Perhaps you will actually
read my post this time; it sure as hell was a lot more than a couple of "witty little comments."
Although you did allow me to add some material I had previously overlooked,
try to refrain from deleting it; though if you do it's OK, after I
retyped the whole bloody thing from memory, I actually saved it to my hard drive this time, just in case you fat-finger it again...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by MrNECROS
Q: Is Freemasonry A religion?
A: No, Freemasonry IS religion.
Well that's the gist of it when you study the higher degrees.
In Masonic terms ALL religions are a lie, they are a "shade to protect weak eyes from a truth so bright it would blind"
First of all, that line is nowhere to be found in Morals and Dogma. Your "quotation marks" reek of intellectual dishonesty, and taking for granted
that people will not be familiar with the work. In most cases you would be right, but not this time. In fact, to make my point, why don't you show me
the page number where I can find that line? Or did your super-secret-one-of-a-kind copy of M&D go up with the toilet?
www.sacred-texts.com...
Secondly, Pike does not say that all religions are a lie; in fact he says quite the opposite. For example:
Morals and Dogma, p. 311, Chapter 18: Knight Rose Croix
In all religions there is a basis of Truth; in all there is pure Morality. All that teach the cardinal tenets of Masonry we respect; all teachers and
reformers of mankind we admire and revere.
Wow. Respect, admiration and reverence for all religions that teach the tenets of Masonry (Which is nearly all of them; save perhaps Satanism...
Belief in a Supreme Being, anyone?
)
Then we find this:
pp.575-577, Chapter26: Prince of Mercy, or Scottish Trinitarian
Here Masonry pauses, and leaves its Initiates to carry out and develop these great Truths in such manner as to each may seem most accordant with
reason, philosophy, truth, and his religious faith. It declines to act as Arbiter between them. It looks calmly on, while each multiplies the
intermediates between the Deity and Matter, and the personifications of God's manifestations and attributes, to whatever extent his reason, his
conviction, or his fancy dictates.
While the Indian tells us that PARABRAHMA, BRAHM, and PARATMA were the first Triune God, revealing Himself as BRAHMA, VISHNU, and SIVA, Creator,
Preserver, and Destroyer; . . . .
The Egyptian, of AMUN-RE, NEITH, and PHTHA, Creator, Matter, Thought or Light; the Persian of his Trinity of Three Powers in
ORMUZD, Sources of Light, Fire, and Water; the Buddhists of the God SAKYA, a Trinity composed of BUDDHA, DHARMA, and
SANGA,--Intelligence, Law, and Union or Harmony; the Chinese Sabeans of their Trinity of Chang-ti, the Supreme
Sovereign; Tien, the Heavens; and Tao, the Universal Supreme Reason and Principle of all things; who produced the Unit; that, two; two,
three; and three, all that is; . . . .
While the Sclavono-Vend typifies his Trinity by the three heads of the God Triglav; the Ancient Prussian points to his Triune
God, Perkoun, Pikollos, and Potrimpos, Deities of Light and Thunder, of Hell and of the Earth; the Ancient Scandinavian to Odin,
Frea, and Thor; and the old Etruscans to TINA, TALNA, and MINERVA, Strength, Abundance, and Wisdom; . . . .
While Plato tells us of the Supreme Good, the Reason or Intellect, and the Soul or Spirit; and Philo of the
Archetype of Light, Wisdom [Σοφια], and the Word [Λογος]; the Kabalists, of the Triads of the Sephiroth; . . . .
While the disciples of Simon Magus, and the many sects of the Gnostics, confuse us with their Eons, Emanations, Powers, Wisdom Superior and
Inferior, Ialdabaoth, Adam-Kadmon, even to the three hundred and sixty-five thousand emanations of the Maldaïtes; . . . .
And while the pious Christian believes that the WORD dwelt in the Mortal Body of Jesus of Nazareth, and suffered upon the Cross; and that the HOLY
GHOST was poured out upon the Apostles, and now inspires every truly Christian Soul: . . . .
While all these faiths assert their claims to the exclusive possession of the Truth, Masonry inculcates its old doctrine, and no more: . . . . That
God is ONE; that His THOUGHT uttered in His WORD, created the Universe, and preserves it by those Eternal Laws which are the expression of that
Thought: that the Soul of Man, breathed into him by God, is immortal as His Thoughts are; that he is free to do evil or to choose good, responsible
for his acts and punishable for his sins: that all evil and wrong and suffering are but temporary, the discords of one great Harmony, and that in His
good time they will lead by infinite modulations to the great, harmonic final chord and cadence of Truth, Love, Peace, and Happiness, that will ring
forever and ever under the Arches of Heaven, among all the Stars and Worlds, and in all souls of men and Angels.
So here Pike tells us that Masonry lays no claim to a religious doctrine; that is for the individual to decide for himself according to his own
beliefs and religious convictions. What Masonry
does teach is those Truths that are universal throughout; that fit and apply within all of
them; that every man, regardless of their individual brand of faith, can agree on. Hardly saying each is a lie.
He later goes on to write:
pp.725-726, Chapter 28: Knight of the Sun or Prince Adept
Thus there is a side on which morality touches religion. It is a sublime necessity of Humanity to see in God the Legislator supremely wise, the
Witness always present, the infallible Judge of virtue. The human mind, ever climbing up to God, would deem the foundations of morality too unstable,
if it did not place in God the first principle of the moral law. Wishing to give to the moral law a religious character, we run the risk of
taking from it its moral character. We may refer it so entirely to God as to make His will an arbitrary degree. But the will of God, whence we
deduce morality, in order to give it authority, itself has no moral authority, except as it is just. The Good comes from the will of God alone; but
from His will, in so far as it is the expression of His wisdom and justice. The Eternal Justice of God is the sole foundation of Justice, such as
Humanity perceives and practises it. The Good, duty, merit and demerit, are referred to God, as everything is referred to him; but they have none the
less a proper evidence and authority. Religion is the crown of Morality, not its base. The base of Morality is in itself.
Here he is saying that Religion is founded on Morality, not the other way around. In other words, men of all faiths can agree on the Principles and
Morals taught by Freemasonry, because Morality is not affected by the peculiarities of the different religions around the world and throughout
History. Religion is based on Morality, not the other way around. Makes sense to me.
The first Degree of Freemasonry definatally contains Satanic elements but as Pike clarifies in his Essay of the 32nd Degree in Morals & Dogma
in Masonic belief system there is ultimatally no Good or Evil, just opposing points of view which supposedly keep the universe in balance and it is
only belief that propels man towards any goal.
And any goal can be any goal because without movement there is no life at all, hense the dumbfounding belief in Masonic religion that war propels
humanity and civilization more than any other factor.
Please show me where this is claimed as a Masonic belief. Pike does mention several times throughout Morals and Dogma that there are systems of belief
that hold what you claim to be true, that the ideas of Good and Evil are merely attempts to attribute good things to God, and bad things to the Devil,
when in fact
everything, good or bad, comes from the One Source and for a that everything happens for a reason. Qabalah, for instance, is one
of these.
I fail to see where he asserts this as a "Masonic belief system," though.
I have also failed to find any mention if the idea that "war propels humanity and civilization more than any other factor." Perhaps you would be so
good as to give a quote and a page number, or a few, as you are
so well acquainted with M&D.
Here's what is in the book regarding war; I'll save you the trouble (cheifly because I know you will never post it).
p. 70, Chapter 3: The Master
A war for a great principle ennobles a nation. A war for commercial supremacy, upon some shallow pretext, is despicable, and more than aught else
demonstrates to what immeasurable depths of baseness men and nations can descend. Commercial greed values the lives of men no more than it values the
lives of ants. The slave-trade is as acceptable to a people enthralled by that greed, as the trade in ivory or spices, if the profits are as large. It
will by-and-by endeavor to compound with God and quiet its own conscience, by compelling those to whom it sold the slaves it bought or stole, to set
them free, and slaughtering them by hecatombs if they refuse to obey the edicts of its philanthropy.
I don't see any kind of advocation for war there; he says a war for great principle ennobles a nation; for example to save a people from being
ruthlessly hunted down and killed by the thousands simply because of their religious beliefs; but that "war... upon some shallow pretext, is
despicable." Hmmm... But he's not done yet...
pp.124-125, Chapter 6: Intimate Secretary
Masonry is the great Peace Society of the world. Wherever it exists, it struggles to prevent international difficulties and disputes; and to bind
Republics, Kingdoms, and Empires together in one great band of peace and amity. It would not so often struggle in vain, if Masons knew their power and
valued their oaths...
Who can sum up the horrors and woes accumulated in a single war? Masonry is not dazzled with all its pomp and circumstance, all its glitter and glory.
War comes with its bloody hand into our very dwellings. It takes from ten thousand homes those who lived there in peace and comfort, held by the
tender ties of family and kindred. It drags them away, to die untended, of fever or exposure, in infectious climes; or to be hacked, torn, and mangled
in the fierce fight; to fall on the gory field, to rise no more, or to be borne away, in awful agony, to noisome and horrid hospitals. The groans of
the battle-field are echoed in sighs of bereavement from thousands of desolated hearths. There is a skeleton in every house, a vacant chair at every
table. Returning, the soldier brings worse sorrow to his home, by the infection which he has caught, of camp-vices. The country is demoralized. The
national mind is brought down, from the noble interchange of kind offices with another people, to wrath and revenge, and base pride, and the habit of
measuring brute strength against brute strength, in battle. Treasures are expended, that would suffice to build ten thousand churches, hospitals, and
universities, or rib and tie together a continent with rails of iron. If that treasure were sunk in the sea, it would be calamity enough; but it is
put to worse use; for it is expended in cutting into the veins and arteries of human life, until the earth is deluged with a sea of blood.
Not quite what you would have people believe, is it Necros? Let us continue:
p. 297, Chapter 18: Knight Rose Croix
Moreover, the Voice says, this besotted race is not satisfied with seeing its multitudes swept away by the great epidemics whose causes are unknown,
and of the justice or wisdom of which the human mind cannot conceive. It must also be ever at war. There has not been a moment since men divided into
Tribes, when all the world was at peace. Always men have been engaged in murdering each other somewhere. Always the armies have lived by the toil of
the husbandman, and war has exhausted the resources, wasted the energies, and ended the prosperity of Nations. Now it loads unborn posterity with
crushing debt, mortgages all estates, and brings upon States the shame and infamy of dishonest repudiation.
At times, the baleful fires of war light up half a Continent at once; as when all the Thrones unite to compel a people to receive again a hated and
detestable dynasty, or States deny States the right to dissolve an irksome union and create for themselves a seperate government. Then again the
flames flicker and die away, and the fire smoulders in its ashes, to break out again, after a time, with renewed and a more concentrated fury. At
times, the storm, revolving, howls over small areas only; at times its lights are seen, like the old beacon-fires on the hills, belting the whole
globe. No sea, but hears the roar of cannon; no river, but runs red with blood; no plain, but shakes, trampled by the hoofs of charging squadrons; no
field, but is fertilized by the blood of the dead; and everywhere man slays, the vulture gorges, and the wolf howls in the ear of the dying soldier.
No city is not tortured by shot and shell; and no people fail to enact the horrid blasphemy of thanking a God of Love for victories and carnage. Te
Deums are still sung for the Eve of St. Bartholomew and the Sicilian Vespers.
Man's ingenuity is racked, and all his inventive powers are tasked, to fabricate the infernal enginery of destruction, by which human bodies may be
the more expeditiously and effectually crushed, shattered, torn, and mangled; and yet hypocritical Humanity, drunk with blood and drenched with gore,
shrieks to Heaven at a single murder, perpetrated to gratify a revenge not more unchristian, or to satisfy a cupidity not more ignoble, than those
which are the promptings of the Devil in the souls of Nations.
Yeah he seems very enamored with war...
It occurs to me that the man detests the very thought of war; the very idea of it. I think actually his beliefs about war are the
polar
opposite if what you suggest. Hardly surprising.
Morals and Dogma is "a pretty good read" to understand the answer to this thread.
Actually it addresses it in full, in just on 800 pages.
Wrong again, Necros.
The word Lucifer is mentioned in
four passages in Morals and Dogma; none of which imply that it has any place whatsoever in Masonry. Period.
For the benefit of our readers I will post them as well.
p. 73, Chapter 3: The Master
Hypocrisy is the homage that vice and wrong pay to virtue and justice. It is Satan attempting to clothe himself in the angelic vesture of light. It is
equally detestable in morals, politics, and religion; in the man and in the nation. To do injustice under the pretence of equity and fairness; to
reprove vice in public and commit it in private; to pretend to charitable opinion and censoriously condemn; to profess the principles of Masonic
beneficence, and close the ear to the wail of distress and the cry of suffering; to eulogize the intelligence of the people, and plot to deceive and
betray them by means of their ignorance and simplicity; to prate of purity, and peculate; of honor, and basely abandon a sinking cause; of
disinterestedness, and sell one's vote for place and power, are hypocrisies as common as they are infamous and disgraceful. To steal the livery of
the Court of God to serve the Devil withal; to pretend to believe in a God of mercy and a Redeemer of love, and persecute those of a different faith;
to devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers; to preach continence, and wallow in lust; to inculcate humility, and in pride surpass
Lucifer; to pay tithe, and omit the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith; to strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel; to make clean
the outside of the cup and platter, keeping them full within of extortion and excess; to appear outwardly righteous unto men, but within be full of
hypocrisy and iniquity, is indeed to be like unto whited sepulchres, which appear beautiful outward, but are within full of bones of the dead and of
all uncleanness.
p.102, Chapter 3: The Master
The true name of Satan, the Kabalists say, is that of Yahveh reversed; for Satan is not a black god, but the negation of God. The Devil is the
personification of Atheism or Idolatry.
For the Initiates, this is not a Person, but a Force, created for good, but which may serve for evil. It is the instrument of Liberty
or Free Will. They represent this Force, which presides over the physical generation, under the mythologic and horned form of the God PAN; thence
came the he-goat of the Sabbat, brother of the Ancient Serpent, and the Light-bearer or Phosphor, of which the poets have made the false
Lucifer of the legend.
Hmmm... the
false Lucifer of legend... How very interesting...
pp. 320-321, Chapter 19: Grand Pontiff
The Apocalypse, that sublime Kabalistic and prophetic Summary of all the occult figures, divides its images into three Septenaries, after each of
which there is silence in Heaven. There are Seven Seals to be opened, that is to say, Seven mysteries to know, and Seven difficulties to overcome,
Seven trumpets to sound, and Seven cups to empty.
The Apocalypse is, to those who receive the nineteenth Degree, the Apothesis of that Sublime Faith which aspires to God alone, and despises all the
pomps and works of Lucifer. LUCIFER, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darknesss! Lucifer, the Son of the
Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual or selfish Souls ? Doubt it not! for
traditions are full of Divine Revelations and Inspirations: and Inspiration is not of one Age nor of one Creed. Plato and Philo, also, were inspired.
The Apocalypse, indeed, is a book as obscure as the Sohar.
It is written hieroglyphically with numbers and images; and the Apostle often appeals to the intelligence of the Initiated.
"Let him who hath knowledge, understand! let him who understands, calculate!" he often says, after an allegory or the mention of a number. Saint
John, the favorite Apostle, and the Depositary of all the Secrets of the Saviour, therefore did not write to be understood by the
multitude.
The Apocalypse of St. John, or
Revelation.
pp. 323-324, Chapter 19: Grand Pontiff
It is WISDOM that, in the Kabalistic Books of the Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus, is the Creative Agent of God. Elsewhere in the Hebrew writings it is
דבר יהוה, Debar Iahavah, the Word of God.
It is by His uttered Word that God reveals Himself to us; alone in the visible and invisible but intellectual creation, but in our convictions,
consciousness, and instincts. Hence it is that! certain beliefs are universal. The conviction of all men that God is good led to a belief in a Devil,
the fallen Lucifer or Light-bearer, Shaitan the Adversary, Ahriman and Tuphon, as an attempt to explain the existence of Evil, and make
it consistent with the Infinite Power, Wisdom, and Benevolence of God.
So tell me Necros, how in your mind does this imply that Freemasonry in any way, shape, or form gives Lucifer any level of great importance? I'm
breathless with anticipation...
(tip: It's much easier to read backwards than forwards.)
That explains
so much. Try reading left to right.
(And a very special (
) to Enron...)
Now, if you'd care to try to back up your claims that I just pretty much turned into confetti, feel free.
[edit on 9/19/05 by The Axeman]
Me much happyness 
