For me, one important difference is that our customs and phrases are not secret. Anyone who can visit http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb
can find out all of the info they need about our little community.
We don’t have secrets or specifically ask members to keep those secrets from other people.
I think that is the crux of the matter.
Equating all rituals diminishes the differences between out-in-the-open everyday rituals and secret rituals that no one but the insiders must know.
It’s a ritual thing.
For the rest of you, we Masons have rituals because we LIKE rituals. In fact, we NEED rituals. If you don’t like or need rituals, don’t become a Mason. :rolleyes:
The rituals involved in Masonry are fairly constant in their form and substance where ever you might go, at least in the USA. A familiarity with the rituals must be demonstrated when visiting a Lodge for the first time—such familiarity demonstrates that you are who and what you claim to be.
For the record, Masonry is not a religion, nor is it a substitute for religion. Members are encouraged to never substitute one for the other. In my experience, any discussion of religion among the brothers is prohibited while in the meeting place. For that matter, any discussion of politics in equally prohibited.
The Freemasons have rituals because they’re SATANIC! 
Just check out this classic Chick tract, “The Curse of Baphomet”!
I don’t think we have the same feeling of membership and belonging as Masons do, and I think it does have to do with the secrecy of their rituals.
There was a study (can’t find the cite right now), where they brought in subjects in pairs to perform a certain task, but weren’t supposed to collaborate. They somehow allowed some of the pairs to cheat (i.e. collaborate secretly), and after the test they asked the subjects how close they felt about each other.
In pairs where cheating was not allowed to occur, the two subjects felt like strangers (since they had only known each other very briefly), but in pairs where cheating was allowed and occured, the two subjects felt closer to each other.
Anyway, I don’t remember the details and I’m just paraphrasing from memory (I hope I’m not too way off the actual experiment), but the essence is that if you share a secret with someone, you quickly start to feel that you’re part of the same team, i.e. feel a brotherhood.
Why?
Why is there a need to “demonstrate that you are who and what you claim to be”?
Why there are Masonic funerals? (if the quote at the top of this thread is correct)
I pulled out an old book, a compilation really, of Joseph Campbell’s writings titled “Myths to Live By”. This is from page 57 from the chapter “The Importance of Rites”
Ritual is one thing; secrecy is another. And I agree that the sense of having something known only to the “in group” reinforces the sense of belonging.
A lot of us outgrew that with treehouse secret forts. Others apparently became Free and Applied Masons. 
Besides, while most of the Doper catchphrases are no secret, take a look in ATMB when the Moderators are being, uh, witty. (I hope!!) The business with the goat, the hamsters, and the can of Crisco… (Granted that it’s said in jest, but it does reinforce the “in group” status there – and while our Mods. are nothing short of superb as board moderators go (not an intent to curry favor but an honest assessment – I can name one man on a board supposedly founded for all Christians for whom anything short of complete allegiance to conservative Catholicism is coming extremely close to breaking the board rules, even though they don’t address that issue at all) – any group with defined boundaries and membership and private status of some sort will evolve an “in group” mentality simply as a matter of course. I guarantee that any honest moderator or ex-moderator here will be willing to concede that he or she makes assumptions about attitudes among fellow moderators that he or she would not of regular members. And that’s not said in any way insultingly – merely recognizing that human nature will prevail among any defined group. (With our mods, thank God, the commitment is to providing fair and balanced treatment among all members – but how they express that common purpose, I have little doubt, is in a mod “in group” mentality.
You haven’t see anything until you see the Imperial Order of A Odd Fellows or the Knights of Pythius carry on. Now that’s ritual.
It’s no surprise that those Odd Fellows do carry on! 
Uh, on the off-chance that someone might have taken me literally (and I’m not quite sure if that someone included Louis B - I do not harbor suspicions of or feel the need to “expose” the Masons or similar groups.
Seems, though, that some folks will single out Masons or Skull and Bones or whomever as being responsible for the world’s problems. One respondent recently to a health fraud e-mail list in which I participate was convinced that Masons are behind attempts to suppress “alternative” medicine.
As long as their are rituals and secrets there will be people who, partly because they feel excluded from the “in” group, resent them and see them as being guilty of nefarious activities.
I myself once turned down an invitation to join the Masons because I didn’t like the part about the initiation with the white-hot branding iron. 
[the simpsons]
Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?
We do!
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do!
Who holds back the electric car?
Who made Steve Gutenberg a star?
We do!
We do!
[/the simpsons]
I can’t speak for others, but as a Past Exalted Ruler of the Elks, I can say we have a beautiful funeral ritual. And it is performed in public, at the funeral home or gravesite.
While it is way to long to post on a message board like this, one of the most impressive parts of the Elks is our “Eleven O’Clock Toast.” This is such an established part of the Order that we have informal contests on who can recite the toast the most impressively. I know. I won that award in 1997.
The Toast goes like this:
Of course, with the admission of women into the Order, several changes were made to the Ritual. This is the version I was taught and remember (and still use when called on to give the Toast).
The Toast is given at funeral rituals, in the Initiation ritual, and anytime an Elks Lodge or Social Event goes to 11:00PM.
Persoanlly, I think it’s a very imressive piece of writing.
Jackmannii, no, I didn’t take you literaly.
Polerius, the statement re liking and needing rituals was supposed to sarcastic. As to proving you are who and what you claim to be, Masonic meetings are conducted by and for Masons. If a stranger comes to the door and wants to attend the meeting, he is required to prove that he is qualified. As to Masonic funerals, I don’t understand why you might think the existence of a funeral ritual implies religion. Like all funeral services with which I am familiar, the Masonic service attempts to provide comfort to the families and friends of the departed.
Thanks for the info.
I have to ask: is the “Exalted Ruler” title a bit tongue-in-cheek, or do people take these titles seriously?
The reason I ask is because it reminds me of Kim Jong-il being called “peerless leader” in North Korea.
Many groups have meetings where they don’t want outsiders to attend. But I don’t think doctors who want to attend an AMA meeting need to do secret handshakes to get in. Nor does a AAA member from Texas need any secret methods of identifying himself if he walks into a AAA office in Florida.
They just show their ID’s and membership cards. Quite simple really. Why the need for the secret handshakes for Masons?
I may have misunderstood what “Masonic funeral” means. I thought, from the quote in the OP, that Masons who are Christians forgo the Christian funeral service and replace that with a Masonic service.
If you forgo your religion’s funeral service and replace it with the service of some organization, that says pretty strong things about that organization.
If, instead, Christian Masons have regular Christian funerals, and then after that also have some sort of Masonic service, then indeed, this does not necessarily imply a religious aspect to Masonry.
We take them very seriously. Google “Exalted Ruler” and see what you come up with.
However, in the past few years we have passed a resolution that we can use the term “Lodge President” and “Grand President” outside of the Lodge setting if we wish.
Honestly, I’m proud to state I’m a Past Exalted Ruler. I led a lodge for one year, learned a lot, made several very good friends, made a few enemies :eek: but had fun and now am looked up to as a senior advisor of the Elks.
Although we have been known to joke around and call the leader the GRAND POOBAH at times.
Polerius wrote:
The story goes that lo at the beginning of civilization (usually traced back to Egypt) people started creating great edifices. This required Masons, that is to say, stone workers, whose work involved high levels of technical skills. Unfortunately, these Masons were itinerant, because nobody builds often enough to keep Masons on hand. But when they moved about, how were they to know who else they could trust to work with them in this highly demanding technical field? So, they developed secret signs and rituals only revealed to people with real skills in masonry in order to make sure that they could pick up a crew of competent Masons on the road.
Anyhow, that’s the story. Eventually it developed into a club that had nothing to do with building at all, but was useful as a secret society.
In fact, historians are quite skeptical about the antiquity of Masonry. I’m not entirely clear when the Masons formed, but it was a lot later than ancient Egypt. In fact, the early Masonic association of its activities with Egypt had to do with their imitation of Greek culture that even the ancient Greeks believed originated in Egypt, though modern historians have disproved this notion. Like many related movements, Masonry was formed with a fully developed retcon history already in place. These related movements include, but are not excluded to, esotericism, alchemy, Hermeticism and Kabbalism, all of which when brand new had developed origin stories tying them to antiquity.
So, in answer to the title question of the thread, the Masons have rituals because the group has its origins in the mysticism of the 18th century, thereabouts. They keep the rituals even now that hardly any of their members actually believe in magic presumably because of the community-knitting power that rituals are believed to have, and probably because it’s kind of a kick. The various Masonic organizations are mostly no longer secret societies, though secret societies patterned on their model may well exist. They’re just clubs that do some public service, and I am given to understand that there’s some drinking involved. I have generally assumed that the Greek societies in colleges are themselves Masonic in origin, explaining certain commonalities, but somebody may be able to speak better to this.
I would like to point out that even as secular as Masonic organizations have become, they are still substantially more occult than Dungeons & Dragons.
Say, where’s Paul in Saudi? He’s a Mason and he always contributes to Masonry-related threads – in GQ, anyway.
Okay, but… why?
Johnny Angel, every Masonic Lodge I have ever encountered forbids the drinking of alcohol on Lodge premises. I believe the banning of alcohol is standard in the USA. What the Shriners do, I don’t know since I am not a Shriner. I am a Master Mason and have been for twenty-four years. I am Past Master of my Lodge and I take considerable pride in that. I am at least a third generation Mason, following my paternal grandfather and my father into the organization. There is a certain sense of continuity inherent in that.
Polerius, if you cannot immediately see the difference between a fraternal organization (Masons), a professional association (AMA), and an Insurance company (AAA), I can’t see any point in discusing the matter further with you. I think you don’t want your ignorance fought; I think you are being deliberately obtuse and that’s about the most favorable interpretation I can put on it.