First off, my condolences to the people of Haiti in the aftermath of this past Tuesday’s tragedy. And a pile of shit on Pat Robertson’s head, or the head of anyone who decides to bring any sort of theodicy into this tragedy; it’s uncalled for, and it is usually wrong in its assumptions about a tragedy.
Tag Archives: freemasonry
Freemasonry, religion and Furry fandom, race and culture
Reading Lewis Lofkin’s writings on American Deism, I thought over the night about how English (or "Regular") Freemasonry maintains a ban on religious or spiritual discussion – save for (upon initiation) whether an initiate believes in any Supreme Being – inside a lodge. I think that this ban on religious elaboration places a mask on possible religious expressions, intrigues and possible bigotry.
Maybe it is a good idea, and perhaps this is comparable to how the furry fandom has placed such a heavy and long-standing emphasis on disguising one’s own ethnocultural or ethnoracial identity under a fursona (be it manifested on a furry media archive via an avatar or in the average real-life furry meetup/convention via a fursuit). By hiding such distinctions under the furry equivalents of tribal initiation masks and nomens mysticums, the more divisive flareups around race and ethnicity are, theoretically, avoided or subsided.
On “Regular Freemasonry’s” argument against atheism
I think it is unfortunate that advocates of the Grand Lodge of England’s positions on regularity generally take an attitude on atheism and irreligion which, in various ways, smells of unnecessary condescension.
While the GLOE has been in a long-running dispute with the Grand Orient of France (the flagship advocacy organization for Liberal/Continental Freemasonry) for the last century and a half over the discussion of members’ religions and the status of women, those derivations of Freemasonry which do include the participation of women and the irreligious are scorned with heated fervor as displayed here. Atheism, in particular, is scorned by dedicated Freemasons as "immature" and lacking in "morality".
I’m not going to dispute their points of contention with atheists (or the validity thereof), but I also don’t want to fall into the trap of stereotyping Freemasonry’s approach to irreligion as an Enlightenment-era prejudice that arose out of a general lay fear of godless moral degradation during the period; at least Freemasons (both Regular and Liberal) have extensively contributed to the various separations of church and state (i.e., United States s.c.s. vs. France’s laicite). I just don’t think that the condescension towards irreligion is necessary in such volumes as are used by Freemasonry’s advocates on the Internet.
