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Tobin S.

(10,420 posts)
Sat Apr 23, 2016, 04:28 PM Apr 2016

Why I Doubt I値l Ever be a Freemason

This is a little essay I wrote for a different site. The owner of that site has been AWOL since last August. I had been busy writing stories for him before I realized he was on a seemingly permanent vacation. So I've got a few of them on my hard drive that weren't published. I figured this one would be appropriate for this group.

My father-in-law is a 33rd degree Freemason. That is the highest level in the fraternity that you can attain and it represents years of involvement within the organization. The local lodges sometimes serve breakfast to the public for a small fee. I’ve gone to a few of them with my father-in-law. I went to one today, and one of the brothers of the fraternity asked when I was going to join. It used to be that Masons weren’t allowed to approach people about membership, and up until the 1920s, the Masons were a highly secretive organization. It was up to the initiate to approach a Mason about membership until recently. Even a father could not encourage his own son to join. Things have changed, though. The policies of secrecy caused the society’s membership to collectively age and start to fade away as fewer and fewer younger men felt compelled to join. It seems that, in an effort to save the organization, Masons are now more open to sharing the ideas of their society and will openly ask other men if they’d like to join.

When I was at one of these breakfasts at my father-in-law’s lodge, I noticed that they had set up a table with a lot of literature about the Masons on it. I picked up one pamphlet and took a look at it. It was about how to join the Masons. It’s a fraternity, so they only accept men, and you also have to profess a belief in a higher power. You don’t have to be an adherent to a particular faith, you just have to believe in a god, basically. I am an agnostic and I have told that to my father-in-law. I could not be a member of the organization unless I was intellectually dishonest. I have no faith in any religion or god.

My wife has told me that her father has long desired a son-in-law who would join the Masons. She is an only child. Her folks have no son to continue the tradition of Freemasonry in the family. I saw his desire a little bit in him today. When a fellow Mason asked him if I was going to join he just said that I wasn’t ready yet. The implication being that I will be someday. I seriously doubt it unless they allow me to claim the universe as my higher power. Otherwise, I cannot join in good faith.

My agnosticism is not likely something that will change in me, at least not in the direction of belief. Once I lost faith in religion, and that happened to me when I was just a teenager, I saw that there would likely be no going back to the old way. I am all about intellectual freedom. After losing my faith, religion appeared to me to be a prison for the mind. It seemed to be rooted in fear: fear of death, fear of losing one’s moral compass, fear of people who are different, fear of getting lost in substance abuse, fear of different ideas and intellectuals.

My wife’s family are Episcopalians. They are much more open to a diversity of people and ideas than most denominations. I call it the rock and roll version of Christianity. I’ve been to the church on several occasions. They allow women and homosexuals in the clergy. They perform gay wedding ceremonies. Most of the people who attend are liberal, politically speaking. They even let an evil heathen like me take communion. I think my wife thought I was going to see the light when I started attending with her. The people there are very open-minded and kind and I like them all. But it doesn’t make me a believer in any way more than I was before I met them. It’s more than just a question of choosing to believe. I am literally incapable of believing. It doesn’t matter how nice you are to me. If you don’t have hard, definitive proof of the supernatural, there is no way that I can believe in it. I’m from the show me state of spirituality. As far as I’m concerned, religion is a hoax.

I know that people have deeply personal reasons for being religious. I know that religion helps a lot of people find peace of mind. I know that religious people do a lot of good things in the world. I don’t have a beef with any of that as long as I can choose not to participate in religion. I’m very much live and let live on the issue as long as people are keeping secular law and religious law separate, and secular law is the law of the land.

It makes me sad in a way that I cannot fulfill my father-in-law’s desire for me to go into Masonry. The society has been loosening up over the years. Maybe someday soon they will be accepting of members whose higher power is the universe.
8 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Why I Doubt I値l Ever be a Freemason (Original Post) Tobin S. Apr 2016 OP
Very well said. deucemagnet Apr 2016 #1
You're welcome. Thank for taking the time to read it. Tobin S. Apr 2016 #2
Yep, you have to believe in a god... awoke_in_2003 Apr 2016 #3
Rec! progressoid Apr 2016 #4
All those male only clubs with costumes and rituals are just creepy. AlbertCat Apr 2016 #5
I'm a son of a son of a Shriner... (there's the seed of a Jimmy Buffet song there somewhere) Freelancer Apr 2016 #6
I know this feeling. trotsky Apr 2016 #7
I hear ya RussBLib Apr 2016 #8
 

awoke_in_2003

(34,582 posts)
3. Yep, you have to believe in a god...
Sat Apr 23, 2016, 09:55 PM
Apr 2016

Besides the Blue lodge, I was also in the York Rite appendages- Chapter, Council, and Commandry. I was the presiding officer in all three of those. Once I finally admitted to myself I didn't believe in god, I left.

 

AlbertCat

(17,505 posts)
5. All those male only clubs with costumes and rituals are just creepy.
Sun Apr 24, 2016, 11:24 AM
Apr 2016

It's really just an excuse to get together like some frat house and party. TOGA....TOGA....TOGA!




Might be worthwhile is they still sang Mozart's music for the Masons.

Freelancer

(2,107 posts)
6. I'm a son of a son of a Shriner... (there's the seed of a Jimmy Buffet song there somewhere)
Mon Apr 25, 2016, 03:58 PM
Apr 2016

I was concerned for a while that it was some genetic thing, like ear hair, that would just kick-in one day -- like I'd go in the bathroom in the morning to brush my teeth, look in the mirror and think... "damn, I'd look really good in a fez." So far that hasn't happened, thankfully.

Point is, I know a bit of where you're coming from on this. I won't argue with your logic -- only a bit with your conclusion. I've had this conversation with my father. He doesn't like religion either -- maybe not to the same degree as me, but we're on the same page. From what he's said, the masons don't insist on the traditional definition of God. Any acknowledgment of belief in an organizing force you see as being responsible for the creative impulse in human kind will suffice. It doesn't even have to be supernatural or non corporeal. It can be mitochondrial DNA or the human brain, or whatever it is that you consider to be the pan-human thing that makes us builders and shapers of our world. They don't care.

So, just decide if you want to be in the Masons, or not. If you do, when the question is asked "do you believe in God?," just think of JLo, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Christopher Hitchens sitting on a throne made of fused crucifixes (a la Game of Thrones), Grace Slick, or whatever you like and say "Why, yes... yes I do."

trotsky

(49,533 posts)
7. I know this feeling.
Tue Apr 26, 2016, 09:43 AM
Apr 2016

My great-grandfather was active in the Freemasons. My wife's father and his brother as well. The local lodge had a little event down at our firehouse several years ago and out of interest I picked up a pamphlet, and read the same thing you did. The only requirement is one that I cannot meet. Not while remaining honest.

A pity, because they seem to do a lot of good.

RussBLib

(9,666 posts)
8. I hear ya
Tue Apr 26, 2016, 02:00 PM
Apr 2016

Perhaps it should simply be, "I believe in a power larger than myself."

Never been a Mason. Or Shriner. Or Phi Kappa Yadda Yadda. Thanks for posting.

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