Agnostic Masons..., page 1

Originally posted by an3rkist
In other words, it's nothing more than a scare tactic!

Thats kind of a poor way of thinking about it.

Firstly, an agnostic isn't someone that doesn't beleive in god, its a person who recognizes that we can't rationally know much about the supernatural. An atheist denies the existence of teh supernatural, the agnostic doesn't, the agnostic merely states that we can't know much about it.

The Masons couldn't care less if a person believes in god or not, they just want to make sure the person believes that if he breaks his promise that he'll be punished!

The purpose of teaching systems like masonry is to appeal to a person's better inclinations, to their sense that there is a supreme god out there, and that through it there is 'good' in the first place and people can better themselves, as opposed to a person that doesn't beleive in any god or anything inherently like objective, universal 'good and evil' and the like. Its not merely a way to 'trick' people into keeping masonry's secrets (which, of course, are merely esoteric meanings of symbols, handshakes, and passwords, and which, of course, have long since been revealed to the public anyway).

Masonry comes from a much more distant time than we are used to. It wouldn've been immpossible to think that a person could become a 'good person' if they didn't beleive in any supreme god. Thus the masonic organizations that exist now tend to keep up that old ideal.

I'm sorry, but this is the kind of thing a terrorist organization would do.

Terrorists target and murder civilians in order to influence their governments. Thats not what masonry is doing. Its saying that if you don't beleive in supreme godly justice, then you're never going to be able to take real meaning from the masonic lessons. It'd just be going through the motions, or 'tentatively accepting them and seeing if you like how they work'.

but they're definitely an organization who has WAY too much control over their members.

Because they ask people to swear sacred oaths??

in nothing we trust
But a belief in a supreme being is just a theory. You cannot prove that there is a supreme being

The point is, I think, that to the faithful, to the beleiver, its not a theory. For them, its real. Swearing an oath to it is serious business, it means that you're not entering onto this path lightly of flippantly or experimentally. Whereas actual agnosticism, since you can't know anything about the supreme being, and can only work on temporary, 'for the moment' speculation, isn't solid enough a foundation to erect a masonic edifice on.

stratrf_Rus
there are not allowed at the altar of Freemasonry; Athiests or Irreligious Libertines.

In Regular or UGLE masonry, yes. But there are other masonic organizations that accept atheists. There's really not much of a reason to exclude, say, a secular humanist, from masonry, for example. Masonry is from a time when an atheist was someone who had no concept of morality or ethics and who denied anything like justice, etc. Today, people recognize that morality and ethics and virtue doesn't require beleif in an afterlife or supreme being.

Agnostics do not, they are fence sitters.

An agnostic really is just a person that doesn't have irrational faith. Also, realistically, a person that considers themself an agnostic as opposed to an atheist, probably has an inclination to beleive that there is something out there, but to also recognize that we can't rationally expect to know much about the irrational and supernatural.