I met a mason and he said to me...what does it mean?

a reply to: klikmaus
And without Freemasonry, people who like to make money by talking about secret societies while tickling people's ears (telling them what they want to hear, entertaining them, intriguing them, filling their heads with poison; see my signature and text under my name), might have made less money than they do now; people like Alex Jones, David Icke, Bill Schnoebeln, Bill Cooper, Bill Hicks (any more Bills?), Jordan Maxwell, Zecharia Sitchin, Alan Watt, Jesse Ventura, Texe Marrs, Fritz Springmeier (not his real name, just his con-artist name, or stage name), Glenn Beck, Michael Tsarion, Mark Dice, etc (of course they would probably just come up with something else to talk about that won't really wake them up to the one pulling the strings, including the strings of the so-called "Truth Movement").

Check out Alan Watt's acknowledgement that "it ends up being entertainment", yet he won't apply that conclusion to his own uninformative and vague babbling about it (what he calls "the Matrix" on other occasions when referring to what other people call "the New World Order" and its system of conditioning and indoctrination), or his book+DVD selling ventures:

And, coming back to your phrase, "without Freemasonry" people that are often in this forum might have used their inquisitive inclinations a little wiser, not wasting their time so much on filling their heads with trivial storylines or distracting mythology and philosophy.

What Is the Purpose of Life?

What Is Babylon the Great? (Bible Questions Answered)
Babylon the Great: Reasoning

...
Ancient Babylonian religious concepts and practices are found in religions worldwide

“Egypt, Persia, and Greece felt the influence of the Babylonian religion . . . The strong admixture of Semitic elements both in early Greek mythology and in Grecian cults is now so generally admitted by scholars as to require no further comment. These Semitic elements are to a large extent more specifically Babylonian.”—The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, 1898), M. Jastrow, Jr., pp. 699, 700.

Their gods: There were triads of gods, and among their divinities were those representing various forces of nature and ones that exercised special influence in certain activities of mankind. (Babylonian and Assyrian Religion, Norman, Okla.; 1963, S. H. Hooke, pp. 14-40) “The Platonic trinity, itself merely a rearrangement of older trinities dating back to earlier peoples, appears to be the rational philosophic trinity of attributes that gave birth to the three hypostases or divine persons taught by the Christian churches. . . . This Greek philosopher’s [Plato’s] conception of the divine trinity . . . can be found in all the ancient [pagan] religions.”—Nouveau Dictionnaire Universel (Paris, 1865-1870), edited by M. Lachâtre, Vol. 2, p. 1467.

Use of images: ...

Belief regarding death: “Neither the people nor the leaders of religious thought [in Babylon] ever faced the possibility of the total annihilation of what once was called into existence. Death was a passage to another kind of life.”—The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 556. [whereislogic: see also Myth 1: The Soul Is Immortal]

Position of the priesthood: ...

Practice of astrology, divination, magic, and sorcery: ...

Babylon the Great is like an immoral harlot, one living in shameless luxury

...
Is it not true that the dominant religious organizations have made it a practice to consort with political rulers for power and material gain, though this has resulted in suffering for the common people? Is it not also true that their higher clergy live in luxury, even though many of the people to whom they should minister may be impoverished?

Why can religions that profess to be Christian properly be viewed as a part of Babylon the Great, along with those who know nothing of the God of the Bible?
...

Religion is a Snare and a Racket

originally posted by: whereislogic
a reply to: klikmaus
And without Freemasonry, people who like to make money by talking about secret societies while tickling people's ears (telling them what they want to hear, entertaining them, intriguing them, filling their heads with poison; see my signature and text under my name), would have never been able to make as much money as they do now, people like Alex Jones, David Icke, Bill Schnoebeln, Bill Cooper, Bill Hicks (any more Bills?), Jordan Maxwell, Zecharia Sitchin, Alan Watts, Texe Marrs, Fritz Springmeier (not his real name, just his con-artist name, or stage name), Glenn Beck, Michael Tsarion, Mark Dice, etc.

Well shame on them then. Or props... However you see fit. Don't doubt that many of us Masons use the paranoia of nut jobs for our own personal amusement
However all in all the anti-masons are more of a PITA than anything else: those that think we are a religious cult and those that think we we are a political faction bent on global domination don't help our our causes.

a reply to: klikmaus
Just like Donald Trump and the names I mentioned, they are neither nut jobs nor overly paranoid. They have just perfected the art of making money from what's described at 2 Timothy 4:3,4, telling people what they want to hear, what tickles their ears (which goes beyond just what people want to hear, but also what intrigues them, captivates their attention, pleasant to the ears, using tricks such as appealing to pride, ego and fear of seeming stupid or unenlightened, also to gain their admiration to the point that people take their information from them and trust there is some merit to what is being presented beyond entertainment, that there is insight and enlightenment to be gained from it).

2 Timothy 4:3,4

3 For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the wholesome* [Or “healthful; beneficial.”] teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled.* [Or “to tell them what they want to hear.”] 4 They will turn away from listening to the truth and give attention to false stories* [Greek: mythos; KJV: myths].

I can add a bunch more names off the top of my head who are (or were) good at telling people what they want to hear to gain their admiration and to impress a particular target audience (or market). Let's put the following guy at the top giving his (financial) success in this field:

Donald Trump (oh, it's an act btw, he doesn't actually believe the things he tweets, it's part of the act for a specific target audience)
Stephen Hawking (yep, putting him 2nd right below Donald Trump, not much difference between the 2, just a different target audience or market and therefore a different style)
Richard Dawkins
Cirstopher Hitchens
Lawrence Krauss
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Michio Kaku
Michael Shermer
Michael Ruse
Charles Darwin
Thomas Huxley
Bishop George Berkeley
David Hume
Emmanuel Kant
Spinoza, Descartes, Aristotle, Plato (and those referred to as "the Church Fathers" and "the Apologists"). Hindu and Buddhist gurus and teachers are pretty good at it too, past and present.

But when you get to this point, you know we've entered into a very special "period of time":

Psychology: Dawkins&Krauss selling the philosophy and contradiction that nothing is something

Here's Stephen Hawking doing it (as quoted from the book he is selling), starting around 16:10 till 23:04 (nothing too interesting beyond that point cause John Lennox is one of the names I'd put on that list as well, but again, different target audience):

originally posted by: klikmaus

The best fried catfish ever made (by Texas Caddo lodge #581) would have never been tasted by anyone!

Some guys in New Jersey are willing to swap lasagna for that.

Just don't ask publically what the meat is.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Lol sometimes mystery meat is best left a mystery!

My wife had a get-together with a bunch of her lady friends and left the meal to me, I grilled up about 20 lbs of ground deer meat burgers for the unexpecting women. The lot of them LOVED IT... until they found out they just had bambi burgers.

originally posted by: whereislogic

They have just perfected the art of making money from what's described at 2 Timothy 4:3,4, telling people what they want to hear, what tickles their ears

I can add a bunch more names off the top of my head who are (or were) good at telling people what they want to hear to gain their admiration and to impress a particular target audience (or market).


Spinoza, Descartes, Aristotle, Plato (and those referred to as "the Church Fathers" and "the Apologists"). Hindu and Buddhist gurus and teachers are pretty good at it too, past and present.

Any particular reason you omitted Christian leaders, teachers and gurus from this list?

originally posted by: theAnswer1111
Here is what it is from:

Link

As the sun rises in the East to open and govern the day, so rises the Worshipful Master in the East [WM rises.], to open and govern his Lodge, set the craft at work, and give them proper instruction.

Not what he was referring to. He was saying that he was informed or knowledgeable. Putting too much effort into it with the copy and paste.