Originally posted by 1nOne
Not so: that is precisely why they apply.

I am not quite sure what kind of Christian crack rock you have been smoking but last time I checked there was no Bible-enforcement detachment of the military making sure everyone takes their Bibles literally.

My point: The luminaries of your craft have been less than on the level with you, my friend.

Regarding what?

Originally posted by network dude
What if you thought God was talking to you and he told you to rob a liquor store? Would you do it?

I do not have to, we have a kegerator.

I am a Freemason and I am a follower of Jesus, I have not ever once had any reason to choose between one and the other. I also have spent a quarter of a century now studying both....I will share with you my honest and sincere belief. I will not argue with someone who has made up their mind though. If you beleive Freemasonry is a tool of Satan, go ahead, it matters not the least to me. Likely I think what you call "Christianity" is a heretical abomination of pagan Roman ideals that doens't have the slightest simblance of the teachings of Yeshua the messiah.........for those with an open mind this is what I have found.

The message of Jesus was warped almost immediately after his execution. Even in the new testament we see the division between early followers of Jesus in the arguments between James and Paul. Even there thoughwe have no real idea exactly what the real Paul and James actually had to say, rather we have a book compiled over hundreds of years, during many power struggles among differing theologies, who have often claimed authorship that modern textual criticism and research has been shown to be uncatagorically to be false. The bible thumper who worships man's corrupt works, and has turned theological writings of men to be of greater importance then God is NOT the message of Jesus. Rather they have become the very modern Pharisee with whom he took so much issue for adding to God's law with the corrupt laws of man, they do NOT follow the message of Jesus, the early church or any of the original apostles. they follow death and not life.

Freemasonry is based on that very original understanding of Jesus's message, and in fact the original Torah's message where the number one rule is not dogma, doctrine or hate. Rather it is as simple as "Love your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself". It is not for perversions for which God strikes down cities in the old testiment as the post Victorian theology would interprit, but rather more centrally, the lack of charity, the hardness of heart, and the cruelness for which men would treat their neighbor that invoked God's wrath. Even in the New Testament time and time again, Jesus tells someone to do something, and they do the opposite even among his folowers while alive. Yet some would have you beleive after his death they too became deities to be worshiped and were free from error or vice.

Every protestant church that came after the reformation owes their existance to Freemasonry, without which they would never have come to exist. Every scientific break through, that has come since the forming of the Royal Society and the Invisible College before it would likely not yet have been made until a much later date or not all if not for Freemasonry. These are not official positions of Freemasonry, but in my 25 years of study ,of which only a portion was from within masonry, has convinced me beyond any shadow of a doubt to my mind. Modern representational government too is but one more product of the battles fought by Freemasonry and won against the tyranny that oppressed Europe for so long. Not only have i found Freemasonry to not oppose Christianity, I have found no truer defender of Jesus's central message to love God with all your heart, and to love thy neighbor meaning ALL neighbors with all your heart. The Love of God, and charity to your fellow man, are the core of Freemasonry. The fight for truth, and to fight the tyranny of liars and the corrupt false prophets has been Freemasonry's history from it's beginning. beleive me or not, I can tell you where to start reading, but I can not make you read, or learn, but all of these statements I have found to be true.

Telling people the truth more often the not sadly does not convince them of it, people time and time again will hold onto a lie they hold dear even more strongly when confronted with a truth that shakes their world view, or calls their own unrightious behavior into question, so Freemasonry has no reason to simply tell all it has to say and everything i have said here is but a small portion of what I have come to see. Before Freemasonry I was a card carrying Christian, after Freemasonry I became a follower of Jesus in my every step and breath. Likewise I have known a Jewish friend to say the same as to what it did for him in his faith.

Even the devils BELIEVE in God.....belief does not make a man rightious.... how you live, and the virtue you live by are what make you rightious before God..... by making men truer, kinder, and charitable masonry helps men of all theological understandings better men.....it is not a religion, it is day to day in practice philosophy, but it's lessons for living are ALL found in the Bible. Any "Christian" who continues to slander Freemasonry is not only speaking falsly about masonry, he is slapping the face of those who protected the very faith they would defend, when tyrants would have put their denomiations to the torch.