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No. We'd have no problem with a socialist joining. We'd have no problem with a vegetarian joining. We would not allow an atheist to join, and if you don't like ritual or ceremony, you probably wouldn't want to join us anyway. We don't have money to invest and our goals are not to make the world a better place except one man at a time.
Originally posted by gentledissident
I'm a socialistic vegetarian atheist who doesn't like ritual nor ceremony. I'm looking for a group who has money to invest and my interests to accomplish some goals I feel will make the world a better place. One of these ideas is non-profit but sustainable. Are the Masons the group I'm looking for?
No problem. But that's the point I was making above. In my lodge, a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim and a Diest can all sit down with a socialist, a republican, a tea partier, a libertarian and a democrat and all still agree to give a $1000 scholarship to some kid who's going to college, or to have a blood drive for the red cross in honor of our armed forces, or to make a donation to some food kitchen for the homeless...
Originally posted by gentledissident
reply to post by JoshNorton
I just wanted to see you type it. Thanks for your honesty.
We don't have money to invest and our goals are not to make the world a better place except one man at a time.
Its only religious requirement is indirect: all Shriners must be Masons, and petitioners to Freemasonry must profess a belief in a Supreme Being.
The organization is best-known for the Shriners Hospitals for Children they administer and the red fezzes that members wear.
The Shrine's charitable arm is the Shriners Hospitals for Children, a network of twenty-two hospitals in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
Masonry, at its heart, is about making a good man better.
Originally posted by boncho
What about the Shriners? As an organization of Masons, they do a lot of work for the general population. *Not sure what you meant by *One man at a time
Originally posted by boncho
As an organization of Masons, they do a lot of work for the general population. *Not sure what you meant by *One man at a time
When someone becomes a Shriner, do they stay involved in their first lodge?
Originally posted by SLAPurMAMA
Do the Masons still test you, by asking if you want to spit on the Holy Cross?
And are there two factions to join depending on if you spit on the Holy object or not?
Is their symbolism still all over the Fk'in place like in movies, advertising, music videos and album covers, and TV shows?
Are they still being associated with Satanic rituals and murderous conspiracies?
Are they still being controlled by Satanic forces by pretending to be multi-religious?
I have overheard some Masons talking once, thinking I don't know whats going on! They are nothing but a way of control and manipulation. And where I am, they control everything!
PS. I think all the good works of the Lodges (AKA Shriners) is the group that doesn't spit on the cross! The real rulers of Masons did the evil deed, and got rewarded for it!
They should stay involved with their Blue Lodge. They don't always. There was a reputation the Shrine had for a while of old guys getting their buddies to join Masonry just so they could become Shriners. They would tend to gloss over the lessons of the first 3 degrees and not really take them to heart.
Originally posted by boncho
What about the Shriners? As an organization of Masons, they do a lot of work for the general population.
When someone becomes a Shriner, do they stay involved in their first lodge?
Originally posted by YourPopRock
All Masonic material is copywrited. The original copywrite might be 1913 (your uncle was nade a Mason 98 years ago???), but if the copywrite has been updated (which I guaranty it has) to a point 70 years or less, then you might find yourself up a creek.
Originally posted by JoshNorton
Convenient of you to omit the sentence directly before your out-of-context quote...
Originally posted by The GUT
Looking for the girl-plant-angel-pillar aspect I came across the following gem--pics and all:
Morals & Dogma
Pretty much first thing:
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!www.sacred-texts.com...
The Apocalypse is, to those who receive the nineteenth Degree, the Apotheosis of that Sublime Faith which aspires to God alone, and despises all the pomps and works of Lucifer.
Originally posted by The GUT
Do they conflict or am I reading the quote I posted wrong?
In my opinion, you've misinterpreted Pike. In Morals & Dogma, time and again he says he doesn't believe in a devil of any sort... that God is ultimately responsible for both the good and bad in the world, and that without the bad, you can't appreciate the good. In the passage you quote, he's mocking people who believe in Lucifer, because the word Lucifer even showing up in the Bible was a bad translation made a thousand years ago, and reinforced by the mythologies of Dante and Milton.
Originally posted by The GUT
My bad. I'll go back and check. Do they conflict or am I reading the quote I posted wrong?
Originally posted by JoshNorton
Yes, Supreme Architect, Great (or Grand) Architect of the Universe, etc. All ways of describing God.
Originally posted by GoldenObserver
From what I've read, I found this particularly Interesting.
This is part of the Entered Apprentice.
"The Moveabe Jewels"
Are the Rough Ashler. The Perfect Ashler, and the Trestle Board.
The Rough Ashler is a stone as taken from the quarry in it's rude and natural state; the Perfect Ashler is a stone made ready by the hands of the Apprentice, to be adjusted by the working tools of the Fellow Craft; and the Trestle Board is for the Master Workman to draw his designs upon. By the Rough Ashler we are reminded of our rude and imperfect state by nature; by the Perfect Ashler, of that state of perfection which we hope to attain by a virtuous education, our own endeavors, and the blessings of God; and by the Trestle Board we are reminded that as the operative workman erects his temporal building agreeable to the rules and designs laid down by the Master on his Trestle Board, so should we, both operative and speculative, endeavor to erect out spiritual building agreeably to the rules and designs laid down by the Supreme Architect of the Universe, in the Great Book of Nature and of Revelation, which is our Spiritual, Moral, and Masonic Trestle Board.
I really wonder if The Supreme Architect and God are the same to the Masons. Also, does anyone know exactly what "the Book of Nature" is?
The lesson in the above portion of the lecture is that God's design for the earth, for mankind, for nature, or, for that matter, for quantum physics, should be the blueprint on which we should strive to build our lives.
Originally posted by AugustusMasonicus
Originally posted by The GUT
Do they conflict or am I reading the quote I posted wrong?
They conflict. The first paragraph admosnishes those to not follow such a doctrine and he explains further who is susceptible. He also says that it is odd to give a name meaning 'light-bringer' to the supposed Prince of Darkness. That is my interpretation of the passages.
In Pike's opinion, yes.
Originally posted by The GUT
I see Josh has answered too: So this "God" is also responsible for the "bad" as well and basically condones it as natural?
Equilibrium between Good and Evil, and Light and Darkness in the world, which assures us that all is the work of the Infinite Wisdom and of an Infinite Love; and that there is no rebellious demon of Evil, or Principle of Darkness co-existent and in eternal controversy with God, or the Principle of Light and of Good: by attaining to the knowledge of which equilibrium we can, through Faith, see that the existence of Evil, Sin, Suffering, and Sorrow in the world, is consistent with the Infinite Goodness as well as with the Infinite Wisdom of the Almighty.
Sympathy and Antipathy, Attraction and Repulsion, each a Force of nature, are contraries, in the souls of men and in the Universe of spheres and worlds; and from the action and opposition of each against the other, result Harmony, and that movement which is the Life of the Universe and the Soul alike. They are not antagonists of each other. The force that repels a Planet from the Sun is no more an evil force, than that which attracts the Planet toward the central Luminary; for each is created and exerted by the Deity, and the result is the harmonious movement of the obedient Planets in their elliptic orbits, and the mathematical accuracy and unvarying regularity of their movements.
It is the fine dream of the greatest of the Poets, that Hell, become useless, is to be closed at length, by the aggrandizement of Heaven; that the problem of Evil is to receive its final solution, and Good alone, necessary and triumphant, is to reign in Eternity. So the Persian dogma taught that AHRIMAN and his subordinate ministers of Evil were at last, by means of a Redeemer and Mediator, to be reconciled with Deity, and all Evil to end. But unfortunately, the philosopher forgets all the laws of equilibrium, and seeks to absorb the Light in a splendor without shadow, and movement in an absolute repose that would be the cessation of life. So long as there shall be a visible light, there will be a shadow proportional to this Light, and whatever is illuminated will cast its cone of shadow. Repose will never be happiness, if it is not balanced by an analogous and contrary movement. This is the immutable law of Nature, the Eternal Will of the JUSTICE which is GOD.
The same reason necessitates Evil and Sorrow in Humanity, which renders indispensable the bitterness of the waters of the seas. Here also, Harmony can result only from the analogy of contraries, and what is above exists by reason of what is below. It is the depth that determines the height; and if the valleys are filled up, the mountains disappear: so, if the shadows are effaced, the Light is annulled, which is only visible by the graduated contrast of gloom and splendor, and universal obscurity will be produced by an immense dazzling. Even the colors in the Light only exist by the presence of the shadow: it is the threefold alliance of the day and night, the luminous image of the dogma, the Light made Shadow, as the Saviour is the Logos made man: and all this reposes on the same law, the primary law of creation, the single and absolute law of Nature, that of the distinction and harmonious ponderation of the contrary forces in the universal equipoise.
Do YOU believe that Jehovah created the universe? Then to YOU Jehovah is the Supreme Architect. If YOU believe that Allah created the universe, then to YOU Allah is the Supreme Architect. This is not to suggest that Jehovah and Allah are necessarily the same, merely to offer a common descriptor by which men of differing faiths can still stand side by side in prayer to their creator.
Originally posted by The GUT
So my question: Is the Supreme Architect different than Jehovah?