Freemasons: Evil secret society or misunderstood nice guys...

Originally posted by DeVore
I think I was wrong and I hate being wrong.

DeV.

Y'know that is such a handy lil quote I may file that away for further reference

As for over obessing well the thing is you do have a set of expectations but you dont seem any closer to proving them one was or the other and the more you learn the more fascinated you become and it will drive you demeneted ( or more demented then you are ).

/Thead wonders how many San points Dev has left.

Maybe you should rest that part of your brain a lil then rerurn and review what you have learned .

I think you may have a very busy new years Dev but at least it wont be boring

Interesting discussion. While not wanting to digress, I have to say that chill's actions in his work sends a... ahem.. chill down my spine.

This is the reason there are LAWS against discrimination. You seem to be proud of what you've done chill but really you're just lucky.

Lucky that the people you discriminated against (illegally IMO) did not take legal action.

With respect, you have a strange sense of right and wrong. You say no to freemasons, but yes to breaking the law.

Ganam

To start with I have to say that this is one of the most intriguing threads I've ever read on boards ... thanks Dev, I've just spent almost 2 hours [of work] reading through this thread [& the associated links] ... most productive 2 hours I've had in ages

In relation to my stance on the freemasons, I don't really have 1! I don't know any freemasons or @ least if I do, they have never informed me of the fact. I'm just one more of the un-informed people who have had there perceptions moulded by the media, church, peers etc ... shame on me!

Although I have always been a firm believer of if something is secret it can't be good, the whole idea of a secret society does lend to excitement.

My only real knowledge, & I say knowledge in the loosest of terms, comes from my father & of course the aforementioned episode of the Simpsons [which does give some level of understanding to why Steve Guttenberg was a star ].

Of course, I have like most of us heard the conspiracy theories that have attached themselves to the freemasons, but I suppose like everything else, when an answer can't be found or the answer provided doesn't really hold water, we [society as a whole] try to pin it to those who are less transparent in their dealings than we would like!!

It looks like I'll probably be the last poster to this thread, since Dev hasn't given any more insight he may have gleaned in a while, so this reply is more for me being able to voice my thoughts rather than recommencing the topic!

Originally posted by Stephen
Why do the freemasons not allow atheists to join? Atheists can be just as morally minded as the religious.

AFAIK to be a freemason, one must believe in a high being (i.e. God, Allah, Buddha etc.)

See http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?postid=655322#post655322

Damn! I treid and tried to keep off this one. I think there's almost too much to say here (so I PM'd DeVore with some entertainment stuff, haha) but:

Chill, your decision to disallow candidates for a job is something that is highly discriminatory: fact is, catholics, muslims, preotestants, boy scouts, golfers ALL have a significant track record of employing via nepotism: sure, many don't, but many do - our country is pretty much a testament to nepotism, and our behaviour in the US also -

So if a track record for nepotism is a problem, then surely anyone (especially that category, you know the bunch, the ones who all work together, and employ each other, keeping their wages high and everyone else's low... what's the name again.... oh yes: MEN)is just as capable of absorbing influences outside the work place?

Especially christians, who are such a self righteous bunch sometimes that they reckon their moral values are enough to fix the world.

So would you deny a job to a catholic? Or a jewish person? (no offense to any jews or catholics, but if you dig deep and long enough you lot have been helping each other out all the way down the line, LOL) For the same reasons?

just curious - and also wondering if you're trolling, it's just the "dead right I did" makes me wonder if you're just out to shock people.

For my 2 cents, I trust the freemasons much, much more than say, the catholic church. But that doesn't mean I trust them a huge amount; I CERTAINLY do not think they are engaged in mad daft conspiracies to insert radio control suppositories in the rear ends of every schizophrenic in the world ;-) - seriously though, use logic: if you wanted to control the world, why use one of the best known "secret societies" in the world? Why not use a new one? An actually really nobody-knows-about-it secret one?

Chill, your cynicism is hilarious: if a freemason said "yes, I and all my brothers are alien sodomites from KaBlooga 6" would you then assume they were lying? And that the truth was that they're actually members of an old yet not very sinister club?

IMHO, the freemasons certainly respect knowledge, tradition and the skills of the tradesmen they used to represent in society: and I have never seen convincing evidence of their nefarious activity. So that scores them huge points over most other 500+ year old organisations.

Anyways: questions for the Masons here, I'm SO curious about this thingy:

1) have any of you read "from hell" by alan moore, which suggests Sir William Gull, an eminent freemason, was Jack the Ripper (and no, it does not suggest that the freemasons made him do it)?

2) if you have, then could you inform as to the accuracy of the "jah-bul-on" representation of the master architect? I found the trappings of masonic tradition explored here to be fascinating in the extreme, and I'd love to read more on the subject of the "dyonisian architects" and the ideas of tradition that the masons preserve.

...but don't have me killed and abducted by 12ft lizards, please. I'd really hate that.

;-)

Aha - yeah, I know the significance of the trinity-name for the older god. Reason I asked was that it's one of the foundations of respect I have for the masons: any institution that can allow as broad interpretation of divinity as to include osiris is at *least* interesting in my opinion, if not enlightened in the extreme.

i was wondering if it was a fiction or not.

To be honest, DeVore, I'm jealous as hell: not that i think you've embarked on a journey that will wind up with you being shown the foundations of the world, the secrets of foucalts pendulum and the holy grail ;-)

but simply because I'd imagine there's a fair reserve of egalitarian knowledge at your disposal now.

And one last question: have any masons read 'from hell'?

Cos I'm thinking of dropping a copy round to molesworth street, haha.

havent had time to read all the posts. I believe the negative attitude towards freemasons is derived from the "illuminati" connections, the majority of which freemasons are unaware of.
I understand that the Da Vinci code and Angels and demons have brought such issues to light and have brought about a lot of paranoia in the process, could such conspiracy theories actually exist in reality.

I don't know if this will be understood in terms I would like it to be and I hope I don't get shot down for this, but I was initiated into a group which was "illuminati" at the core. If you take out the conspiracy values, much of what I experienced is mysticism on a hardcore scale. Its difficult to describe, but I look back now and think I was under some hypnotic influence for three years. (it was american based) Brainwashed. It was by all means for the first two years a society which was based on fundemental qualities such as charity and love for humanity and the desire to bring equality to all.
Think Golden dawn.
I see so much of it in Bush now, when I hear him say, God talks through him and thats how he can do his job, he's obviously been fed the same stuff.
It's not a game either, and its not as easy as saying "wake up and smell the coffee", as far as these people are concerned they are the "awake" and as long as they continue to connect with their "divine aspect" they can use this "ability" to influence the masses, by means of critical mass.

do they control the higher echelons of society? YES