Freemasonry Q & A by John Salza, former Freemason

reply to post by AugustusMasonicus


I read about him and his connection of the term "Gaotu"

In answer to your question, I do not know if he is guilty of Blasphemy. I have said before, only God knows absolutely. Calvins lecture on Psalm 19 seems to be the source of the term "Gaotu". That is his view. So What? He is fallible. His writings are too. Otherwise, I would still be in the Catholic church agreeing to call the pope the "holy father", and taking his pronouncements as infallible and as from God. Nope. I trust only what God reveals to me in the bible. Now to the Psalm he gets his "inspiration" from, lets look-

"The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
5 It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth."

Where in this does it give the almighty true God the title "Great Architect of the universe"? Did that come from God or John Calvin? I don't see it here, so it must have come from him. Why should I listen to John Calvin? Is he like the pope to you and infalliable? Does this scripture Justify taking the true God and linking him to all the other nations "Gods" funder the acronym GAOTU? The masons came up with the system of being able to become brothers with everybody in the whole world, and thier religious beliefs, in the view of being tolerant and accepting, in order to make a group worldwide. On the surface, good intentions. You even say it is not a religion, although it has all the elements of religion. To me, if you have a alter, and candles, and robes, and "sacred" books on it, and rituals. If it walks like a duck................ And you can worship with people whos religion outlines your destruction if you do not sumit to allah, or worse a God who really turns out to be Satan on the ohter side, have fun with it. I am staying out of it. Thats between you and God. Peace

reply to post by network dude


You must enjoy it.

Originally posted by mikeangel
Calvins lecture on Psalm 19 seems to be the source of the term "Gaotu"....

...Now to the Psalm he gets his "inspiration" from, lets look-...

...

Where in this does it give the almighty true God the title "Great Architect of the universe"?

Considering Calvin orginated the term with his Institutes of the Christian Religion published in 1536 and his Commentaries of the Psalms was not published well into the 1540's I do not see how this is the inspiration.

Calvin's view of God as the Architect is not novel and can be related to Aquinas' similar view.

Did that come from God or John Calvin? I don't see it here, so it must have come from him. Why should I listen to John Calvin? Is he like the pope to you and infalliable? Does this scripture Justify taking the true God and linking him to all the other nations "Gods" funder the acronym GAOTU?

The scripture was written by men and as such is interpreted by men.

And you can worship with people...

Stop propagandizing, there is no worship of any type in a Masonic lodge.

I am staying out of it.

Fine with me, you do not belong there anyway.

Originally posted by mikeangel
See you all at the Gate.

I opted out of the gated community. Will be looking into some real estate in Eden instead.

Originally posted by mikeangel
I know the masons here believe nothing is wrong with this.

This mason just flat out doesn't believe it.

Fantasy born of a paranoid mind.

As the whole thread has been referring to mainly Abrahamic religions, I would like to offer a different perspective.

I am a Freemason ( just had my raising a couple of weeks ago), but shock horror I am a Buddhist. Ask 100 people to define God and you may possibly get 100 different definitions and as no one truly knows the name of God, we simply use the word God as a reference.

I'll use a bit of Buddhist philosophy to illustrate - you look at a building and say this is a house, you have a feeling as to what 'house' is and you believe that your feeling, the word house and the object itself is 'house', but wait, that building next door is also called a house but it does not have much resemblance to yours. We now have a problem, your neighbours 'house' is in conflict with your 'house'.

The solution to this is simple, take away from each 'house' that which is not 'house'. Remove the timber for it is 'timber' and not 'house', remove the glass, the bricks, the foundation et al and you are left with the true nature of 'house'. You then look at your neighbour and realise that you now share the same concept of 'house'

This works the same for different religions, we pack so much crap around our beliefs that we tend to forget that which is the essence of our faith and that is our divine connection to that which is the source of alll.

In short my fellow Brethren are trying to say, that as a Mason we leave the crap at the door and focus on that which is Divine and unites us.

Hope that made sense

reply to post by mikeangel

You'll never get it. That's okay.

reply to post by mikeangel

Please name those Mason who are in the "high levels" of the Knights of Columbus. Name, dates of initiation, and Lodge name.

The fact is that many of the Vatican's top functionaries are Freemasons.

Name them.

Originally posted by mikeangel
reply to post by network dude

 

YOUR term. The MASONs term. The new age way of grouping the one true God with the worlds false "Gods". I'm sorry you do not see that.

A Mason's way of not creating Hell here on Earth. A Mason's way of recognising a man that the Almighty would draw to His bosom e'en though he used the (from your perspective) wrong name for Him (not acknowledging that such an error is practised daily by non-English-speaking Christians around the world).

Hate and withholding the love of the Almighty for only those who parse the Almighty precisely as you do is a certain way to replicate the Troubles of Northern Ireland elsewhere. Talk about creating a Hell on Earth.

Hate is childishly easy. As humans, on the whole we find it far easier than love. I wish you well in your clearly dogged pursuit of hate. Clearly it defines and on some level satisfies something within you. I choose not to travel your path of hate. I choose to recognise in a good man of whatever faith a brother of the dust. I choose not to gainsay the unknowable wisdom of the Almighty who ultimately will judge us all. I accept that there will be men who use different words for the Almighty who will be drawn to his bosom more readily than I, I who (I thought) used the right word but perhaps came up less worthy in His eyes than the one who used a different name but trod the path with greater fidelity.

Fitz

Originally posted by mikeangel
"Death is the great equalizer."

Not for me. Maybe for you. To me death is freedom , real freedom.

Perhaps it's too much to wish you freedom as soon as possible?

Fitz

Originally posted by mikeangel
#2 We are all sinners. Compared to God we are all fools. Me included.

Trouble is you're fool enough to think that you speak for the Almighty. You may be unpleasantly surprised one of these days

Fitz

Originally posted by KSigMason
reply to post by mikeangel

 

America is literally built on manonic principles.

I'd say America came about as a result of salutary neglect towards the American colonies on behalf of the British Crown and principles that came about as a result of the Enlightenment Era. Some Masons did have an influence, but whether it was correlation or causation to the development of Freemasonry.

I'd say the States came out of opportunism on the part of a relative few when the Mother country was otherwise engaged in a fight for its own existence (another fight for which we're celebrating the bicentennial of this year and for another two).

On so many levels, if it weren't for the 'cheese-eating surrender monkeys', the States would not likely exist [/derail]

Fitz

Originally posted by mikeangel
See you all at the Gate.

I suspect you will be waiting alone by the gate to somewhere you hadn't anticipated.

Fitz

Originally posted by Fitzgibbon
...'cheese-eating surrender monkeys'...

One of Homer Jay's best lines.

reply to post by Jamjar


Congrats on being raised brother!
It will be nice to have an alternative view here. I hope you have the time to post.

Than you Network Dude

I'll try to post more, but what with family, work and lodge I don't get much time.

reply to post by Jamjar


No worries, Just make sure it's family first!