Freemasonry, although not a religion, expressly prohibits atheists from joining the Craft due to religious considerations. Of course there are others who are barred from joining, like women, young men in their non-age and old men in their dot-age, but their exclusion are due not to religion but to other reasons.
But are atheists the only persons who are barred on account of their religious conviction, or precisely, the lack of it? Let the aging lion now offer two other curious words in addition to atheists as defined Webster’s in Dictionary. This group, for the purpose of this article, will be called unbelievers.
I. THE UNBELEIVERS
Atheist- One who denies the existence of God.
Agnostic- Of or relating to the belief that the existence of any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable.
Naturalist- One who advocates or practice the doctrine that denies a supernatural explanation of the origin, development, or end of the universe, and holds that scientific laws account for everything in nature.
From the above-mentioned definitions, both the atheist and the naturalist share the same belief that denies the existence of an Omnipotent God whereas the agnostic does not know and will probably end up not knowing till the end of time.
The same premise apparently holds true in so far as the existence of the soul is concerned except that to naturalists, birth, death and resurrection indeed apply in the form of science by observing all living things although nothing is mentioned at all about the soul.
II. THE BELIEVERS
People who believe in the Almighty can be categorized many ways, the most common of which are traceable to the religions that sprouted from two ancient civilizations, namely, that from the ancient Near East in old India, those that were established by the Semites in ancient Mesopotamia and from other sources. Here are eight of them.
A. From the ancient religions of the Near East.
1. The Hindus- this religion has about 330 million Gods, the most famous of whom are Brahma, Visnu and Siva. Their book of the Holy Writings is called Bhagavad-gita and have four social classes called (a) the Brahmins (priests), (b) Katriyas (warriors), (c) Vaisyas and (d) Sudras, the last two of which are underlings who served the first two classes. Its principal tenet revolves around the karmic effect of reincarnation and the eventual cleansing of the soul until it finally soars to the mighty heavens when freed of worldly sins. The large number of Gods may be intelligible and may be incomprehensible to non-Hindus but may probably be understood if the other gods are simply classified as saints as Christians do.
2. The Buddhists- Buddhism is a religion founded by Siddhartha Gautama who was born around 586 BC and grew up amidst luxury. He eventually left the worldly life of comfort and took the life of a wandering recluse. Buddha is not a God but one who has achieved that status after death. Its scriptures, in addition to the Bhagavad-gita, are the compiled teachings of Buddha. Its votaries comprise the inhabitants of the Chinese mainland, Korea, Japan and many of the other Southeast Asian nations notably Burma, Laos and Thailand and accounts for about forty percent of the world’s population and is probably the largest religion in the world. Like the Jains, the Buddhists have deep respect for animal life.
3. The Jains- Like the Hindus, this religion was founded (or re-founded) by Mahavra who was born around 599 B. C and claims its existence from immemorial antiquity. Their beliefs are said to be more strict and terse than Buddhism, they who strains their drinking water, wear masks and so on, to prevent them from accidentally taking life of living creatures since this act, even when not done on purpose, can bring bad karmic effect. Their austere life explains their dwindling members now to only about 3 million and located in India.
This religion has no concept of a Creator and that the Universe is roughly like the shape of a person with the population located somewhere at the waist, with the upper part representing the Heavens and the lower part representing Hell.. When after a series of reincarnations the soul finally is purified from its earthly sins, the soul rises up where it then forever resides free from pain.
B. FROM THE SEMITIC RELIGIONS
1. Judaism- Generally believed to be founded by Moses who was said to be responsible for the compilation of the Pentateuch which is the first five books of the Old Testament, this religion echoed the spiritual cravings of the Israelites and is considered the mother religion of both Christianity and Islam. Its God is either called Yahweh, Jehovah, El Shaddai, etc depending on what version or translation of the Holy Bible one reads..
2. Christianity- a breakaway and revolutionary group from Judaism, this religion sprouted from the face of the earth after the death of Jesus Christ, the perceived Messiah of the Israelites. Curiously, its rapid growth was ignited not by the mainstream Jews but by converts to the faith, especially Saul who was at one time a Roman soldier and who later took the name Paul when he propagated the faith to the Gentiles..
This religion was further strengthened by Emperor Constantine in 325 AD when at the Council of Nicea he made Christianity the official religion of Rome. It then spread like wildfire to Europe during the Middle Ages and then to the Americas and finally reaching even the far-away Philippines.
Christianity, incidentally is the most fragmented religion in the entire world what with its many sects that sprouted like mushrooms everywhere, each one claiming to be the sole repository of religious truth. In the Philippines alone, it has the Iglesia Filipina Independiente or the Aglipayan Church, the Iglesia ni Cristo, the Ang Dating Daan Movementof Eli Soriano, and the many other Protestant denominations that were established in Europe and in the Americas that have also successfully established branches in almost all the corners of the entire world, in addition to the Roman Catholic Church that the conquering Spaniards brought with them at the advent of the age of the Conquistadors. .
3. Islam- this religion was founded by Muhammad who is believed to have been born in AD 570. Its sacred book is called the Koran, the word of God that was revealed in Arabic by archangel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad. This religion initially started in Mecca and by painstaking effort converted the adjoining towns up to the time of his death. In its teachings, the prophets of the faith include Abraham, Ishmael, Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mohammad being the last prophet in line.
This faith is considered aggressive because it allows its votaries to use the sword if need be in propagating the faith, and it is from religion where the word assassin was derived. Reaching as far as India, it also managed to have devotees in Pakistan and Bangladesh that caused the undue reduction of the Hindus in those places. Like the Roman Catholics it ultimately found its way to the Philippines where the MNLF and the MILF are the source of irritants of the Philippine government This religion, by some estimates, accounts for about 15 percent of the world’s population.
To understand this faith clearly, one is encouraged to learn the Arabic language as adherents claim, much is lost during translation into other languages.
C. FROM OTHER SOURCES
1. Zoroastrianism- One religion that has placed impressive impact during the ancient times and has even profoundly influenced the medieval times is the one founded by Zarathustra, a prophet who live sometime 600 BC in Syria. This religion expounds the belief that there are two Gods; one of good and the other of evil, the former called Ahura Mazda, and the latter Angra Mainyu, who are perpetually battling each other with varied fortunes. This religion is apparently the mother religion of Manichaeism, the Bogomils and the Cathars of Southern France, religions that believed in the dual principal gods, the last adherents of which were wiped out during the Inquisition sometime in the 1330’s. Tailings of this religion may still be found in India in but in significantly reduced number and are called the Pharsees. This group apparently are the same believers that were mentioned in the New Testament and were called the Pharisees during the time of Jesus Christ..
2. Pantheism- Webster’s compact dictionary defines this word as “a doctrine that equates God with the forces and laws of the universe.” Unknown even to many, its tenets, if you may call it that, is expounded in the 18· conferral of Scottish Rite and is succinctly summarized in the acronym INRI, the first word symbolizing the Infinity of God, the second representing Nature, the third meaning Reason, and the last symbolizing the Immortality of the Soul. If you doubt the writer’s word, take or refresh yourself on the said Scottish Rite conferral but don’t dare doze off while the lecture is concisely being explained.
This writer could not say for certain but it appears this doctrine is much similar to Jainism (see A-3) that was explained earlier.
From these eight religions may be classified two groups of people, the first comprising the multitude who are being assisted by the priests and are therefore considered passive believers- those who pray, go to sacred sites like the Benares for the Hindus, Mecca for the Muslims and Rome for the Catholics, and do the biddings of their appointed leaders. The other group comprise the adepts who explore the mysteries of religion on their own. As Francis Bacon, in his treatise “The Advancement of Learning” in 1605 said:
“Nay, Solomon, the king, although he excelled in the glory of the treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to all those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth, for so he sayeth expressly, “The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out”, as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide his work, to the end to have them found out as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God’s playfellows in that game.”
III. THE THORNY SUBJECT OF GOD AND CREATION
Let those believers and progenitors of the faith declare that theirs is the only true religion although these may have been established only in the last century. But to this writer, the question is simply whether to believe in the Almighty or not. If God is non-existent, should it not follow that creation is only a matter of semantics, a word that the irreligious or the nonbelievers insist is the case?!
Let now this writer offer a few fallacious statements of one imminent psychologist who debunks the belief that God is a myth in an article that was posted in the Web, the relevant portions of which will be quoted in this article but without the author being mentioned.
1. When President (George) Bush allegedly said:
“God told me to strike Al Qaeda and I struck them and then, he instructed me to strike Saddam, most Americans were not alarmed to learn that their leader was receiving orders that no one could hear. America is an unusually religious nation the majority of people claim to believe in God.”
.
2. Quote from Albert Einstein
“I had deep religiosity, which, however, found an abrupt ending at the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies. It was a crushing impression. Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude which were alive in any specific social environment- an attitude which has never left me.” (Autobiographical notes 1949)
3. Quote on the naturalist, William Paley, who laid the groundwork for the modern notion of intelligent design when he asked us to imagine what we would conclude wee we to come across a watch lying on the ground.
“The inference, we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker- that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer, who comprehended its construction and designed its use.” (Natural Theology, 1802)
In other words, a watch is not a random assemblage of parts but a structured, ordered, obviously non-random assemblage of parts- and non random assemblage requires explanations. The existence of an intelligent assembler is a tempting explanation if only because it is at once so familiar and so complete. For most people, the material universe, biological life, and human consciousness are the kinds of curious, complex, well ordered phenomena that require explanation, an and intelligent designer provide just that.
But there are at least two problems with this explanation. First, the explanations that rely on the inexplicable are not explanations at all. They have the form of an explanation, but they do not have the content. Yet psychology experiments reveal that people are often satisfied with empty form. For instance, when experimenters approached people who were standing in line at a photo machine and said: “Can I get ahead of you?” the typical answer is No. But when they added at the end of his request the words” because I need to make some copies,” the typical answer was Yes.” The second request used the word “because” and sounded like an explanation, and the fact that this explanation told them nothing that they didn’t already know was oddly irrelevant.
Should the reader desire to read the article adverted to, he is advised to click http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gilbert05/gilbert05_index.html but the aging lion hereby warns you, you should be able to read, digest, discriminate, otherwise, this article is not for you..
This writer does not claim to be more knowledgeable than the author of the said article where these three quotations were lifted but point by point, here are his comments.
On Item 1- Too bad he accepted the words of President George W. Bush as gospel truth. Tsk,. tsk, tsk. Has it ever dawned on the author that Bush is a politician and an incorrigible liar, much like a lady president of another place.?
On Item 2- Albert Einstein, no doubt, was a genius in the scientific world. But about 70% of the world’s population are not Christians who do not believe in the Bible, and the while the remaining 30% are Christians, a large number doubts its infallibility and many of the remainder have not read that sacred book at all. It is much similar to an uninitiated who, after reading a portion of Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma, generously supposed that it is Masonry’s sacred book and thus, any statement that counters his own beliefs are presumed by him to be sacrilegious and totally blasphemous.
Simply because Einstein said that there are many untruths (as he said it) in the Bible does not prove that God did not exist at all.
On Item 3- The example on the assumption that the watch probably has an artificer is fine. But the example on the copying machine is horrendous.
The second example using the word “because” won’t work because the natural law of “falling in line” demands that you wait for your turn. Except of course, if you press the nuzzle of a gun at the people ahead of you saying “If you don’t let me get ahead , I’ll use this gun at you.”
The start of creation then is a very tricky question. Naturalists claim that since Creation of the universe could not be proved then ergo, there is no Creator.
Well, oh well, this article has now exceeded the length allowed for an article like this. But now the writer knows why religion (or the lack of it) does not deserve to be discussed at all in a lodge room.
The conclusion is now yours!
But are atheists the only persons who are barred on account of their religious conviction, or precisely, the lack of it? Let the aging lion now offer two other curious words in addition to atheists as defined Webster’s in Dictionary. This group, for the purpose of this article, will be called unbelievers.
I. THE UNBELEIVERS
Atheist- One who denies the existence of God.
Agnostic- Of or relating to the belief that the existence of any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable.
Naturalist- One who advocates or practice the doctrine that denies a supernatural explanation of the origin, development, or end of the universe, and holds that scientific laws account for everything in nature.
From the above-mentioned definitions, both the atheist and the naturalist share the same belief that denies the existence of an Omnipotent God whereas the agnostic does not know and will probably end up not knowing till the end of time.
The same premise apparently holds true in so far as the existence of the soul is concerned except that to naturalists, birth, death and resurrection indeed apply in the form of science by observing all living things although nothing is mentioned at all about the soul.
II. THE BELIEVERS
People who believe in the Almighty can be categorized many ways, the most common of which are traceable to the religions that sprouted from two ancient civilizations, namely, that from the ancient Near East in old India, those that were established by the Semites in ancient Mesopotamia and from other sources. Here are eight of them.
A. From the ancient religions of the Near East.
1. The Hindus- this religion has about 330 million Gods, the most famous of whom are Brahma, Visnu and Siva. Their book of the Holy Writings is called Bhagavad-gita and have four social classes called (a) the Brahmins (priests), (b) Katriyas (warriors), (c) Vaisyas and (d) Sudras, the last two of which are underlings who served the first two classes. Its principal tenet revolves around the karmic effect of reincarnation and the eventual cleansing of the soul until it finally soars to the mighty heavens when freed of worldly sins. The large number of Gods may be intelligible and may be incomprehensible to non-Hindus but may probably be understood if the other gods are simply classified as saints as Christians do.
2. The Buddhists- Buddhism is a religion founded by Siddhartha Gautama who was born around 586 BC and grew up amidst luxury. He eventually left the worldly life of comfort and took the life of a wandering recluse. Buddha is not a God but one who has achieved that status after death. Its scriptures, in addition to the Bhagavad-gita, are the compiled teachings of Buddha. Its votaries comprise the inhabitants of the Chinese mainland, Korea, Japan and many of the other Southeast Asian nations notably Burma, Laos and Thailand and accounts for about forty percent of the world’s population and is probably the largest religion in the world. Like the Jains, the Buddhists have deep respect for animal life.
3. The Jains- Like the Hindus, this religion was founded (or re-founded) by Mahavra who was born around 599 B. C and claims its existence from immemorial antiquity. Their beliefs are said to be more strict and terse than Buddhism, they who strains their drinking water, wear masks and so on, to prevent them from accidentally taking life of living creatures since this act, even when not done on purpose, can bring bad karmic effect. Their austere life explains their dwindling members now to only about 3 million and located in India.
This religion has no concept of a Creator and that the Universe is roughly like the shape of a person with the population located somewhere at the waist, with the upper part representing the Heavens and the lower part representing Hell.. When after a series of reincarnations the soul finally is purified from its earthly sins, the soul rises up where it then forever resides free from pain.
B. FROM THE SEMITIC RELIGIONS
1. Judaism- Generally believed to be founded by Moses who was said to be responsible for the compilation of the Pentateuch which is the first five books of the Old Testament, this religion echoed the spiritual cravings of the Israelites and is considered the mother religion of both Christianity and Islam. Its God is either called Yahweh, Jehovah, El Shaddai, etc depending on what version or translation of the Holy Bible one reads..
2. Christianity- a breakaway and revolutionary group from Judaism, this religion sprouted from the face of the earth after the death of Jesus Christ, the perceived Messiah of the Israelites. Curiously, its rapid growth was ignited not by the mainstream Jews but by converts to the faith, especially Saul who was at one time a Roman soldier and who later took the name Paul when he propagated the faith to the Gentiles..
This religion was further strengthened by Emperor Constantine in 325 AD when at the Council of Nicea he made Christianity the official religion of Rome. It then spread like wildfire to Europe during the Middle Ages and then to the Americas and finally reaching even the far-away Philippines.
Christianity, incidentally is the most fragmented religion in the entire world what with its many sects that sprouted like mushrooms everywhere, each one claiming to be the sole repository of religious truth. In the Philippines alone, it has the Iglesia Filipina Independiente or the Aglipayan Church, the Iglesia ni Cristo, the Ang Dating Daan Movementof Eli Soriano, and the many other Protestant denominations that were established in Europe and in the Americas that have also successfully established branches in almost all the corners of the entire world, in addition to the Roman Catholic Church that the conquering Spaniards brought with them at the advent of the age of the Conquistadors. .
3. Islam- this religion was founded by Muhammad who is believed to have been born in AD 570. Its sacred book is called the Koran, the word of God that was revealed in Arabic by archangel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad. This religion initially started in Mecca and by painstaking effort converted the adjoining towns up to the time of his death. In its teachings, the prophets of the faith include Abraham, Ishmael, Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mohammad being the last prophet in line.
This faith is considered aggressive because it allows its votaries to use the sword if need be in propagating the faith, and it is from religion where the word assassin was derived. Reaching as far as India, it also managed to have devotees in Pakistan and Bangladesh that caused the undue reduction of the Hindus in those places. Like the Roman Catholics it ultimately found its way to the Philippines where the MNLF and the MILF are the source of irritants of the Philippine government This religion, by some estimates, accounts for about 15 percent of the world’s population.
To understand this faith clearly, one is encouraged to learn the Arabic language as adherents claim, much is lost during translation into other languages.
C. FROM OTHER SOURCES
1. Zoroastrianism- One religion that has placed impressive impact during the ancient times and has even profoundly influenced the medieval times is the one founded by Zarathustra, a prophet who live sometime 600 BC in Syria. This religion expounds the belief that there are two Gods; one of good and the other of evil, the former called Ahura Mazda, and the latter Angra Mainyu, who are perpetually battling each other with varied fortunes. This religion is apparently the mother religion of Manichaeism, the Bogomils and the Cathars of Southern France, religions that believed in the dual principal gods, the last adherents of which were wiped out during the Inquisition sometime in the 1330’s. Tailings of this religion may still be found in India in but in significantly reduced number and are called the Pharsees. This group apparently are the same believers that were mentioned in the New Testament and were called the Pharisees during the time of Jesus Christ..
2. Pantheism- Webster’s compact dictionary defines this word as “a doctrine that equates God with the forces and laws of the universe.” Unknown even to many, its tenets, if you may call it that, is expounded in the 18· conferral of Scottish Rite and is succinctly summarized in the acronym INRI, the first word symbolizing the Infinity of God, the second representing Nature, the third meaning Reason, and the last symbolizing the Immortality of the Soul. If you doubt the writer’s word, take or refresh yourself on the said Scottish Rite conferral but don’t dare doze off while the lecture is concisely being explained.
This writer could not say for certain but it appears this doctrine is much similar to Jainism (see A-3) that was explained earlier.
From these eight religions may be classified two groups of people, the first comprising the multitude who are being assisted by the priests and are therefore considered passive believers- those who pray, go to sacred sites like the Benares for the Hindus, Mecca for the Muslims and Rome for the Catholics, and do the biddings of their appointed leaders. The other group comprise the adepts who explore the mysteries of religion on their own. As Francis Bacon, in his treatise “The Advancement of Learning” in 1605 said:
“Nay, Solomon, the king, although he excelled in the glory of the treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to all those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth, for so he sayeth expressly, “The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out”, as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide his work, to the end to have them found out as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God’s playfellows in that game.”
III. THE THORNY SUBJECT OF GOD AND CREATION
Let those believers and progenitors of the faith declare that theirs is the only true religion although these may have been established only in the last century. But to this writer, the question is simply whether to believe in the Almighty or not. If God is non-existent, should it not follow that creation is only a matter of semantics, a word that the irreligious or the nonbelievers insist is the case?!
Let now this writer offer a few fallacious statements of one imminent psychologist who debunks the belief that God is a myth in an article that was posted in the Web, the relevant portions of which will be quoted in this article but without the author being mentioned.
1. When President (George) Bush allegedly said:
“God told me to strike Al Qaeda and I struck them and then, he instructed me to strike Saddam, most Americans were not alarmed to learn that their leader was receiving orders that no one could hear. America is an unusually religious nation the majority of people claim to believe in God.”
.
2. Quote from Albert Einstein
“I had deep religiosity, which, however, found an abrupt ending at the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies. It was a crushing impression. Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude which were alive in any specific social environment- an attitude which has never left me.” (Autobiographical notes 1949)
3. Quote on the naturalist, William Paley, who laid the groundwork for the modern notion of intelligent design when he asked us to imagine what we would conclude wee we to come across a watch lying on the ground.
“The inference, we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker- that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer, who comprehended its construction and designed its use.” (Natural Theology, 1802)
In other words, a watch is not a random assemblage of parts but a structured, ordered, obviously non-random assemblage of parts- and non random assemblage requires explanations. The existence of an intelligent assembler is a tempting explanation if only because it is at once so familiar and so complete. For most people, the material universe, biological life, and human consciousness are the kinds of curious, complex, well ordered phenomena that require explanation, an and intelligent designer provide just that.
But there are at least two problems with this explanation. First, the explanations that rely on the inexplicable are not explanations at all. They have the form of an explanation, but they do not have the content. Yet psychology experiments reveal that people are often satisfied with empty form. For instance, when experimenters approached people who were standing in line at a photo machine and said: “Can I get ahead of you?” the typical answer is No. But when they added at the end of his request the words” because I need to make some copies,” the typical answer was Yes.” The second request used the word “because” and sounded like an explanation, and the fact that this explanation told them nothing that they didn’t already know was oddly irrelevant.
Should the reader desire to read the article adverted to, he is advised to click http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gilbert05/gilbert05_index.html but the aging lion hereby warns you, you should be able to read, digest, discriminate, otherwise, this article is not for you..
This writer does not claim to be more knowledgeable than the author of the said article where these three quotations were lifted but point by point, here are his comments.
On Item 1- Too bad he accepted the words of President George W. Bush as gospel truth. Tsk,. tsk, tsk. Has it ever dawned on the author that Bush is a politician and an incorrigible liar, much like a lady president of another place.?
On Item 2- Albert Einstein, no doubt, was a genius in the scientific world. But about 70% of the world’s population are not Christians who do not believe in the Bible, and the while the remaining 30% are Christians, a large number doubts its infallibility and many of the remainder have not read that sacred book at all. It is much similar to an uninitiated who, after reading a portion of Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma, generously supposed that it is Masonry’s sacred book and thus, any statement that counters his own beliefs are presumed by him to be sacrilegious and totally blasphemous.
Simply because Einstein said that there are many untruths (as he said it) in the Bible does not prove that God did not exist at all.
On Item 3- The example on the assumption that the watch probably has an artificer is fine. But the example on the copying machine is horrendous.
The second example using the word “because” won’t work because the natural law of “falling in line” demands that you wait for your turn. Except of course, if you press the nuzzle of a gun at the people ahead of you saying “If you don’t let me get ahead , I’ll use this gun at you.”
The start of creation then is a very tricky question. Naturalists claim that since Creation of the universe could not be proved then ergo, there is no Creator.
Well, oh well, this article has now exceeded the length allowed for an article like this. But now the writer knows why religion (or the lack of it) does not deserve to be discussed at all in a lodge room.
The conclusion is now yours!
Comments
Fraternally,
Bro Elmer Astudillo
Indang Masonic Lodge no. 115
Leon:
Nice comprehensive article. I have a short reaction. While Freemasonry can set its own rules as to which persons they will accept, I think atheism alone should not be isolated as a barring characteristic.
One can declare himself easily as believing in God, but it is his own concept of God. Each person eventually develops his own religion, his own set of tenets that he believes in. Thus, finally and eventually, his own personal God is one that he believes will reward him (with something) or punish him (with something). One's God is ultimately self-serving (through the promise of salvation or the threat of eternal damnation), even though in the course of one person's life he can be a benefit to or persecutor of society. Ultimately, it is the morals and ethics that should be the gauge of acceptance, and not the mere declaration of theistic belief. Good Atheists, Naturalists, Agnostics, Christians, Hindus, Muslims essentially share a common theme, which is the promotion of the common good, a better life for every one, and tolerance for differences. It is often the deeply religious that blow themselves up as suicide bombers or execute genocide in the gas chambers.
Non Believer
Dear Non Believer:
That was a very good reaction, unfortunately, it is off tangent.
The only reason atheists are not welcome to join Freemasonry (and I guess even agnostics and naturalists would also not qualify if they would not expressly declare belief in God), despite the many virtues atheism possesses, is the fact that they could not be made to swear to certain obligations which the Masonic Fraternity deemed mandatory for joining.
In simple language, when you swear, you hold yourself responsible to somebody Omnipotent but when you affirm, you simply assures that you will make good your word.
You mentioned that “One can declare himself easily as believing in God, but it is his own concept of God”, and this is fine for as long as he has faith in his own God. Faith, after all, is what differentiates the believers from the non-believers. But if he lied because he in reality does not have a concept of God whatever that may be, then that would be another story as all liars can always do!
This may be a matter of semantics, but those who do not believe in God can only affirm but not swear (those who believe in God are obligated to do so) to certain obligations. Thus, a President, for example, will be made to swear to the book of faith he believes in(the Holy Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, the Guru Granth Sahib, etc.), but can only be made to affirm to his responsibilities if he has no concept of a God to swear his obligations to. And that is where the hairline distinction sets in.
You also mentioned about acceptance – by whom? Believers, I’m sure, would want acceptance from God, non-believers, I guess, would want acceptance from history and mankind, and there lies the difference.
You are right, suicide bombers and genocide experts often cause mass destruction to humanity. But this does not exclude eccentric atheists, agnostics and naturalists either. And have you ever considered those who invented the gas chambers and even the hydrogen bomb are the scientists who are most likely atheists or agnostics who don’t believe in God?!
Thanks for your reaction.
Leon
-------
Leon,
I guess this is where I distinctly disagree with: that a person must be made to swear and be accountable to a "higher entity" as opposed to having true personal integrity and committing to one's own word. I personally believe that one's own principles should be the basis of one's character, and these principles should hold up to any test, be it religious, scientific, or ethical. Thus, it is unfortunate that I can not be a Freemason on the basis of this logic, but other persons can become Freemasons yet have beliefs and principles as firm as nata-de-coco.
I pity those who can sleep soundly at night thinking shallowly that their god will save them, and I emphatize with all those who turn around in their sleep, challenging their beliefs and principles and the purpose and meaning of their lives. As for some atheists and some theists, I despise those whose use their lack of belief or strong belief of god for their intolerance.
Regards,
Non Believer
---
Dear Non Believer:
That’s well said. But the Masonic Fraternity has its own rules. Women, children and atheists are barred from joining for distinctly separate reasons. One can pity their members, spit on them, curse them, despise them. do anything, say anything, but that is all there is to it.
The Royal Society, the organization that explores the frontiers of science, an organization where but a handful can join because of its own unique standards of admission, is a creation of the Masonic Fraternity. Many its members are atheists and therefore could not become members of the latter because of that peculiar rule. But that is how it is and if that is not tolerance, I don’t know what is, although perhaps, it is but a matter of semantics.
One of the most important tenets of the Fraternity is “those who best work and best agree”, and if you cannot agree with it, it’s alright, There is another thing, it does not invite outsiders to become members. A person may even be holier, may be the most intelligent creature alive, or may have beliefs more outstanding and more admirable than those who profess belief in an Omnipotent Being but sadly, that is how the cookie crumbles- he still does not qualify, and that’s it.
I guess that is about there is to be said.
Leon
We recently came across your site, lionrroar.blogspot.com, while searching for fellow christian bloggers.
A small group of us have started a new site called Christian Bloggers. Our prayer and intent is to bring Christians closer together, and make a positive contribution to the Internet community. While many of us have different "theologies", we all share one true saviour.
Would you be interested in joining Christian Bloggers?
Please take a few minutes to have a look at what we are trying to do, and if you are interested, there is a sign up page to get the ball rolling. We would greatly appreciate your support in this endeavour.
May God Bless you and your blogging efforts. We look forward to hearing from you.
Craig Cantin
Christian Bloggers
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Gentlemen:
It is with regrets that I cannot accept your very generous invitation. As a writer who does not discriminate nor take public bias on personal religious beliefs, I might find myself in a very awkward situation should I write something that is not in accord with your own orthodox Christian dogmas..
Nonetheless, please accept my heartfelt thanks for your kind consideration.
Very truly yours,
GEMINIANO V. GALAROSA, JR.