Freemasonry

The one mall in my area's run down and on its last leg, which is a shame because I have some fond memories of that place back in its heyday. But anyway, there's a store I just recently took notice of, in the very back of it. And this place sells random antiques. I discovered today that they have antique books in stock, perhaps some from the 1800s (haven't seen the whole collection yet), and I bought one today on a whim.

It was an old handbook for the rituals of Freemasonry. In hindsight the copy that I bought is no older than the 1970s, but it appears to be a reprint of a text from the 1860s. That was the start of my trip down a weird rabbit hole.

The secret behind Freemasonry is that there is no secret. It's chock full of Biblical allusions and Protestant moral allegories, and clearly isn't its own separate, non-Christian religion. In essence, it's an art form (akin to, say, heraldry but without authentic history behind it) of rituals and ranks just for the sake of rituals and ranks and an air of mystique. Secret knocks and hand gestures, people sitting in an exact location inside a room while wearing the goofiest costumes imaginable, etc. This kind of thing should be right up my alley, but after the first page or two it started to make for some very dry reading. There was more hard-to-follow dialogue than actual explanatory material. There were a lot of metaphors relating to construction tools used in the 1800s, and a good amount of completely random jargon that even people at the time didn't consider to be real words. Granted, my atrophied attention span probably has something to do with that; at the very least, though, I could basically make out what was being said, but I could discern no real purpose behind any of it.

Some people online defend what looks to be a massive waste of time by claiming that sinking time into the rituals, which come imbued with moral lessons, have the capacity to improve one's character. There might be merit to this hypothesis. I don't know. And of course, Freemasonry today doesn't look exactly the same as it did back then. But anyway, this was a window into the very alien popular imagination of 160 years ago. Perusing this book also made it a lot easier for me to picture the environment in which Mormonism came about.

I know from personal experience that freemasons aren't the upstanding moral beacons of light they claim to be. Much like Christians in general, there is a lot of self-righteousness and trying to uphold the appearance of being a good person and underneath it they are insufferable retards who lack any good qualities whatsoever.

They're evil. Plain and simple

Yep. They are enemies to the true God and Church.

I actually agree it is that simple.

"Personal experience" LOL.

Sitting in your parents' house eating Cheetos while surfing conspiracy web sites does not constitute "personal experience".

You've never met a Freemason, as always, you are just full of shit.

I have met a freemason, a couple in fact that I know of. One is nothing special and the other is the biggest piece of shit I ever knew.

You're quite literally one of the biggest morons on this site. Your argument against determinism is "but you can't be right unless you had the choice to be right or wrong". On the contrary no one can choose how intelligent they are, and the being that is most likely to be correct about everything would be a being that has no choice but to be correct about everything.

Oh sure, I'm sure a lot of Freemason's stop by your parent's basement to split a bowl of Cheetos with you.

LOL. I'm sure you would know.

That has nothing to do with my argument of course, as with all your posts, it is about how you comprehend things in the stupidest and most incoherent way.  

But hey, I find idiots entertaining, so please, keep the stupid coming Fishboy.

Careful, you piss us off and we will put a monster under your bed, just like when you were little.

Yes, that was us..

No brother, you be careful as the real God is who we serve and he can do far more than put monsters under beds, read Old Testament.

You claim to be Christian and preach to me to show love to all faitbs and people. Then you proceed to co tinuously degrade other members and go hardest on your own God in ridicule by what you just said.

Remind me of the Apostle's creed, read the last few lines.

LOL.

Freemasonry is just another club that attracts certain people with delusions of grandeur.

Some will die of cancer, some will die from other life shortening afflictions and some will live longer...Same old shit.

Too many die at our hands without ever tasting what life has to offer, nor what they can offer to life. Until that is resolved, I couldn't care less that some die of cancer that, for over 80% of them, was caused by their own sloppy living, and not due to anything else.

Concretre was also re-invented* in the upper NY region where Joseph Smith lived, but I doubt that fact had much to do with the re-creation of concrete, the rise of Freemasonry, or the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as mutually-caused events. Coincidental events are rarely mutually causational. otherwise, the "fact" that

P1 Camels walk

P2 Birds fly

C1 [Therefore] Butterflies swim

cannot be proven, even through there is a human swimming stroke called "the butterfly."

*"re-invented," not invented [it is traced to 1830 in NY] because the Roman's created concrete, and it could even be cured underwater, and we're only now learning how to do that.

 I would agree that for most people, ongoing health and fitness is primarily the responsibility of the individual, though there are obvious exceptions that make up your other 20%.

As for your opening reference to "without ever tasting life"...I can only guess at the implication behind this dramatic and somewhat contradictory metaphor.

Sure, but what I meant was there are similarities to Mormonism (I.e. Mormonism copied Freemasonry, which is obviously the older of the two).

It's a secretive men-only fraternity with degrees of membership, just like the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods of the LDS.  I remember hearing that Mormon temple initiation ceremonies up until at least the '70s or '80s involved oaths not to reveal its secrets on pains of bloody dismemberment, and I came across some of that in the Masonic text as well, specifically I think in reference to the Hiram Abiff myth (on a random side note, the idea that a guy was a righteous martyr because he refused to give up a trade secret that might've benefited the world if put into wider circulation is silly to me).

It appears that the Mormon endowment ceremony up until at least the '90s made use of a square and compass, and many items of symbolism that were explained to the initiate during such, just like in Freemasonry. Heck, even the manner of speaking heavily resembles what I saw in the Masonic text.