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Post by billmcelligott on Jan 30, 2008 17:57:31 GMT
Where Mike can not agree is, that in Freemasonry if you ask each person who is the Great Architect of the Universe each will answer in the Faith he has, I would say Jesus , some may say Allah, another Buddha some Lee Stafford.
The Christian fundamentalist will say there is no other God, the Freemason will say may your God go with you.
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Tamrin
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Nosce te ipsum
Posts: 3,586
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 30, 2008 19:50:49 GMT
I'm still here Corab. But my focus is on mainstream Freemasonry and what it teaches, not Co-Masonry, for it is not mainstream and as far as I know most mainstream Grand Lodges don't even recognize them as 'regular.' So does this mean because they are not deemed regular they are not worth saving?
Nice to know you are discriminatory in who you want to save! I find it bizarre to find Mike buying into the "regularity" issue. In Reply #12 he had written of non-masonic gatherings of Christians and others, saying he did not object to them: In those settings they do not come together for the purpose of expressing a spiritual brotherhood under an all-encompassing, generic deity. I suggest we have no ONE generic deity, which is what Mike appears to be trying to invent on our behalf.
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Tamrin
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Nosce te ipsum
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 30, 2008 19:55:06 GMT
Where Mike can not agree is, that in Freemasonry if you ask each person who is the Great Architect of the Universe each will answer in the Faith he has, I would say Jesus , some may say Allah, another Buddha some Lee Stafford.
The Christian fundamentalist will say there is no other God, the Freemason will say may your God go with you. Tennyson's, The Idylls of the King: " The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and God fulfills himself in many ways lest one good custom should corrupt the world."
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Tamrin
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Nosce te ipsum
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 30, 2008 20:28:25 GMT
Mike, Would you object to non-Christians being Freemasons? Yes, I rather they become Christians, and I trust Jesus would prefer that as well. Yehashua Ben Yoseph was a Jew.Indeed. Here it is that Mike has lost me. Paulianity, as opposed to Christianity, has it that Jesus is the only son of God, whereas I perceive there is one life, one vine (God, if you will), of which we are each expressions (Jesus being an especially beautiful expression). Moreover, while there is grace, there is no vicarious redemption, the change comes from within, from the vine, which for one represents Christ and for another represents the deity of their faith. I am the true vine, my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from him you can do nothing. If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the blades are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. John 15: 1-6
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Post by wayseer on Jan 30, 2008 22:04:40 GMT
So does this mean because they are not deemed regular they are not worth saving?
Nice to know you are discriminatory in who you want to save!
You might note that Nomore's Christian God is judemental, hypocritical, arrogant and, above all, intolerant. I can understand him leaving FM - perhaps he might consider leaving Christianity - he's doing them no favours either.
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Post by lauderdale on Jan 30, 2008 22:10:36 GMT
Well Bro John he is NOT the God I respect nor has he much to do with the loving and merciful and inclusive Jesus Christ I recognise either,
I want no part of the likes of nomore3579. He means nothing to me and as he has made his choice good luck to him. If he is now happier I congratulate him but would tell him and his ilk to go save themselves and leave me to my own salvation.
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Post by corab on Jan 31, 2008 0:38:20 GMT
Where did Mike go anyway? Has "nomore" had enough already? He asks a question, I answer it, and he never even bothers to respond ... was it something I said? ??? I'm still here Corab. But my focus is on mainstream Freemasonry and what it teaches, not Co-Masonry... Is it, though? I thought your focus was on "those Masons who profess to be Christians":-
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Post by corab on Jan 31, 2008 0:58:31 GMT
So does this mean because they are not deemed regular they are not worth saving?
Nice to know you are discriminatory in who you want to save!You might note that Nomore's Christian God is judemental, hypocritical, arrogant and, above all, intolerant. I can understand him leaving FM - perhaps he might consider leaving Christianity - he's doing them no favours either. I don't consider myself a Christian anymore -- at least not in the conventional, dogmatic sense -- but I do not think that is a fair assessment. I've been down this road. I came to masonry definitely not seeing eye-to-eye with the God of my childhood. All the usual questions: how can He allow this; how can He do that ... point is, we only "know" this God through the Holy Book that He may have inspired, but which was written by man. Tell you the truth: if I were an Israelite in the days of the Old Testament, *I* would want to conjure up the image of this big, all-powerful and vengeful God who had chose my people as his Chosen People. No better way to scare the living daylights out of your enemies than that. In the 8 months between my petition and initiation I came to an understanding. To judge God by this severely doctored written record we call the Bible, is a fallacy. The only way to know God is to know yourself, and thus to meet Him within yourself. Free from dogma, free from other people's experience and expectations, just you and God -- in whatever form He, She or It may come to you. I know one of these days I'm going to bore the hell out of you with this recurring quotation, but it simply says it all. From the long form closing of the Lauderdale Ritual in the 2':- "Then, Brn., let us remember that, as He is the centre of His Universe, so is His reproduction of Himself the centre of ourselves, the Inner Ruler, immortal, and that our whole nature must be conformed to That whereby it lives."So mote it be.
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Post by corab on Jan 31, 2008 1:13:11 GMT
I'm still here Corab. But my focus is on mainstream Freemasonry and what it teaches, not Co-Masonry, for it is not mainstream and as far as I know most mainstream Grand Lodges don't even recognize them as 'regular.' So does this mean because they are not deemed regular they are not worth saving? Nice to know you are discriminatory in who you want to save! I don't think that's what Mike is saying, Chris. I read remnants of a rigidly held masonic dogma in this response -- it's nothing to do with the Christian angle. I believe Mike is genuine in his concerns about his fellow man and brothers -- it may just be he's not thought outside the box of his particular masonic experience and is trying to tackle what he perceives to be a problem purely from that "regular", "mainstream" angle. It seems obvious that he was not au fait with the considerable variety that exists among the various orders with respect to this not-so-universal requirement to profess to a belief in a Supreme Being -- maybe our various and varied responses have given him a bit more than he bargained for. He'll get there.
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Post by maximus on Jan 31, 2008 3:40:53 GMT
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Post by penfold on Jan 31, 2008 17:34:05 GMT
I would have converted, but am on the Atkins Diet.......
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imakegarb
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Post by imakegarb on Jan 31, 2008 18:00:14 GMT
Wow. Interesting Dog Pile Mike, I am, in the Masonic sense (and I can back this up) "regular", though some of my Brothers do not see me as such. But that's something we Freemasons get our panties in a wad over. Truly, it need not worry you. In other background: My father is a minister in the World Wide Church of God. I am religiously unaligned. I can't agree with your ideas of a limited God who is interested in "saving" only certain Freemasons (or certain anyone elses). However, I see that discussing this with you, even rationally, would only add to the conflict. And there's been quite enough of that. So, instead, I simply will introduce myself to you (see above) and bid you welcome
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Post by Antonius on Jan 31, 2008 20:19:41 GMT
The only way to know God is to know yourself, and thus to meet Him within yourself. Free from dogma, free from other people's experience and expectations, just you and God -- in whatever form He, She or It may come to you. thats the bottom line right there. i would suggest that you are projecting your own insecurity about your own relationship with the divine on others.
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Post by leonardo on Jan 31, 2008 20:24:03 GMT
The only way to know God is to know yourself, and thus to meet Him within yourself. Free from dogma, free from other people's experience and expectations, just you and God -- in whatever form He, She or It may come to you. thats the bottom line right there. Antonius, Very well stated. that is my view too.
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Tamrin
Member
Nosce te ipsum
Posts: 3,586
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Post by Tamrin on Jan 31, 2008 20:38:56 GMT
The only way to know God is to know yourself, and thus to meet Him within yourself. Free from dogma, free from other people's experience and expectations, just you and God -- in whatever form He, She or It may come to you. thats the bottom line right there. [/size][/quote] Antonius, Very well stated. that is my view too.[/quote] Indeed.
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Tamrin
Member
Nosce te ipsum
Posts: 3,586
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Post by Tamrin on Feb 1, 2008 22:43:47 GMT
It is the advice of the Arabian gnostic Monoimus: Learn whence is sorrow and joy, and love and hate, and waking though one would not, and sleeping though one would not, and getting angry though one would not, and falling in love though one would not. And if thou shouldst closely investigate all these things, thou wilt find God in thyself, one and many, just as the atom; thus finding from thyself a way out of thyself. Page 19, Alan Watts, Two Hands of God: An Exploration of the Underlying Unity of all Things, 1987, Rider (Century), London, ISBN 0-7126-1694-2, first published by George Braziller, New York, 1963
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Post by atikbif on Feb 2, 2008 0:59:06 GMT
<<It seems to me that Jesus, the Christ, did not agree with whoever wrote Bible, because the Bible states quite clearly that Jesus said "The things that I do, you can do also, even Greater things that I do, IF you believe in me.">>
Don't quote me on this, but I think the "greater" that Jesus spoke of meant greater in number rather than in nature.
<<Notice how the Grand Lodge of Indiana does not say, "his conception of "a" deity is left to his own interpretation." Instead, it states that "his conception of the Supreme Being is left to his own interpretation." This would imply that all concepts of God are one in the same.>>
I'm not sure what your point is, but I think you have misrepresented what was stated. It does say, "his conception" and "his own interpretation." I don't care which article you use, it's very clear that the concepts are assumed to be different.
Why would the GLoI insist on allowing an individual his own interpretation, if they intended to imply there's no such thing?
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Post by Antonius on Feb 2, 2008 1:31:12 GMT
thanks for the credit, but i was quoting CoraB
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Post by hollandr on Feb 2, 2008 3:34:43 GMT
>This would imply that all concepts of God are one in the same.
I think the point is whether the gods are the same as God
If God is the cause beyond all causes then there is only one
But in times gone by there were many gods and they were jealous of each other. Those were and are not the same as the Source of All.
If that distinction is not made clearly the discussion is confused
You will find also a common argument that all the gods are really aspects of God. Personally I am not convinced by that. For example the vengeful and jealous ways of the god Jehovah do not seem to me to partake of the nature of God.
Cheers
Russell
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Post by leonardo on Feb 2, 2008 8:17:42 GMT
thanks for the credit, but i was quoting CoraB Thank you for pointing that out. It would help, however, if members were to add the authors name when quoting from them. This would certainly avoid unnecessary confusion.
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