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If you are trying to assert that homosexual behavior is unnatural, you are demonstrably wrong. It exists throughout nature. Would you please cite your reference for "The Laws of Nature"? Fatherhood is neither a requirement nor a stated purpose of membership in our Fraternity. How, exactly...

Excellent question! I expect nothing less than the earnest pursuit of "things we can agree on". That excludes the use of all sectarian doctrine except any portions of which can be shown to be truly universal. That's actually pretty difficult. It's a labor that demands both conviction and...

Don't hold your breath. Not that there won't be lots of attempts, just none that qualify as logically sound. I'll spare us the listing of the likely premises that will fail on even a cursory examination. But I'd like to think that we might find a way, as Masons, to avoid even that level of...

Quite right, Brother. Sir Francis Bacon who is often credited with creating "the scientific method" (he did not, but he did lay much of the groundwork), was trying to find rational and repeatable means to "know" the GAOTU and His work. While a handful of modern scientists are atheists and a few...

<shakes head> This is (almost) unbelievable. Were it not that so many of us have witnessed it firsthand, it would be unthinkable. If we are not willing to present the ritual, lessons, and charges of our Craft in a serious and dignified manner, who are we to even suggest that there is anything...

Cool! Thanks for sharing that. I highlight number 4 in my quote because that's the one that really resonates with me when I think of what our Order offers the world. To me, the "work" of speculative Masons is especially embodied in the lessons of the Fellowcraft Degree. At the time those lessons...

Me too, mostly because I've never really given it much thought. I don't put it on my resume because I am a little circumspect about how it would be perceived. In my community there are more than few people who have rather a dim view of our fraternity. If I were looking for work, giving someone...

Respectfully, that is incorrect. I've read a good many of the works by the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens, et al, and I can safely say that they do not regard Christianity, per se, as their "enemy", though they do view (correctly, in my opinion) certain individuals and groups as enemies of religious...

No one is an "enemy" simply because he believes differently than we do.

Please, where is there a list of "acceptable religions"?

...to name but one. There are many systems of spiritual belief that have no written collection of dogma, but nevertheless have very well defined "laws" that a Mason might use as "the rule and guide" of his faith. Moreover, some of those religions hold a decidedly different view on how "morality"...

Does it really? How does it read for those candidate's whose religion does not include some printed and bound VSL? Are you suggesting that only men of certain religions are suitable to be made Masons?

Yeah. What he said! Good men don't knock on our door for an opportunity to have a second-rate spaghetti dinner and attend a meeting that is little more than the routine business of paying bills and arguing over whether or not once every fifteen years is often enough to repaint the lodge room...

So you would call the man who admits that such things are unknowable, and who still professes a faith without doubt, a liar? Again, we should be very, very cautious about judging a man based on labels like "agnostic", for they often mean different things to different people. The question reads...

Brother, I respectfully disagree. First of all, let us examine the two different, but not mutually exclusive definitions you've offered. Definition "a", (that which Huxley used for term he created, BTW) certainly does not preclude a fervent belief, the likes of which we demand of those...

Bingo. The only thing sadder than a once-grand masonic edifice falling into disrepair or being sold off is a bunch of once-vital Lodges (not buildings) falling into "disrepair", without enough interest or active membership to do their work, much less keep their buildings open. To one extent or...

My name is John Nelson. I am a Master Mason in Mt. Hood Lodge #32, Grand Lodge of Washington F&AM. After taking some time off from Masonry while I settled into a new job and home here in Sugar Land, I finally find myself in a place where I am eager to dust off my tools and return to work. I was...