot see any logic to this coincidence, other than the fact that my mother is pure blood Cherokee Indian...

Can I infer from this that the Masons are rather racially intolerant?

They are DragonRider, you dont ever marry a girl who isnt from a good masonic background unless she's a pillar of the community.

bah, misread... been up since 4 am time for sleep.

[Edited on 4-6-2003 by Lysergic]

Which one, 1 or 2?

dr

As far as acceptance goes:

At least as far as I am aware, if you meet the general criteria (being of a certain age, with certain morals and capabilities of judgment), then you can't be precluded by the actions or pronouncements of a non-Mason or a lapsed Mason. There is nothing your father could have said or done that would preclude your membership.

What could preclude your membership are things that your father may be aware of about you, for example:

* you are atheistic
* for some reason you wouldn't last through the trials of an initiation
* you have a criminal record

(Don't ask me how Bush could be an advanced Freemason; he wouldn't be in many countries).

I doubt any of the above apply to you.

If you were "investigated" and found to be suitable, it is still possible that you could be rejected when balloted at a particular Lodge. It doesn't take that much to be rejected, but I don't see anything in what you've put up here that suggests your father could influence that more broadly than one Lodge.

Ergo, a hot-headed brush-off in my opinion.

You also have to be a friend of a member, no knocking on the door and asking for an application form.
Chances are the local police are in it, who will then perform background checks.

David

A funny thing.

I was globetrotting with my career quite some years ago and I didn't join in my native country.

I knew no Freemasons in the country where I joined. I went to a Meet The Masons night and asked for an application form (so to speak).

There is something to be said for casting the net.

A "Meet The Masons Night"
Is that like when they show you how much good the masons have done for the world and how people like G Washington and Lincoln were one of them.
I'm scottish, so they tend to be verrry picky about who they have in their lodges.
I'm a legacy, i choose not to attend by choice.

"Meet The Masons" is more local/current; involves ordinary members meeting and greeting and some more prominent/visible senior members talking about what the Craft has done for them.

The one that got me in was also open door to anyone (even undisclosed anti-Masons) and all kinds of questions are covered including "Why did my family ostracize my grandfather who was a Mason?" and "Why aren't women allowed?" and "Is it true that you have to ride a goat?" etc etc.

They become interesting evenings when you have skilled and competent people responding to the questions.

I also remember a time when I went to an "Open Day" and was not yet known to a lot of the older brethren. Some anti-Masons went round the carpark and put their leaflets under windscreen wipers. One of the guys went around and collected them all. I wasn't permitted to see one as if I couldn't make up my own mind.

So-called "secret societies" are dying just like any other community service organisation. Apathy and video games abound.

Yet we all need some sense of ceremony and ritual.

Sorry, sweeping generalisation. Many of us need some sense of ceremony and ritual. Others are best served by the latest pap from Sony Playstation.

Dragonrider, your father could have done NUMEROUS things to have caused him to be asked to resign from Masonry. It happens all the time, a little moral slip up is all it takes, and you're outta there.

It doesn't "have" to be that way, but if it's going to deface masonry, or the person looks like he won't change his ways, he's not getting a 'chance'.

You should ask what your father does...maybe he just hasn't told something about himself to you.

Either way, no there's no such thing as "hooking up with Mason's daughters", or I would be married by now, because the WM knows I'm by far more trustworthy than the guys his daughter hangs with.

lol.

Also that's funny, that whole "masonic wedding" farse some anti-masons throw around, no such thing. Maybe a pastor who ALSO is a mason, will do the ceremonies for his brethren but that's it.

Also actually Masonry is back on the rise Masked lol.

It's receeding in some parts, but over all more and more are becomming members, the problem was just that SOOO many from WW2 joined up and that blew the averages, but masonry's memberships has settled back to an average of members joining verses members passing away.

Just go to MSA's website they should have the records from the GLs.

And yes, everyone needs a "ritual", for most, getting up at 7am going to work at 9am eating lunch at 12:15pm going home at 5pm watching the news until dinner at 7pm and sleeping from 9pm to 7am is the ritual.

Masons made the choice to make more out of their lives than the mundane ritual of our every day lives.

Originally posted by dragonrider
pure blood Cherokee Indian...

May God bless you and your parents' marriage. God's ways are inscrutable. God is love. Hence: Love tends to move into your heart where and when you least expect it. And it's good, for God is love and he walks on mysterious paths. God cannot be judged, love cannot be judged. May what you do be done in love, Jesus said, love your neighbour like yourself. The thing about them throwing out your dad because he loved, even married a Cherokee woman, falls by it's own folly.

Solomon was once judged unrightious by the chroniclers because of his last years, when he started marrying foreign women and started worshipping their gods. If this is what they try to show proudly that they understand, they only show that they don't understand.

What is a more probable cause though is this: Until a couple of hundred years ago your mother's forefathers were the victims of the very first world war -- the all American genocide, the stealing and slaughtering of the tribes and the land they have ancient rights for. All this run by the freemason sick Europeans in a time when everyone wanted to be or was a mason. These were different times. Perhaps someone swore enimity with the natives back then due to some masons' lack of vision or something, so please don't judge anyone for this, they will receive their judgement later, believe you me. Let it rather be a lesson for them that one shall not swear if it is so. It will fall back on themselves. It always does. I don't know what the masons are up to and personally I don't care. To me Freemasonry is just an advanced learning system building on wisdom and literal traditions mostly forgotten in the rest of society. Let's just hope it's for the common good in the end...

When the Norwegian vikings sailed to Vinland (North America) about a thousand years ago and seeked to settle there, they met with the ones who lived there. After a while there came to a disagreement of some sort, and the vikings decided to return to Norway in order not to end up in dissension with the natives. Not like we saw the Catholics do such wise a thing....

Blessings,
Mikromarius

Mikro,

Thank you very much for your post, you show insight on the subject that has yet to appear in this thread. It does mean a lot to me. Thank you again.

LoL mikromarius, you think the Vikings left because they didn't want to "hurt" indians, is that it?

You are obviously very confused, in several ways.

First off you think America is the only other to have commited an act such as killing Native Americans?

Guess how many Indians the British killed in India, then you'll see who was doing the Genocide.

Lastly, the Vikings didn't go "oh sorry indians, we didn't mean to step on your sacred earth".

What most likely happend as ANY historian would agree, is that Indians not having been exposed to the milk of Cattle, were lactose intollerant, and when the Vikings went to trade with them, they of course traded milk for stuff.

The milk making them sick the Indians attacked the Vikings (Who sounds more savage?) and the Vikings without their steel weapons and armor, and lesser numbered HAD to pack up and leave, or die.

It helps to actually read up on the site that is beginning to parade the discoveries that have recently been found about the American colonies.

Besides Dragonrider I gave the actual "worth anything" information.

Your father screwed up morally or didn't pay his dues, one or the other. It has nothing to do with the race of your mother.

[Edited on 4-6-2003 by TheWanderer]

Guess how many Indians the British killed in India, then you'll see who was doing the Genocide. Posted by wanderer/hammerite, ect

Indeed, lets look and see who did the genocide. The British colonizers, who succeeded in decimating an esitimated population of more than 50 million down to about half a million today.

Sour milk and lactose intollerance started the Indian wars? That is just a bit of stretch dont you think? Do you happen to have any information to back that up?

As for my father, what exactly do you know about my father? Just that your holier than thou lodge is so great that if he had a falling out, it must be his fault?

I see you very specifically skirting around the possibility that a lodge might engage in a bit of racism. Maybe that is hitting a bit too close to home for you?

A few things for you oh great and misguided one.

One!

When I said "India" I meant India.

The Spanish killed off most 60% of all the indians that were killed over the 400 years since the arrival of colonies from Europe.

Secondly I never said that lactose intollerance started the Indian wars, I said that historians today studying the VIKING settlements here in the Americas, believe that that is now why they were forced off of the Americas, that is 800 years before the Indian wars. Come on read, you're smarter than this!

Thirdly, your father, I said go ask him WHY he was asked to leave (You did say he was asked to leave remember). It could be lack of paying dues, you're the one who seems to take offense...probably because there is good reason for you to believe your father is an immoral man, too indecent to be a mason.

I merely said the reasons for someone to be asked to leave, or to be suspended or expelled. Unmasonic conduct, immorality, failure to pay dues, these are it. You can't say "I like black people" and be kicked out.

I don't go around calling you a racist, and slurring your household by calling them "satanists" and stuff, yet you seem to think it proper to claim the same about Masonry.

And no I never skirted around anything, I told you the plain hard cold facts.

The fact that there is NO racism involved anymore when deciding if a petition is to be accepted (race is not one of the 3 questions), just bites you in the bum too hard, and is causing you to go blind with rage.

Probably why you are having trouble reading, see my second point if you have already forgotten.

Sorry old chum, Masonry just isn't the racist satanists you hoped them to be.

For your information, Albert Pike didn't like slavery that much, and he opperated a Cherokee and a few floridian indian tribes, company of soldiers. None of them white, he didn't mind other races, he wasn't racist. So stop buying into the anti-mason propoganda that you so LOVE to hear.

[Edited on 4-6-2003 by TheWanderer]