Why do masons get angry at people researching their beliefs?

reply to post by Cobra.EXE


We're more of a society WITH secrets, as opposed to an actual SECRET society.
(Since this thread is full of non-Masons who clearly understand everything about the organization, I think you would obviously agree we've done a pretty piss-poor job maintaining secrets, no?)

Originally posted by John_Rodger_Cornman

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by lestweforget

 

Actually, in my Shrine Temple, we display the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Holy Bible, and the Quran all opened simultaneously on the Altar. In my opinion, it is a sort of progression through time of the Holy Books. I don't know if all Shrine Temples display the same combination, but I always loved the Epic of Gilgamesh, and when I joined the Shrine, I was thrilled to see it honored on the Altar and not treated like some mythical fiction.

So you don't have any real exclusivity to single belief? Its seems like a club.

Are there any activities/actions that can ban you from membership?

It is a club...i.e. fraternity. It is not a religion, and there is no religious requirement other than believing in one creator. Yes, there are plenty of things that can get you excluded from membership. We conduct a criminal background check, we have a committee come to your home and interview you, and we let the membership vote, and acceptance must be unanimous. A single black ball will exclude you from membership. If someone has had bad business dealings with members, or if the committee finds something disturbing at the house during the interview, or if the background check is not clean, or if some member just happens to know and dislike you, then it is likely you will not get in.

A few things I have seen as disqualifications, one interview committee went to the house and the wife seemed a little shy, and turns out she had a black eye. On another occasion the guy was a tattoo artist, and we had one member that was dead set against admitting him.....the rest of us really liked the guy, and so the one member decided to skip a meeting and let us vote him in, within the first month of voting him in, he was arrested for drugs, and was immediately kicked back out. One guy lied about his background and it was discovered during the background check. Several folks have been honest about a felony in their past, and most are not accepted, although I have seen one or two exceptions made.

If you are a good, honest person with morals, and you believe in one, ever-living creator, then you will probably get in with no problems.

I don't know about all of this, but one thing I do know is, there seems to be masons everywhere! Well in my town at least. Every day I drive to work, I see at least three or more vehicles driving down the road with that special mason license plate. Not the mention all the ones I see in rush hour traffic on the way home.

A quick question for a mason..

"neither are you to suffer your zeal for the institution to lead you into argument with those who, through ignorance, may ridicule it." (one of many sources: sacred-texts.com..)

Can a mason here please explain that in plain English? Mainly just the first part of it. I'd rather not be part of the ignorance crowd. The way I read it, just doesn't make any sense to me.

After spending all your money and time watching a movie, really getting into it, with 10 minutes left, the house flips on the lights and you see you really are still only in some chinsy theater building. Don't you get angry?

Originally posted by digitalbluco
"neither are you to suffer your zeal for the institution to lead you into argument with those who, through ignorance, may ridicule it." (one of many sources: sacred-texts.com..)

Can a mason here please explain that in plain English? Mainly just the first part of it. I'd rather not be part of the ignorance crowd. The way I read it, just doesn't make any sense to me.

It is basically telling you to take the High Road when it comes to people who want to cause an arguement about your membership in the Fraternity. It also admonishes you to not go around prosthelytizing about your membership like some sort of evangelist.

reply to post by AugustusMasonicus


Damn, you beat me to it.

Originally posted by tkwasny
After spending all your money and time watching a movie, really getting into it, with 10 minutes left, the house flips on the lights and you see you really are still only in some chinsy theater building. Don't you get angry?

I felt the same way about organized religion........ripped off.

Originally posted by LightCraft

Originally posted by TheLoneArcher
reply to post by TripleDoubleSingle

 

Actually, there are no secrets any more. Google is your friend and most , if not all the information is out there.

Try this one for a start:

www.freemasons-freemasonry.com...

Archer,

Actually READING all of the published works would be far too difficult for the internet ninja's. It's much easier to spew drivel on a forum and get off the wall responses which are to be taken as gospel!

You can lead a horse to water...

tl; dr



Such is the unfortunate reality. Informed discussion isn't possible with someone who revels in staying ignorant.

Originally posted by petrus4
As a general rule, those who want to keep secrets, tend to have something to hide.

In the case of the Masons, I don't claim to know exactly what that is. I *am* inclined to believe that they are Luciferians, personally; and my general instinct is not to trust them as far as I could throw them. I won't say that my attitude is one of real vitriol, however; just deep suspicion and mistrust.

As long as they're happy to stay in their corner, I'll stay in mine.

Perhaps you could expand on why it is that you believe Masons are "Luciferians". Could you also explain how a non-Christian whose faith doesn't include Satan/The Devil/Lucifer (even though the latter is a mistranslation that's been debunked time and time and time again here) could worship that which his faith doesn't have?

TIA
Fitz

Originally posted by John_Rodger_Cornman
Why do masons get angry at people researching their beliefs?

Whats the problem? Its not like your disrespecting them or anything.

Not sure what you mean OP, there are a number of Masons on this site and they have always been very level headed and informative. Never once have I seen them angry.

Originally posted by petrus4

Why don't you try asking a few questions?

Because...

a] If you are Luciferians, you're fairly unlikely to want to admit that publically. So you telling me that you aren't, doesn't necessarily mean anything.

b] If you say you aren't, the very fact that you are a secret society means that I have no way to verify the honesty of your answer.

Congratulations! You've perfectly framed an example of "Catch-22" or "Damned if you do, damned if you don't". I'd suggest you acquire a copy of "Duncan's Ritual" and look for your evidence. Unless you plan to stick to your "inclination" as trumping all, that is

reply to post by Fitzgibbon


I think I predicted this response would eventually happen. All of the anti-Mason arguments eventually come down to the Catch-22 where they refuse to believe any fact or opinion.

Here it is.

I think the threads typically die when they reach an impasse between logic/reason/fact and emotion. The "anti-Masons" typically come to some point where they resort to two argument techniques. Either we are all too "low-level" to comprehend the "truth," or we are complicit in covering up the secrets intentionally. No matter how much personal experience, fact, and resources are shared, if someone is intent on hating Masonry, then they will continually come back to those two arguments.

reply to post by John_Rodger_Cornman


I believe it is mostly because they have to take blood oaths NEVER to reveal any of the "mystical" things they have learned, and take oaths upon pain of death and dismemberment should they ever reveal them.

I ALSO believe that Joseph Smith was a Mason, stole their ideas, and incorporated them into his sham of a church. He was later KILLED by the Masons for revealing those things he'd learned.

Let's also not forget the HANDY-DANDY "secret hand-shake" that an ex-Mason/Mormon friend of mine showed me. He was shaking, and told me he wasn't sure he could do it. I told him calmly, that the true GOD does everything in the light. NOTHING is secret or hidden that will not one day be revealed. He showed me.

I showed it to a Mormon gal I went to school with. She had not yet gone to the secret rituals. Her father forbade her to ever talk to me again.

But the BIG hullaballoo is REALLY over the fact that those 33rd degree masons know and FULLY realize that the "god" they are worshipping and praying to is Lucifer (Satan) and not the Creator GOD.

Masons need to withdraw from this fallacy and repent. For how can the one who was created to serve GOD, and who fell because of his pride and arrogance, be elevated above Adonai Elohim???

Devil worship is just that.

Originally posted by PhantomLimb
Perhaps each lodge works differently. Like all universities give you an education but have their own methods of doing so.

Uh...no. They don't. Every recognised Regular Lodge in any given jurisdiction (state, province, country; whatever the political boundary that they use to define a particular jurisdiction) is governed by its Grand Lodge of that jurisdiction and they all work exactly the same way (some with a little more polish than others perhaps).

There may be some very minor variation between recognised Regular Grand Lodges in terms of the Ritual. But at such an essential level, there's no variation.

Originally posted by PhantomLimb
I knew someone in high school whose grandfather had left the Masons and said that there was indeed Satan worship (his words).

From his mouth to your ear or is this another friend-of-a-friend kind of 'fact'? And if it's the former, perhaps you could be so kind as to give your readers what degree he was and whether it was Scottish or York Rite?

Originally posted by PhantomLimb
When you have a society of secrets there are bound to be loads of false information out there about the group.

Oh, even in this thread the axe-grinders have been out in force.

Originally posted by PhantomLimb
But, they ask for it by being secretive and refusing to talk about the specifics of what they do.

I don't walk around naked either. You could assert that I have a birthmark that marks me as the spawn of Satan and I'd prefer to let you assert away. Doesn't make you right.

And in my experience no matter how open you are, the axe-grinder will always find something that you're 'hiding' and continue the baseless assertion. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Originally posted by PhantomLimb
From an objective viewpoint, if they are supposed to be secretive about what they do then how can they be believed when they say they do not do this or that?

There's a bit of a difference between being "secretive" and not broadcasting hither and nigh. I won't tell you my driver's license number or my credit car number or my social insurance number. either (nor will most people). Is that a valid 'secrecy' and if so, at what threshold do you feel I should be telling you my business? And why?

Originally posted by PhantomLimb
We are on a message board as well. Just because someone says they are a Mason does not mean they are.

Perhaps. But who'd claim to be a Mason and expose himself a target for the poo-flinging that comes with it if he weren't a Mason? Have to be a pretty perverse and specific kind of masochist if you ask me.

Fitz

reply to post by John_Rodger_Cornman


I honestly know two masons....and they love to talk to me about stuff and the donations they give and funds they raise for the community. Neither has ever gotten upset at me when I ask stuff. One is in the lower ranks and one is very high in the ranks according to him. I honestly don't care what they do! But of the 2 I know they have been very informative and polite to my inquiries.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by Fitzgibbon

 

I think I predicted this response would eventually happen. All of the anti-Mason arguments eventually come down to the Catch-22 where they refuse to believe any fact or opinion.

T'was ever thus. The Tower-of-Babel-class of hubris on the part of passive anti-Masons also seems to elude their grasp and sight. That as a fearless non-Mason InvestiGoogler©, they are much more likely to be privy to these unspecified 'supersecretz' than any degree of Mason they accost (and the degree where one is supposedly exposed to the 'true' secrets of Masonry is a goalpost that gets moved more often than those by 9/11 truthers) is absurd.

However, some people are predisposed to believe the worst about others regardless of reality. T'is unfortunate the Internet facilitates that so readily

Fitz

Save a baby...eat a mason

Originally posted by maceov
reply to post by John_Rodger_Cornman

 

But the BIG hullaballoo is REALLY over the fact that those 33rd degree masons know and FULLY realize that the "god" they are worshipping and praying to is Lucifer (Satan) and not the Creator GOD.

Yet again, since there is no directed prayer in-Lodge to a named Creator God (leaving the specifics to the particulars of an individual Mason's faith), how do account for this which at the first view appears to be a paradox?

So you're also saying that the Scottish Rite is the only way to find out this 'fact'? You're saying the York Rite is wrong (inasmuch as their degrees are named not numbered thereby depriving you of the high-level-Mason podium)?

Also, how then do you explain this to the Sikh Master of my Lodge whose religion has no Satan counterpart? Or is it that you'd prefer to create Hell on Earth by asserting that his religion actually worships Satan (and all the religious 'my-faith-is-the-one-true-faith' crap that was the hallmark of the bad old days)?

Originally posted by maceov
Masons need to withdraw from this fallacy and repent. For how can the one who was created to serve GOD, and who fell because of his pride and arrogance, be elevated above Adonai Elohim???

Devil worship is just that.

Short answer? We don't for the reasons I posted above. That said, I'm also quite sure you aren't going to change your tune one bit but will shift the goalposts in your favour.

Originally posted by Fr3bzY
Save a baby...eat a mason

If I wasn't so attached to my signature, I would ask permission to adopt this as a new one.
You should make bumper stickers my friend.