Back to my earlier statement. The Masons keep a list of all members, past and present. This list is available to the public. I know this because I inquired about this to a friend of mine who is a 32nd degree Mason. Since this is the case, why is it that no one has shown docuementation that Russell was a Mason?
Freemasons
by UnDisfellowshipped 60 Replies latest jw friends
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Dino
I just wanted to hijack this thread momentarily. Sorry!
Plum, please let me say that you are gorgeous. Im not a lech, but I just had to tell you that!
Now folks, back to your regularly scheduled debate...
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plmkrzy
LARC
Back to my earlier statement. The Masons keep a list of all members, past and present. This list is available to the public. I know this because I inquired about this to a friend of mine who is a 32nd degree Mason. Since this is the case, why is it that no one has shown docuementation that Russell was a Mason?
I've found enough info on CT Russell to be more then convinced he was never a "freemason" but more then likely he was weird. He had some peculiar interests that dated back to the Egyptians, similar to Masons but thats about as far as it went.
I am interested though to know where you acquired the "Lists? I've only been able to access "Lists" containing "Famous" masons. And also "Master Masons" from each Grand lodge along with a few other doormen or whatever they are after they graduate from low men on the totem poles. How would anyone possibly know how many and who all the members are since they do in many Lodges keep no real records? They instead pass on secret handshakes and such. hehehe. Your level of hand shack or "sign" tells how you rank in membership.
Anyway. Larc, can you post a link or 2 from your sorces?
Plum
Dino. aww thanks. blushes
Edited by - plmkrzy on 9 November 2002 23:11:43
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Satanus
Undis
whether or not Freemasons worship Satan
While giving 6 pages as the source for a one paragraph quote is a little confusing, i found one of the quotes, anyway. From a reading of the context, she is explaining her view that all is one. This is a doctrine incomprehensible to christian dualists. So, you naturally jump to the conclusion that she is a satan worshipper. But then, you believe that anyone who doesn't worship your god or jesus is automatically worshipping satan anyway. For what it's worth, here is the quote:
But if the Christian Church was the first to make the existence of Satan a dogma, it was because, as shown in Isis, the Devil -- the powerful enemy of God (? ! !) had to become the corner stone of the pillar of the Church. For, as a Theosophist, M. Jules Baissac, truly observes in his "Satan ou le Diable" (p. 9): "Il fallait eviter de paraitre autoriser le dogme du double principe en faisant de ce Satan createur une puissance reelle, et pour expliquer le mal originel, on profere contre Manes l'hypothese d'une permission de l'unique tout Puissant."* The choice and policy were unfortunate, anyhow. Either the personator of the lower god of Abraham and Jacob ought to have been made entirely distinct from the mystic "Father" of Jesus, or -- the "Fallen" Angels should have been left unslandered by further fictions.
Every god of the Gentiles is connected with, and closely related to,
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* After the polymorphic Pantheism of some Gnostics came the esoteric dualism of Manes, who was accused of personifying Evil and creating of the Devil a God -- rival of God himself. We do not see that the Christian Church has so much improved on that exoteric idea of the Manicheans, for she calls God her King of Light, and Satan, the King of Darkness, to this day.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 510 THE SECRET DOCTRINE
Jehovah -- the Elohim; for they are all One Host, whose units differ only in name in the esoteric teachings. Between the "Obedient" and the "Fallen" Angels there is no difference whatever, except in their respective functions, or rather in the inertia of some, and the activity of others among those "Dhyan Chohans" or Elohim who were "commissioned to create," i.e., to fabricate the manifested world out of the eternal material.
The Kabbalists say that the true name of Satan is that of Jehovah placed upside down, for "Satan is not a black god but the negation of the white deity," or the light of Truth. God is light and Satan is the necessary darkness or shadow to set it off, without which pure light would be invisible and incomprehensible.* "For the initiates," says Eliphas Levi, "the devil is not a person but a creative Force, for Good as for Evil." They (the Initiates) represented this Force, which presides at physical generation, under the mysterious form of God Pan -- or Nature: whence the horns and hoofs of that mythical and symbolic figure, as also the Christian "goat of the Witches' Sabbath." With regard to this too, Christians have imprudently forgotten that the goat was also the victim selected for the atonement of all the sins of Israel, that the scape-goat was indeed the sacrificial martyr, the symbol of the greatest mystery on earth -- the Fall into generation. Only the Jews have long forgotten the real meaning of their (to the non-initiated) ridiculous hero, selected from the drama of life in the great mysteries enacted by them in the desert; and the Christians never knew it.
Eliphas Levi seeks to explain the dogma of his Church by paradoxes and metaphors, but succeeds very poorly in the face of the many volumes written by pious Roman Catholic demonologists under the approbation and auspices of Rome, in this nineteenth century of ours. For the true Roman Catholic, the devil or Satan is a reality; the drama enacted in the sidereal light according to the seer of Patmos -- who desired, perhaps, to improve upon the narrative in the "Book of Enoch" -- is as real, and as historical a fact as any other allegory and symbolical event in the Bible. But the Initiates give an explanation
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* To quote in this relation Mr. Laing in his admirable work "Modern Science and Modern Thought" (p. 222, 3rd Ed.): "From this dilemma (existence of evil in the world) there is no escape, unless we give up altogether the idea of an anthropomorphic deity, and adopt frankly the Scientific idea of a First Cause, inscrutable and past finding out; and of a universe whose laws we can trace, but of whose real essence we know nothing, and can only suspect, or faintly discern a fundamental law which may make the polarity of good and evil a necessary condition of existence." Were Science to know "the real essence," instead of knowing nothing of it, the faint suspicion would turn into the certitude of the existence of such a law, and the knowledge that this law is connected with Karma.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 511 AKASA, THE "MYSTERIUM MAGNUM."
which differs from that given by Eliphas Levi, whose genius and crafty intellect had to submit to a certain compromise dictated to him from Rome.
Thus, the true and uncompromising Kabalists admit that, for all purposes of Science and philosophy, it is enough that the profane should know that the great magic agent called by the followers of the Marquis de St. Martin -- the Martinists -- astral light, by the mediaeval Kabalists and Alchemists the Sidereal Virgin and the Mysterium Magnum, and by the Eastern Occultists AEther, the reflection of Akasa -- is that which the Church calls Lucifer. That the Latin scholastics have succeeded in transforming the universal soul and Pleroma, the vehicle of Light and the receptacle of all the forms, a force spread throughout the whole Universe, with its direct and indirect effects, into Satan and his works, is no news to any one. But now they are prepared to give out to the above-mentioned profane even the secrets hinted at by Eliphas Levi without adequate explanation; for the latter's policy of veiled revelations could only lead to further superstition and misunderstanding. What, indeed, can a student of Occultism, a beginner, gather from the following highly poetical sentences of Eliphas Levi, as apocalyptic as the writings of any of the Alchemists?
"Lucifer, the Astral Light . . . . is an intermediate force existing in all creation, it serves to create and to destroy, and the Fall of Adam was an erotic intoxication which has rendered his generation a slave to this fatal light . . . every sexual passion that overpowers our senses is a whirlwind of that light which seeks to drag us towards the abyss of death, Folly. Hallucinations, visions, ecstasies are all forms of a very dangerous excitation due to this interior phosphorus (?). Thus light, finally, is of the nature of fire, the intelligent use of which warms and vivifies, and the excess of which, on the contrary, dissolves and annihilates. Thus man is called upon to assume a sovereign empire over that (astral) light and conquer thereby his immortality, and is threatened at the same time with being intoxicated, absorbed, and eternally destroyed by it. This light, therefore, inasmuch as it is devouring, revengeful, and fatal, would thus really be hell-fire, the serpent of the legend; the tormented errors of which it is full, the tears and the gnashing of teeth of the abortive beings it devours, the phantom of life that escapes them, and seems to mock and insult their agony, all this would be the devil or Satan indeed." (Histoire de la Magie, p. 197).
There is no wrong statement in all this; nothing save a superabundance of ill-applied metaphors, as in the application of Adam -- a myth -- to the illustration of the astral effects. Akasa -- the astral light* -- can be defined in a few words; it is the universal Soul, the Matrix of the Universe, the "Mysterium Magnum" from which all that exists is born by separation or differentiation. It is the cause of existence; it
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Akasa is not the Ether of Science, as some Orientalists translate it.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 512 THE SECRET DOCTRINE
fills all the infinite Space; is Space itself, in one sense, or both its Sixth and Seventh principles.* But as the finite in the Infinite, as regards manifestation, this light must have its shadowy side -- as already remarked. And as the infinite can never be manifested, hence the finite world has to be satisfied with the shadow alone, which its actions draw upon humanity and which men attract and force to activity. Hence, while it is the universal Cause in its unmanifested unity and infinity, the Astral light becomes, with regard to Mankind, simply the effects of the causes produced by men in their sinful lives. It is not its bright denizens --- whether they are called Spirits of Light or Darkness -- that produce Good or Evil, but mankind itself that determines the unavoidable action and reaction in the great magic agent. It is mankind which has become the "Serpent of Genesis," and thus causes daily and hourly the Fall and sin of the "Celestial Virgin" -- which thus becomes the Mother of gods and devils at one and the same time; for she is the ever-loving, beneficent deity to all those who stir her Soul and heart, instead of attracting to themselves her shadowy manifested essence, called by Eliphas Levi -- "the fatal light" which kills and destroys. Humanity, in its units, can overpower and master its effects; but only by the holiness of their lives and by producing good causes. It has power only on the manifested lower principles -- the shadow of the Unknown and Incognizable Deity in Space. But in antiquity and reality, Lucifer, or Luciferus, is the name of the angelic Entity presiding over the light of truth as over the light of the day. In the great Valentinian gospel Pistis Sophia ( 361) it is taught that of the three Powers emanating from the Holy names of the Three [[Tridunameis]], that of Sophia (the Holy Ghost according to these gnostics -- the most cultured of all), resides in the planet Venus or Lucifer.
Thus to the profane, the Astral Light may be God and Devil at once --
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* Says Johannes Tritheim, the Abbot of Spanheim, the greatest astrologer and Kabalist of his day:-- "The art of divine magic consists in the ability to perceive the essence of things in the light of nature (astral light), and by using the soul-powers of the spirit to produce material things from the unseen universe, and in such operations the Above and the Below must be brought together and made to act harmoniously. The spirit of Nature (astral light) is a unity, creating and forming everything, and acting through the instrumentality of man it may produce wonderful things. Such are accomplished, if you learn to know yourself. You will know it by the power of the spirit that is in yourself, and accomplish it by mixing your spirit with the essence that comes out of yourself. If you wish to succeed in such a work you must know how to separate Spirit and Life in Nature, and, moreover, to separate the astral soul in yourself and to make it tangible, and then the substance of the soul will appear visibly and tangibly rendered objective by the power of the spirit." -- (Quoted in Dr. Hartman's "Paracelsus.")
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 513 MIND, THE QUICKENING SPIRIT.
Demon est Deus inversus: that is to say, through every point of Infinite Space thrill the magnetic and electrical currents of animate Nature, the life-giving and death-giving waves, for death on earth becomes life on another plane. Lucifer is divine and terrestrial light, the "Holy Ghost" and "Satan," at one and the same time, visible Space being truly filled with the differentiated Breath invisibly; and the Astral Light, the manifested effects of the two who are one, guided and attracted by ourselves, is the Karma of humanity, both a personal and impersonal entity: personal, because it is the mystic name given by St. Martin to the Host of divine Creators, guides and rulers of this planet; impersonal, as the Cause and effect of universal Life and Death.
The Fall was the result of man's knowledge, for his "eyes were opened." Indeed, he was taught Wisdom and the hidden knowledge by the "Fallen Angel," for the latter had become from that day his Manas, Mind and Self-consciousness. In each of us that golden thread of continuous life -- periodically broken into active and passive cycles of sensuous existence on Earth, and super-sensuous in Devachan -- is from the beginning of our appearance upon this earth. It is the Sutratma, the luminous thread of immortal impersonal monadship, on which our earthly lives or evanescent Egos are strung as so many beads -- according to the beautiful expression of Vedantic philosophy.
And now it stands proven that Satan, or the Red Fiery Dragon, the "Lord of Phosphorus" (brimstone was a theological improvement), and Lucifer, or "Light-Bearer," is in us: it is our Mind -- our tempter and Redeemer, our intelligent liberator and Saviour from pure animalism. Without this principle -- the emanation of the very essence of the pure divine principle Mahat (Intelligence), which radiates direct from the Divine mind -- we would be surely no better than animals. The first man Adam was made only a living soul (nephesh), the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit*:-- says Paul, his words referring to the building or Creation of man. Without this quickening spirit, or human Mind or soul, there would be no difference between man and beast; as there is none, in fact, between animals with respect to their actions. The tiger and the donkey, the hawk and the dove, are each one as pure and as innocent as the other, because irresponsible. Each follows its instinct, the tiger and the hawk killing with the same unconcern as the donkey eats a thistle, or the dove pecks at a grain of corn. If the Fall had the significance given to it by theology; if that
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* The real original text of I Corinthians, rendered Kabalistically and esoterically would read (in Chap. xv., verses 44 and 45): "It is sown a soul body (not 'natural' body), it is raised a spirit body." St. Paul was an Initiate, and his words have quite a different meaning when read esoterically. The body "is sown in weakness (passivity); it is raised in power" (43) -- or in spirituality and intellect.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 514 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
fall occurred as a result of an act never intended by nature, -- a sin, how about the animals? If we are told that they procreate their species in consequence of that same "original sin," for which God cursed the earth -- hence everything living on it -- we will put another question. We are told by theology, as by Science, that the animal was on earth far earlier than man? We ask the former: How did it procreate its species, before the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, of the Good and the Evil, had been plucked off? As said: "The Christians -- far less clear-sighted than the great Mystic and Liberator whose name they have assumed, whose doctrines they have misunderstood and travestied, and whose memory they have blackened by their deeds -- took the Jewish Jehovah as he was, and of course strove vainly to reconcile the Gospel of Light and Liberty with the Deity of Darkness and Submission." ("War in Heaven.")*
But, it is sufficiently proven now that all the soi-disant evil Spirits who are credited with having made war on the gods, are identical as personalities; moreover, that all the ancient religions taught the same tenet save the final conclusion, which latter differs from the Christian. The seven primeval gods had all a dual state, one essential, the other accidental. In their essential state they were all the "Builders" or Fashioners, the Preservers and the rulers of this world, and in the accidental state, clothing themselves in visible corporeality, they descended on the earth and reigned on it as Kings and Instructors of the lower Hosts, who had incarnated once more upon it as men.
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* By Godolphin Mitford, later in life, Murad Ali Bey. Born in India, the son of a Missionary, G. Mitford was converted to Islam, and died a Mahomedan in 1884. He was a most extraordinary Mystic, of a great learning and remarkable intelligence. But he left the Right Path and forthwith fell under Karmic retribution. As well shown by the author of the article quoted "The followers of the defeated Elohim, first massacred by the victorious Jews (the Jehovites), and then persuaded by the victorious Christians and Mohamedans, continued nevertheless. . . Some of these scattered sects have lost even the tradition of the true rationale of their belief -- to worship in secrecy and mystery the Principle of Fire, Light, and Liberty. Why do the Sabean Bedouins (avowedly Monotheists when dwelling in the Mohamedan cities) in the solitude of the desert night yet invoke the starry 'Host of Heaven'? Why do the Yezidis, the 'Devil Worshippers,' worship the 'Muluk-Taoos' -- The 'Lord Peacock' -- the emblem of pride and of hundred-eyed intelligence (and of Initiation also), which was expelled from heaven with Satan, according to an old Oriental tradition? Why do the Gholaites and their kindred Mesopotamo-Iranian Mohamedan Sects believe in the 'Noor Illahee' -- the Light of the Elohim -- transmitted in anastasis through a hundred Prophet Leaders? It is because they have continued in ignorant superstition the traditional religion of the 'Light Deities whom Jahveh overthrew' (is said to have overthrown rather); for by overthrowing them he would have overthrown himself. The'Muluk-Taoos' -- is Maluk -- 'Ruler' as is shown in the foot-note. It is only a new form of Moloch, Melek, Molech, MaIayak, and Malachim" -- Messengers, Angels, etc.
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 515 THE LOGOS AND SATAN ARE ONE.
Thus, esoteric philosophy shows that man is truly the manifested deity in both its aspects -- good and evil, but theology cannot admit this philosophical truth. Teaching the dogma of the Fallen Angels in its dead-letter meaning, and having made of Satan the corner-stone and pillar of the dogma of redemption -- to do so would be suicidal. Having once shown the rebellious angels distinct from God and the Logos in their personalities, the admission that the downfall of the disobedient Spirits meant simply their fall into generation and matter, would be equivalent to saying that God and Satan were identical. For since the LOGOS (or God) is the aggregate of that once divine Host accused of having fallen, it would follow that the Logos and Satan are one.
Yet such was the real philosophical view of the now disfigured tenet in antiquity. The Verbum, or the "Son," was shown in a dual aspect by the Pagan Gnostics -- in fact, he was a duality in full unity. Hence, the endless and various national versions. The Greeks had Jupiter, the son of Chronos, the Father, who hurls him down into the depths of Kosmos. The Aryans had Brahma (in later theology) precipitated by Siva into the Abyss of Darkness, etc., etc. But the fall of all these Logoi and Demiurgi from their primitive exalted position, had in all cases one and the same esoteric signification in it; the curse -- in its philosophical meaning -- of being incarnated on this earth; an unavoidable rung on the ladder of cosmic evolution, a highly philosophical and fitting Karmic law, without which the presence of Evil on Earth would have to remain for ever a closed mystery to the understanding of true philosophy. To say, as the author of the Esprits Tombes des Paiens (p. 347) does, that since "Christianity is made to rest on two pillars, that of evil ([[ponerou]]), and of good [[Iagathou]]; on two forces, in short, [[Iagathau kai kakai dunomeis]]: hence, if we suppress the punishment of the evil forces, the protecting mission of the good Powers will have neither value nor sense" -- is to utter the most unphilosophical absurdity. If it fits in with, and explains Christian dogma, it obscures the facts and truths of the primitive wisdom of the ages. The cautious hints of Paul have all the true esoteric meaning, and it took centuries of scholastic casuistry to give them the present false colouring in their interpretation. The verbum and Lucifer are one in their dual aspect; and the "Prince of the Air" (princeps aeris hujus) is not the "God of that period," but an everlasting principle. If the latter was said to be ever circling around the world -- qui circumambulat terram -- the great Apostle referred simply to the never-ceasing cycles of human incarnations, in which evil will ever predominate unto the day when Humanity is redeemed by the true divine Enlightenment which gives the correct perception of things.
It is easy to disfigure vague expressions written in dead and long-
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[[Vol. 2, Page]] 516 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
forgotten languages, and palm them off as truths and revealed facts on the ignorant masses.
At any rate, blavatsky wasn't writing instructions for freemasons, she was writing for members of her own religion.
SS
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Satanus
Also, the ot is not dualistic, as is the nt. The ot has evil spirits taking orders from yahweh, and even equates satan and yahweh.
1 Chronicles 21:1
Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.2 Samuel 24
1 Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, "Go and take a census of Israel and Judah."SS
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UnDisfellowshipped
Thanks SaintSatan for posting those Quotes.
That was the most confusing reading I have seen in a long time.
I honestly don't know where they come up with that stuff, and I don't know what to say.
However, I think your Quotes will show all Christians to stay away from Freemasonry.
Here are a few Quotes you posted which really caught my eye:
Lucifer is divine and terrestrial light, the "Holy Ghost" and "Satan,"
And now it stands proven that Satan, or the Red Fiery Dragon, the "Lord of Phosphorus" (brimstone was a theological improvement), and Lucifer, or "Light-Bearer," is in us: it is our Mind -- our tempter and Redeemer, our intelligent liberator and Saviour from pure animalism.
St. Paul was an Initiate
THE LOGOS AND SATAN ARE ONE.
Also, you said:
Also, the ot is not dualistic, as is the nt. The ot has evil spirits taking orders from yahweh, and even equates satan and yahweh.
I agree completely that Yahweh God Almighty gives orders to Satan and the demons.
Satan and the demons (fallen angels) are still subject to God, as is everything in existence.
Yahweh can and has and will use Satan and the demons to fulfill His purpose.
In those Bible Verses you posted, I don't believe that the Bible is equating Yahweh God with Satan, I believe that Yahweh can be said to be the One who incited David to take the Census because He was the One who used Satan to do it.
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UnDisfellowshipped
SaintSatan said:
While giving 6 pages as the source for a one paragraph quote is a little confusing, i found one of the quotes, anyway.
I am very sorry about that. I found the Quotes I posted on several different Websites on the Internet, and I supplied the References that were posted on the Websites.
SaintSatan said:So, you naturally jump to the conclusion that she is a satan worshipper. But then, you believe that anyone who doesn't worship your god or jesus is automatically worshipping satan anyway
I believe that only because that is what the Scriptures say -- From Genesis through Revelation it is clear that if you Worship ANYTHING or ANYONE other than Yahweh (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), you are sinning against God.
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dryacanthocephala
Respectfully, there are a lot of inconsistencies in the original post, and some simply false claims.
The assertion that Jesus Christ is banned from freemasonry is wholly incorrect. No freemason asks another mason their religion in lodge. One of our core tenets is respecting the spiritual and political beliefs of all other masons. This is because masonry is supposed to bring men together, and conversations about differing political and religious beliefs often divide. Whether you agree with that belief or not, no mason or masonic lodge has anything to say about Jesus Christ unless they themselves are a follower of Christ.
I've had plenty of good conversations about christianity, islam, Jehova's Witnesses and hinduism in lodge with other masons, and will probably have more in the future, and no lodge, grand lodge, or other mason cares as long as we don't try to alienate personal beliefs in those conversations. I say this to show that nobody bans the name Jesus Christ, and any mason can hold any belief in a supreme being that they want (except satanism in some locations, but that's a regional thing).
There are only three degrees in masonry. Any degrees beyond the third are not masonic, but are given by affiliated organizations, such as the scottish rite. While the scottish rite only accepts applications from those who are already masons, they themselves are not masonry. It's like saying a university is related to a high school just because they only accept applicants with high school diplomas. The university teaches its own material, and runs its own organization completely outside of the high school.
I say that mostly to point out the fallacy in saying that those without the 33rd degree don't really know masonry. The 33rd degree is conferred by a separate organization, the scottish rite, and thus is part of that organization and not freemasonry. Furthermore, the 33rd degree is not even an educational degree within the scottish rite. It is an "honorary" degree, which simply means it is given to honor someone for their dedication to the organization. No new knowledge is given with this degree, and it only serves the person in the same way that a medal or award would.
Also, the vast majority of masonic lodges are run by those who do not have the 33rd degree. The original post on this thread claimed
"The Masons in the lower Degrees are not told the Truth about what Masons truly believe and teach and do, they are not told what the true goals and purpose of the Freemasons are (Just like in the Watchtower). They are not told that they are not supposed to even talk about Jesus Christ until they reach certain Degrees."
How can Jesus Christ be kept out of lodge if those that are supposed to be keeping him out of lodge aren't told about the rule? There are millions of masons around the world, many of whom have no affiliation with the scottish rite, it being an American organization. There is no way that an American organization issuing a 33rd degree is setting any anti-Jesus Christ standards for masonry, especially since masonry is not an American organization, and does not answer to the scottish rite for anything.
I know this is a very old thread. I was looking into the Jehovas Witnesses because I want to learn more about your faith, and came across this thread. I want to add this to set the record straight for anyone else who might be wondering and stumbling across this thread. Masonry is not religious, and never has been. It does not claim to save anyone, does not claim to have any knowledge that is specific to masonry, and does not side with any religion, political agenda, nation, or otherwise. I am open to discussion because I enjoy being a devout Christian and active mason and recognize that many people are misinformed.
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peacefulpete
This stuff is like cocaine to conspiracy theorists. Why not just reach and talk to your local Masons?
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TD
Why not just reach and talk to your local Masons?
Indeed