Brother_Steve
Premium Member
I agree with everything you said. However, the "book" is referred to specifically as the HB in our ritual during degree work and not the generic form of the VSL..
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TheThumbPuppy
Registered User
I go back and forward on this.
On the one hand, I feel that it is recommendable that a lodge should make available another VSL that better represents an initiate belief in the divine.
On the other, the rituals – to the extent of what I know, which is not much – do not seem to refer to a generic VSL, but the HB in particular.
From a certain perspective, I see the HB representing other VSL's. As such I would think of it as a symbol of my VSL, should it not be the HB.
While I certainly respect a plurality of believes, as long as they themselves respect other believes and do not promote or support their destruction, I must confess that from a minimalist stand on aesthetics, I have some reservation on the display of an ever-increasing number of VSL's. They seems like a redundant repetition of the same symbol. As if we decided that the Sun alone was not representative enough, and we should add Polaris, Sirius and Rigel side by side to the Sun. The symbol would be reduced to a literal representation of one of its instantiations.
From a last vantage point, I have recently developed a dislike for some forms of virtue signalling and I have wondered whether displaying so many VLS's in a lodge is a form of it. If that was the case, it would not represent respect for other believes, but a self-congratulatory badge of one's own perceived goodness.
None of these paragraphs expresses my whole opinion, but they're all observations that represents individual facets of it. As I said, I go back and forward on this.
On the one hand, I feel that it is recommendable that a lodge should make available another VSL that better represents an initiate belief in the divine.
On the other, the rituals – to the extent of what I know, which is not much – do not seem to refer to a generic VSL, but the HB in particular.
From a certain perspective, I see the HB representing other VSL's. As such I would think of it as a symbol of my VSL, should it not be the HB.
While I certainly respect a plurality of believes, as long as they themselves respect other believes and do not promote or support their destruction, I must confess that from a minimalist stand on aesthetics, I have some reservation on the display of an ever-increasing number of VSL's. They seems like a redundant repetition of the same symbol. As if we decided that the Sun alone was not representative enough, and we should add Polaris, Sirius and Rigel side by side to the Sun. The symbol would be reduced to a literal representation of one of its instantiations.
From a last vantage point, I have recently developed a dislike for some forms of virtue signalling and I have wondered whether displaying so many VLS's in a lodge is a form of it. If that was the case, it would not represent respect for other believes, but a self-congratulatory badge of one's own perceived goodness.
None of these paragraphs expresses my whole opinion, but they're all observations that represents individual facets of it. As I said, I go back and forward on this.
Not virtue signalling in my experience. Rather, it is for the various faiths represented in the lodge and for inclusiveness.
My understanding of virtue signalling is that it is to impress third-parties. What third-party is being impressed?