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Post by maat on Jun 5, 2008 3:01:11 GMT
I just can't understand why there is so much hatred towards it. Ever had a super bright light shone in your eyes unexpectedly? The first thing we do is pull back and raise both arms so as to shield ourselves from it. Think its a bit along those lines. Maat PS - There is some suggestion that Solomon did not exist either. Does it matter? Nup (imo) |
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Post by maat on Jun 5, 2008 3:05:46 GMT
I can be a huge smartass. Oooooh - not here please, they will think you are a Mason ;D Voiceofreason (like the name), what made you choose it? Maat |
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Post by thevoiceofreason on Jun 5, 2008 3:19:09 GMT
I can be a huge smartass. Oooooh - not here please, they will think you are a Mason ;D Voiceofreason (like the name), what made you choose it? Maat Oh, but I am a Mason, just not a Christian (or Jewish, or Muslim etc. you get the point) one. I am a Deist, just like good old Brother Ben Franklin. I chose that name because God's gift of Reason rules my life. I do not believe in Jesus, because I see no reason to. Thanks for the welcome  www.godvsthebible.com |
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Post by maximus on Jun 5, 2008 3:19:34 GMT
I do believe in a Deity, just not in a man made one. Ah, I see. I don't hold much stock in fabricated dogma either. Man creating God in his own image and all. |
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Post by alchymicalmason on Jun 5, 2008 3:51:23 GMT
Wow! This thread has taken a refreshing turn! Dogma-Free REASON! Imagine that! ;D
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Post by maximus on Jun 5, 2008 4:05:59 GMT
Imagine
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one |
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Post by thevoiceofreason on Jun 5, 2008 10:49:00 GMT
On May 12, 1797 while living in Paris, France Tom Paine wrote the following letter to a Christian friend who was trying to convert Paine to Christianity.. I find great inspiration in it. In fact I have a replica of it framed in my office. "In your letter of the twentieth of March, you give me several quotations from the Bible, which you call the Word of God, to show me that my opinions on religion are wrong, and I could give you as many, from the same book to show that yours are not right; consequently, then, the Bible decides nothing, because it decides any way, and every way, one chooses to make it. "But by what authority do you call the Bible the Word of God? for this is the first point to be settled. It is not your calling it so that makes it so, any more than the Mahometans calling the Koran the Word of God makes the Koran to be so. The Popish Councils of Nice and Laodicea, about 350 years after the time the person called Jesus Christ is said to have lived, voted the books that now compose what is called the New Testament to be the Word of God. This was done by yeas and nays, as we now vote a law. "The Pharisees of the second temple, after the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, did the same by the books that now compose the Old Testament, and this is all the authority there is, which to me is no authority at all. I am as capable of judging for myself as they were, and I think more so, because, as they made a living by their religion, they had a self-interest in the vote they gave. "You may have an opinion that a man is inspired, but you cannot prove it, nor can you have any proof of it yourself, because you cannot see into his mind in order to know how he comes by his thoughts; and the same is the case with the word revelation. There can be no evidence of such a thing, for you can no more prove revelation than you can prove what another man dreams of, neither can he prove it himself. "It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No. "Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor? "For my own part, I believe that all are impostors who pretend to hold verbal communication with the Deity. It is the way by which the world has been imposed upon; but if you think otherwise you have the same right to your opinion that I have to mine, and must answer for it in the same manner. But all this does not settle the point, whether the Bible be the Word of God, or not. It is therefore necessary to go a step further. The case then is: - "You form your opinion of God from the account given of Him in the Bible; and I form my opinion of the Bible from the wisdom and goodness of God manifested in the structure of the universe, and in all works of creation. The result in these two cases will be, that you, by taking the Bible for your standard, will have a bad opinion of God; and I, by taking God for my standard, shall have a bad opinion of the Bible. "The Bible represents God to be a changeable, passionate, vindictive being; making a world and then drowning it, afterwards repenting of what he had done, and promising not to do so again. Setting one nation to cut the throats of another, and stopping the course of the sun till the butchery should be done. But the works of God in the creation preach to us another doctrine. In that vast volume we see nothing to give us the idea of a changeable, passionate, vindictive God; everything we there behold impresses us with a contrary idea - that of unchangeableness and of eternal order, harmony, and goodness. "The sun and the seasons return at their appointed time, and everything in the creation claims that God is unchangeable. Now, which am I to believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the Word of God, or the creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could make? For the Bible says one thing, and the creation says the contrary. The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal, and the creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God. "It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man. That bloodthirsty man, called the prophet Samuel, makes God to say, (I Sam. xv. 3) `Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.' "That Samuel or some other impostor might say this, is what, at this distance of time, can neither be proved nor disproved, but in my opinion it is blasphemy to say, or to believe, that God said it. All our ideas of the justice and goodness of God revolt at the impious cruelty of the Bible. It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes. "What makes this pretended order to destroy the Amalekites appear the worse, is the reason given for it. The Amalekites, four hundred years before, according to the account in Exodus xvii. (but which has the appearance of fable from the magical account it gives of Moses holding up his hands), had opposed the Israelites coming into their country, and this the Amalekites had a right to do, because the Israelites were the invaders, as the Spaniards were the invaders of Mexico. This opposition by the Amalekites, at that time, is given as a reason, that the men, women, infants and sucklings, sheep and oxen, camels and asses, that were born four hundred years afterward, should be put to death; and to complete the horror, Samuel hewed Agag, the chief of the Amalekites, in pieces, as you would hew a stick of wood. I will bestow a few observations on this case. "In the first place, nobody knows who the author, or writer, of the book of Samuel was, and, therefore, the fact itself has no other proof than anonymous or hearsay evidence, which is no evidence at all. In the second place, this anonymous book says, that this slaughter was done by the express command of God: but all our ideas of the justice and goodness of God give the lie to the book, and as I never will believe any book that ascribes cruelty and injustice to God, I therefore reject the Bible as unworthy of credit. "As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is not the Word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case. "You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other infidel. But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe falsely of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or from the Koran, from the Old Testament, or from the New. "When you have examined the Bible with the attention that I have done (for I do not think you know much about it), and permit yourself to have just ideas of God, you will most probably believe as I do. But I wish you to know that this answer to your letter is not written for the purpose of changing your opinion. It is written to satisfy you, and some other friends whom I esteem, that my disbelief of the Bible is founded on a pure and religious belief in God; for in my opinion the Bible is a gross libel against the justice and goodness of God, in almost every part of it." www.godvsthebible.com |
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Post by elshamah on Jun 5, 2008 11:35:51 GMT
elshama/Angelo, Let me state catagorically and unequivocally the following: Albert Pike was not the head of Freemasonry. No one speaks for Freemasonry as a whole, each Grand Lodge is an autonimous entity. Morals and Dogma is an exploration in comparative religion and mythology, including Christian mythology. Morals and Dogma is not now, nor has it ever been, any sort of "handbook" of Freemasonry. It was an official publication of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, USA. It was not then, nor is it now, required reading for members of the AASR. Freemasonry is not a religion, nor a replacement for religion. It requires that a belief in a Supeme being already exists (except for the GLdF). Mankind can improve themselves without recourse to religion. It is called Philosophy, particularly as practiced by the greeks, and is the cornerstone of western Civilisation. As I pointed out before, and you coose not to adress, the Theocracy that was imposed on the people of Europe by the Church led to the devolution of the West from a civilised society under the rule of law, in the time of Rome, to a pestlistic backwater of darkness during the Middle Ages. It was due to the efforts of Freemasons that mankind was brought out of this era into a more enlightened age, based on science and the philosophy of Aristotle as the underpinnings of a new age of thought. The Rights of Man, The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, etc., were all founded on freemasonic principles of Liberty, Equality, and Faternity. Seperation of Church and State was essential to break the chains of ignorance that had plagued mankind for too long. The very right of Freedom of Religion is a Masonic principle, which is embodied in the very structure of the Lodge. So, you see my friend, to disparage Freemasonry as a Satanic institution is to imply that Western Civilisation itself is inherently Satanic, which puts one on par with the little man in charge of Iran, who puts forth the same sentiments. it does not import, what men made through the bible, since many bad things were made in the past in the name of God. It imports what God says through his word, the bible. 1:28 God blessed56 them and said57 to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it!58 Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.”59 This incorporates clearly advance in sciene, exploration and use of all resources for our needs. God is FOR progress, not against. i remain with my assertion. There is absolutely no way, men to transform his NATURE, he can try whatever he wants. no philosophy, no religion, anything. Only one is able to do it : God himself. He can transform man, and give his holy spirit, so that someone, that is born again in Christ, is able to live in the spirit, not in flesh, slaved through his own nature. 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual – but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin.21 7:15 For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want – instead, I do what I hate.22 7:16 But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good.23 7:17 But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. 7:18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it.24 7:19 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! 7:20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.7:21 So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. 7:22 For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. 7:23 But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 7:25 Thanks be25 to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then,26 I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but27 with my flesh I serve28 the law of sin.8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.1 8:2 For the law of the life-giving Spirit2 in Christ Jesus has set you3 free from the law of sin and death. 8:3 For God achieved what the law could not do because4 it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 8:4 so that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. |
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Post by elshamah on Jun 5, 2008 11:39:47 GMT
There are some who hold that Jah-Bul-On actually means "The God who is" . Of course the other name used is Je-Ho-Vah . Do you prefer that name? It's all irrelevant as we cannot know the true name of God, the various names we ascribe to the Deity are but human constructs. might you give me a clear answer : is the name of the God of the freemasons jahbulon, or not ? |
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Post by maximus on Jun 5, 2008 11:46:59 GMT
i remain with my assertion. There is absolutely no way, men to transform his NATURE, he can try whatever he wants. no philosophy, no religion, anything. Only one is able to do it : God himself. He can transform man, and give his holy spirit, so that someone, that is born again in Christ, is able to live in the spirit, not in flesh, slaved through his own nature. I don't believe my flesh is sinful, nor my nature. This "original sin" nonsense was added on to keep the clergy in power and the churchgoers feeling guilty. It is a control mechanism. |
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Post by maximus on Jun 5, 2008 11:49:01 GMT
There are some who hold that Jah-Bul-On actually means "The God who is" . Of course the other name used is Je-Ho-Vah . Do you prefer that name? It's all irrelevant as we cannot know the true name of God, the various names we ascribe to the Deity are but human constructs. might you give me a clear answer : is the name of the God of the freemasons jahbulon, or not ? There is no "God of the freemasons." How many times do you have to be told? Freemasonry is not a religion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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Post by corab on Jun 5, 2008 12:00:15 GMT
Hi Angelo, Wow, this thread is attracting many responses -- so many that you've problably overlooked mine:- Hi Angelo, i think i gave you a answer, which was not what i wanted to say. of course i believe in things, i do not see. Thanks -- and right glad am I to see that. Because you know what? There are many things we do not see -- and ofthen when we say we *cannot* see something, the unseen truth of it is that we *will not* see something. We have a choice in these matters. We can choose to see the picture we have painted for ourselves, or we can choose to open our eyes and see the truth. I think Paul would agree. Thankfully, we don't have to wait until God converts us -- we know it exists; we can willingly join it. Problem is the truth can be very painful, and it is much easier to look at an imaginary picture and tell ourselves it is real, than to turn around and look into the mirror of truth. There are people here who want to help you. Surely you understand that desire -- after all you are here to testify your faith and show us what you see as the error of our ways, and I don't mean that sarcastically. Whilst I do not believe anyone here would question your right to experience your faith the way you choose to, the same does not necessarily hold for the way in which you communicate your beliefs. Your testifying could be much more effective if you chose a less confrontational manner. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts. |
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Post by hollandr on Jun 5, 2008 12:04:04 GMT
>is the name of the God of the freemasons jahbulon, or not
I looked up the ritual and of JBO it says "compound, and is formed of three words, which give the N. of God in various languages"
So the clear answer is No. JBO is not the name of God but a compound of names of God from various languages - the first of course being Jewish but traceable back to the Abraham's people in Sumer
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Post by corab on Jun 5, 2008 12:06:14 GMT
Hi Angelo, There are some who hold that Jah-Bul-On actually means "The God who is" . Of course the other name used is Je-Ho-Vah . Do you prefer that name? It's all irrelevant as we cannot know the true name of God, the various names we ascribe to the Deity are but human constructs. might you give me a clear answer : is the name of the God of the freemasons jahbulon, or not ? There is no such thing or being as "the god of the freemasons". I see a very clear answer being given here: words cannot describe the glory of the creator, but since language is the primary way through we human beings communicate, we try our best to do so anyway. Hence the many names by which the creator is known -- human attempts at describing that which they experience. |
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Post by droche on Jun 5, 2008 12:34:05 GMT
In the 26 years I have been a Mason, 22 of them very active, I have never heard the name "Jabulon" mentioned in any Lodge, ritual, degree, lesson, or in any way, shape or form.
Thus, I can give you a most clear answer to your question: No, the God Masons worship is not Jabulon or however you spelt it. To suggest that there is a specific God of the Masons is ludicrous beyond belief.
By the way, Angelo, after several requests to do so, you still have not answered my and several other's queries as to the specific aspects of Freemasonry that you yourself find objectionable. I now believe that you have no intention of doing so. It is now clear to me that you are here only to put people on the defensive and to tear down others. You call yourself a follower of Christ, but your attitude and methods are the exact antithesis of what Christ stood for.
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Post by maximus on Jun 5, 2008 14:01:28 GMT
So, elshahmah/Angelo, do you think that "God" is God's name? Or perhaps you will say "Jesus Christ?" Is Jesus Christ the son of God, or is he God himself (assuming that God is anthropomorpic, and has gender)? Did he create an "imperfect" creation on purpose, and if he did, does this imply that he is not omnipotent, as he was apparently incapable of creating perfection, nor omniscient, as he was apparently unable to foresee the "fall" in the garden, or the role of the serpent? Or, is he a sadist who, knowing full well what would happen, set Adam and Eve up so that they would fail, so that he could eternally torture his playthings, like a sadistic child pulling the wings off of flies? To whom was "he" speaking when "he" said, in Genesis, "Let us create man in our image, after our likeness?" If God is a man, does 'he' have a bellybutton? If God is a "man," does he have a penis?  Why, in the ten commandments, does it state "Thou shall have no other gods before me," if there are no other gods? Why does God say that "he" is a jealous god, if there are no other gods? What does he have to be jealous of? Just some random questions that an intelligent child would come up with in sunday school. At least, I did, anyway. Can you supply any answers? |
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Post by maximus on Jun 5, 2008 15:48:56 GMT
Don't expect anything rational here Brother Max. This guy can't even explain the Bible's claim that Pi equals 3. I can always hope, can't I?  |
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Post by marcopolo on Jun 5, 2008 16:14:55 GMT
No.
(Clear enough for you?)
This, however, is a bit of a logical play. The next question could be "Aha! So what IS the name of the God of freemasons?"
The real answer is that there IS NO GOD of the Freemasons. You bring your own faith to the table, so to speak.
What you are also seeing is the very reason that not only is Freemasonry not a religion, but why we do NOT allow religious discussion in our lodges.
In the same thread I have been offended at the condescension, rudeness, and outright misinformation provided by a person sharing my Christian faith AND offended at the remarks made against my faith by my Brother Masons.
While I have no ability but my request, I would ask that if you have specific questions (which it seems you do not as you continue to ask the same questions again and again after receiving very direct answers) then ask them and take the answers to heart. And above all, PLEASE stop bearing false witness. It reflects poorly on both you and our shared faith.
Brethren, I must say that I am surprised to see my faith compared to the Easte Bunny and ridiculed. If you do not share my faith, I would expect you to at least respect it enough to not mock it in an open forum. I would certainly extend to you the same courtesy.
elshamah,
If this isn't proof to you that Masonry isn't a religion, I don't know what else could be. Even the Masons on this very thread do not seem to agree on anything "religious" or theological.
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Post by elshamah on Jun 5, 2008 16:33:14 GMT
i remain with my assertion. There is absolutely no way, men to transform his NATURE, he can try whatever he wants. no philosophy, no religion, anything. Only one is able to do it : God himself. He can transform man, and give his holy spirit, so that someone, that is born again in Christ, is able to live in the spirit, not in flesh, slaved through his own nature. I don't believe my flesh is sinful, nor my nature. This "original sin" nonsense was added on to keep the clergy in power and the churchgoers feeling guilty. It is a control mechanism. if not, then the bible is nonsense, and Jesus came to earth to die for nothing as well. Anyway. Feel free to believe the way you think is o.k. |
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Post by elshamah on Jun 5, 2008 16:39:14 GMT
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