A regular customer of mine said he had something he thought I would be interested in. It was a pamphlet entitled “Who are the Masons? And what do they do?” I kindly took the pamphlet and put it aside for later perusal.
Later that day, I took a look.
YEESH! No wonder membership is down in these “organizations.”
Some excerpts:
Later in the pamphlet:
Take a good look at the above statements. Take a good steamy gawk. Do you see what I see?
Let’s review:
No one has the right to tell another person what he or she must think or believe.
Applicants must be men of good character who believe in a Supreme Being…
No one has the right to tell another person what he or she must think or believe.
Faith must be the center of our lives.
No one has the right to tell another person what he or she must think or believe.
All men and women are the children of God.
Head…starting to swell…must…put…pamphlet…down before…brains…burst…out…of…skull…
But perhaps the two statements are not contradictory. If they truly believe no one has the right to tell anyone what to believe, they may still believe they have the right to associate, fraternally, only with those who choose to believe in a Supreme Being. As an analogy, I truly believe anyone has the right to root for whatever football team they wish, but I tend to invite Redskins fans over to watch the Sunday game with me (mostly, this year, because the chance of humiliation is too acute otherwise).
I feel some sympathy for the Masons. They are regulatly derided by Christian organizations as either Satanists, because they don’t believe in God, or as idolators, substituting Masonry for Christianity.
Then you come along and blast them for being too religious. Geeze! These guys can’t win!
Disclaimer: I am a member of the Knights of Columbus, which is also a fraternal service organization. Unlike the Masons, there is no ambiguity about the K of C’s religious leanings: we only accept practcing Catholics into membership.
I’m not blasting anyone. They’re telling you on one hand that “No one has the right to tell another person what he or she must think or believe” and on the other hand they tell you that if you want to join that “Applicants must be men of good character who believe in a Supreme Being…”
How is this not contradictory?
Granted, these are privately-run organizations and they can make any rules they want.
Still.
Add to this the secretive nature of their “rituals” and you can see why they have a hard time getting new members.
I couldn’t care less who they allow in their club. However, they shouldn’t complain when they can’t get new members.
I read a story in the Atlanta Journal where a lodge was forced to sell their meeting hall (“temple”) due to severe fall off in membership. The head of the lodge said that young men of today see the Masons as old-fashioned and have no desire to join.
I will give them credit for the work they do with children’s hospitals. Thousands of children have benefitted from their charitibale deeds.
It’s not contradictory because…it’s not contradictory. The masons believe there’s a supreme being and limit membership to those men who do, but they don’t care if non members believe there’s a supreme being or not…you’re still “the children of G-d” and shouldn’t be told “what [you] must think or believe.”
If they said “you must join our club…” or “people who do not believe the way we do are wrong…” then there would be. They are not. They are saying “if you want to join our club, this is what we require…”
I’m just quoting the pamphlet. They say that in order to join their group, you must believe what they believe. Can’t I help my community WITHOUT believing in God? Of course, I can. I’ll just do it with someone else who doesn’t care what I believe in.
As a Majority Member of the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls (an organization for girls 11-20 which is sponsored by the Masons), I have known dozens of Masons and even been privy to some of their more public ritual work. As far as I understand, the “you must believe in God to belong to our group” stipulation merely means that you must be willing to pray during meetings and mention God in your ritual work every once in a while. This was also the case in Rainbow Girls, and since I have grown up in this country being forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance, pray grace in other people’s houses, etc., I just said the God stuff without really believing it in order to belong to such an excellent organization which does so much for people and which helped me learn to speak in front of people and comport myself like a lady in social situations, and to really want to help people and feel good when I did so. I was a Wiccan, gothy bisexual during the last three years I was a member of the group, and I was still accepted, because Rainbow Girls (and all other Masonic orgs i have encountered) seems to attract the type of people that one might think of as “good Christians”–kind, forgiving, tolerant of other’s differences, and effusively charitable.
i loved Rainbow, and miss it now that I am Majority…le sigh
miss meenie
Grand Treasurer in the State of Connecticut, 1997-1998 and
5 time Grand Representative in the State of Connecticut,
International Order of the Rainbow for Girls
The thing is, belief in a supreme being is pretty broad. I could profess my belief in The Great Punta, who controls the events of the universe by tickling his toes, and I could still be a Mason. It’s pretty inclusive. Quoth Mr Kipling:
Even an unwashed atheist that subscribed to the Gaia hypothesis would be welcome.
Friends, I am struggling to write civilly after reading the libelous, imflammatory Jack Chick screed that Mofo Rising linked to. It’s a truckload of organic fertilizer, to put it politely. Chick claims that the satanic connection and that poppycock about Baphomet is “revealed” in the 30th, 31st, and 32nd degrees. As a 32nd degree Mason, I can assure you it’s not true. We do not forsake Jesus. In fact, one of the degrees instructs us to learn what we can from Jesus. Men of any theistic religion are welcome to join. They are also free to not join. We Masons are not allowed to ask a fellow to join the lodge; he must ask to join of his own free will. If an applicant is not a man of good character who believes in a Supreme Being, he’s not getting in. We won’t force a guy to believe in God, we just won’t let him join the lodge if he doesn’t believe. Every meeting and ritual begins and ends with a prayer, so why would a non-believer want to join the lodge?
Now, if Mofo Rising linked to the Jack Chick screed as a joke, then I missed the sound of the joke zipping over my head, and I got my dander up for nothing.
Nice to know there are other Rainbowites out there!
I was a member in 1988-1995 from the age of 14-21 (In Florida you can get an extension… I needed for my Temple of Service). I was Grand Patriotism 91-92,and am currently Mother Advisor of the Assembly that I was a member of.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything she stated. You will never find a group of more caring individuals than the Masons. It’s a shame they get such a bad rap.
