Masonic inquiry

[iMav]

Just curious if any of the geekhackers are Freemasons.  (or if any of you have/had masonic family members)

[Phaedrus2129]

I think I have a second cousin that's a Freemason. But I see him like once every five years, so...

[ch_123]

I'd tell you, but first we'd have to do the secret handshake.

And no Ripster, not that kind of handshake...

[keyboardlover]

I have a friend who's been trying to get me to join for a while...but I never did. It always seemed a bit weird to me. Kind of like a boy scouts for adults.

[Findecanor]

I found that in Sweden, the Freemasons over here are set apart from other lodges in the world in that they require every member to be male and of the Christian faith -- not just a free person who believes. They even use a red cross as their symbol.
I have been a little bit interested, but the explicit religious requirement excludes me, as I am not Christian (any more).

[microsoft windows]

Nobody in my family's a freemason.

[Phaedrus2129]

I found that in Sweden, the Freemasons over here are set apart from other lodges in the world in that they require every member to be male and of the Christian faith -- not just a free person who believes. They even use a red cross as their symbol.
I have been a little bit interested, but the explicit religious requirement excludes me, as I am not Christian (any more).

Apparently that's pretty typical. Most require you to be male, and most require you to believe in a deity, though they don't usually specify which deity (obviously in most places it's assumed to be the Christian god).

[kriminal]

my friends father was one, but he died too.

[vils]

but he died too.

The plot thickens...

[Brian8bit]

Not a mason, but I am in the Orange Order.

[quadibloc]

I once did some programming work for someone who was a Freemason as he happened to note in passing. Also, I am familiar enough with them to recognize that If This Goes On... was about them.

However, I just recently learned that the Shriners, instead of being an independent fraternal organization that one can join directly, are, in fact, an auxilliary organization that (only) Freemasons can join.

What started me off learning about this was finding this video on YouTube:

The official name of the Shriners, as the notes on that video tell us, is: The Ancient Arabic Order Of The Nobles Of The Mystic Shrine.

And then there's the Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order Of The Nobles Of The Mystic Shrine, which had to exist as a separate organization because of certain unhappy characteristics of the bad old days.

Incidentally, it can be seen from the video that the piano roll



is for an 88-key Duo-Art reproducing piano, as is evident from the "snakebite" or "ditto mark" Themodist perforations along the sides. The player piano used to play the roll in the video, however, is not a reproducing piano; but one can see from its tracker bar that it is able to play rolls in both the 88-note and 65-note formats.

[ricercar]

I prefer Golden Dawn to Freemasons. More cookies.

[chimera15]

Freemasons have one of their lodges/temples?  What ever you call them down the street from where I live.  It's pretty interesting, sometimes they have events till real late at night, like 2 or 3 am.  Most of the time the building seems like it's completely empty with no one there, no cars in the parking lot.

[Rajagra]

I bet for every member of the Masons there are ten people who claim to be.

[quadibloc]

I prefer Golden Dawn to Freemasons. More cookies.

I didn't get that joke, so I had to Google up the Golden Dawn supermarket in New Kensington, Pennsylvania.

Despite being in Pennsylvania, I see their phone number is (724) 339-6685, instead of 736-5000.

Unless maybe this is a reference to the Nuclear Platypus Biscuit Bible. Or a brand of cookies, jelly rolls, and similar pastries that I just failed to Google.

Ah, there's Golden Dawn Flour, a product of ADM Milling, which can be used to make cookies!

I used to drive a Heisenberg, but whenever I glanced at the speedometer, I'd get lost.

You need to drive a real car. Like a Duesenberg.

[WhiteRice]

My grandfather was a master mason. I don't know too much about it, but I got a pin when he passed.

I always figured it was just a fraternity for adults.

[pikapika]

I didn't get that joke, so I had to Google up the Golden Dawn supermarket in New Kensington, Pennsylvania.

didn't get the reference too

made me think of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetic_Order_of_the_Golden_Dawn

which had aleister crowley as member

[pikapika]

i prefered "the name of the rose", though about secret sects, the foucault pendulum has more references, but i found it quite boring to read

[Zen]

[pikapika]

I predict we'll soon hit the conspiracy theory :-)

[quadibloc]

made me think of this

It was intended to, as they were an esoteric order, as the Masons are, sort of. But the cookies, presumably, tied into a double meaning which I missed.

[Findecanor]

I read Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol earlier this year. It is a fictional story, the story is almost a direct copy of that from his The Da Vinci Code, but with the secrets of the Holy Grail replaced with the secrets of Freemasonry.
There are a whole lot of conspiracy theories about the links between the Freemasons and the US government in the book but in all it shows the Freemasons in a very positive light. It claims that the "founding fathers" of the USA were Freemasons and that they had created the city of Washington and all its important buildings based on Masonic ideals and symbolism.

Personally, though... I get the impression that Freemasons is mostly a club for elitists who already feel that they are better than everybody else, because of some reason or other.
However, what sets them apart from other elitist clubs organizations for mutual admiration (such as Mensa ...) is that they are also striving to make themselves feel as if they are better than others in a spiritual way.

[quadibloc]

Personally, though... I get the impression that Freemasons is mostly a club for elitists who already feel that they are better than everybody else, because of some reason or other.

I have heard the Freemasons accused of supporting one another through cronyism, for example in Britain.

Originally, at least, the Freemasons were "elitist", I suppose, because they supported allowing individual religious and political freedom - as opposed to the rulers and the church of the time which suppressed religious minorities and political dissent. That I see as a good thing. If it makes them feel elitist about themselves compared to people like Sarah Palin, I don't see where that's a problem.

But while I'm a liberal by temperament, I'm a conservative in relation to most of the things that have become controversial issues today. The politicians I admire are those who are basically liberals, but who fell asleep after the 1960s and didn't hop on the new liberal bandwagons that arrived after that time.

[EverythingIBM]

Freemasonry is for people who have self-esteem issues.
It tries to hide things in a very sloppy manner, and often or not diverges into occultic rubbish in the higher degrees (most people are "baby freemasons" and don't bother to go deep in it).

For the conspiracy nuts, freemasons are not taking over the world. Most lodges are open to tourists anyways; they won't drag you in some secret torture chamber. The most they'll do is lie and bore you to death as they brag about how much money they give to charity. Ergo; ego issues.

[djmoymoy]

Apparently my cousin is a Mason. I asked him about it. He said it was just a bunch of older guys who got together to drink from time to time.

[British]

Apparently my cousin is a Mason. I asked him about it. He said it was just a bunch of older guys who got together to drink from time to time.

1st rule of the Fight Club: you do not talk about the Fight Club.
2nd rule of the Fight Club: you DO NOT talk about the Fight Club.