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deported to Canada posted:You are absolutely correct of course, and the signage was to make our building more obvious and raise awareness to potential new members. The three examples you posted are good looking buildings that were purpose built with the symbology incorporated into the construction. Our signage has the same logo as the Masonic Charitable Foundation (https://mcf.org.uk/) which I suppose I'm not a big fan of the more modern design. Hah, you are right about the buildings looking nice. The small town lodge here simply has a sign out and people still keep referring to it as "The Old Butcher Shop". https://goo.gl/maps/1UFy5mXREkStydSb7
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May 24, 2023 18:14
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I came in after noticing the big FO masonic hall, down the road from the slightly older one on my daily walk and wondered what that was all about. Joke answer about the yoof: our deep fraternal kinship with the cops Slightly less joking answer: seeing young lads walk out of a public session at the first mention of higher powers
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May 24, 2023 18:59
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Chubby Henparty posted:I came in after noticing the big FO masonic hall, down the road from the slightly older one on my daily walk and wondered what that was all about. Well, yeah, but better they do it now than later?
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May 24, 2023 19:15
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True, I wonder if it counts as a bigger barrier these days though.
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May 24, 2023 19:41
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Chubby Henparty posted:True, I wonder if it counts as a bigger barrier these days though. 
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May 24, 2023 19:44
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I think the overall decrease in religious beliefs is a problem. I'd be interested because one grandfather was a Mason, but I don't believe in any kind of higher power.
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May 24, 2023 20:06
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Tbf most recent candidate interviews for all ages have answered like the couple in this clip so it's not that big a hurdle if you're keen. (apparently it was all evil vicars and demon dcs 15 years back) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRujuE-GIY4
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May 24, 2023 20:22
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vortmax posted:I think the overall decrease in religious beliefs is a problem. I'd be interested because one grandfather was a Mason, but I don't believe in any kind of higher power. One of the best known members of our lodge (well, inside the lodge anyway) is a staunch atheist by now. He doesn't mind other peoples faith system and others are not bothered by his lack of it. We have at least one shaman, a few jews, christians, agnosts, muslims, at least one hindu and a whole bunch of people who appreciate the metaphor, like me. There is a big divide going from "I accept the metaphor of a higher power." to "I reject any form of belief and will feel uncomfortable when this is mentioned." and it is the difference in how you yourself feel about it. My position is that a lot of modern rejection of faith comes from the rejection of people behaving badly in the name of organized religion. Fundamentalists have been showing so badly while waving their religion around that faith got tainted something fierce. Globally society is struggling with how to shape their religious lives now that choice in belief is abundant and then you can either follow or turn away from those yelling in the name of their so-called gods. Those following will not come to freemasonry, it contains too many free thinkers. Those who turn away will not come as it is too much based on some form of faith. So what I mean to say is that you get to shape yourself and your own beliefs. I found a group of fellow seekers in my lodge but your mileage may vary and if you find yourself in the Amsterdam region, feel free to knock my door.
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May 24, 2023 21:00
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It's all about how you judge a person to be an upright and moral, back in the day it was difficult to conceive how a person could be *good* without having the persistent fear of eternal damnation. These days society has moved on from the fire and brimstone. If you approached a lodge and stated that you don't belong to any particular denomination or faith but you believe in something greater then that should be good enough. You shouldn't really be challenged any further than that. The last time you went to church or had tea with the local vicar should be completely irrelevant. That being said though declaring yourself an atheist is a bit of a red line for the interview panel (in the UK at least). It's like saying that you are anti-getting anything of value out of freemasonry. It would make me think that you wouldn't enjoy it in the long term.
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May 24, 2023 22:59
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I can only speak for myself here but the higher power stuff was the main reason I didn’t pursue Freemasonry earlier in life. It turned out it was way less of a big deal than I thought, my beliefs wavering between vague agnosticism and deism aren’t a problem except for some bodies that require you to be explicitly Christian.
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May 24, 2023 23:19
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Oh my stars!
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May 26, 2023 11:34
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Sorry… it’s just quite a thing to click on somebody’s Post History and find them in the middle of a long running casual discussion of Freemasonry. No judgement.
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May 26, 2023 11:41
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2B1ASK1 lol
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May 26, 2023 12:44
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I'm about to call past high time lol
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May 27, 2023 16:34
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Have had imparted the importance of learning the last three years work probably right now. Have found an ai that will rap the charges 
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Oct 3, 2023 19:20
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Keetron posted:One of the best known members of our lodge (well, inside the lodge anyway) is a staunch atheist by now. He doesn't mind other peoples faith system and others are not bothered by his lack of it. We have at least one shaman, a few jews, christians, agnosts, muslims, at least one hindu and a whole bunch of people who appreciate the metaphor, like me. Not a mason, but: This seems to be the relevant journey, at least to masons I have known. The creator or higher power might just be a driving force within you. In AA, which I have spent a lot of time in, folks must choose a higher power as well, and while many turn away, it is repeated well and often that the higher power can be anything, as long as it isn't yourself. If applicants instead seek reasons to turn away, they will probably find them.
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Oct 4, 2023 06:49
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Bargearse posted:It turned out it was way less of a big deal than I thought, my beliefs wavering between vague agnosticism and deism aren’t a problem OG 1700's masonry mentioned Deists in the same breath as Atheists.
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Oct 8, 2023 16:08
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Someone here just rhymed possum with awesome and now I can't stop wondering how many of you guys are out there approaching things with reverential aw
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Nov 2, 2023 20:16
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So it's pretty much this, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71k0tm8dZqI
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Nov 6, 2023 01:18
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Animal-Mother posted:So it's pretty much this, right? I'd like to say we are not in black and white but that would be untrue.
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Nov 6, 2023 18:54
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Lodges that upgrade to full color are not honoring our traditions and should be made clandestine. George Washington took his oath in black and white after all!!!!!!!!
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Nov 6, 2023 21:07
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Paramemetic posted:Lodges that upgrade to full color are not honoring our traditions and should be made clandestine. George Washington took his oath in black and white after all!!!!!!!! Nor did they have sound. In the middle of the oath they would pause as people would put up placards showing what was supposed to be said. The video above is really more the Shriners than Blue lodge (What exactly is blue?). Being an advanced order thats why it's a talkie, rather than the traditional silent film.
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Nov 6, 2023 22:25
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I have had a couple of good friends nudge (without outright divulging their memebership) me towards becoming a Mason. They know I have been involved in community service in my past (specifically leadership), and I think I might have the right mindset or outlook. So I have a two-part questions related to that: 1. What is the stance towards folks like me who are 100% agnostic? I'm not an athiest, but I am certainly not practicing either. 2. What is the stance towards disability? I have a diabetic-related amputation, and I've been curious if that would be an issue. Please be honest. I'd rather somebody be honest and upfront about issues than dilly-dally and waste everybodies time.
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Nov 21, 2023 01:28
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1) Could you state under oath and affirm that you believe in a supreme being, or at least take an oath held upon some volume of a sacred text and consider it binding? 2) Should not be an issue - can I enquire where the amputation is, just to entirely relieve that question? Whereabouts are you roughly in the world, are there lodges near?
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Nov 21, 2023 10:26
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The key point is during your initiation ceremony, you are required to take an oath upon a Volume of Sacred Law to a Supreme Being to not divulge any of the secret passwords, signs, or handshakes of Freemasonry. This oath has to be to a “Supreme Being” not just on your word and honor. If you can, in your heart, truly say “I do”, then we’re all good! Edit: Regarding disability - Freemasonry is not a charity and won’t accept people who are joining for the purpose of receiving aid. Otherwise as long as you’re financially stable, you’ll be welcome. The ceremony itself involves walking, kneeling, using both hands, and you can’t bring any metal objects like a cane. INTJ Mastermind fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Nov 22, 2023 |
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Nov 22, 2023 02:02
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INTJ Mastermind posted:
Lodges will vary but in the lodges around me, I think they would just "make it work" with whatever you can do. You may want to ask ahead of time to wherever you are looking at joining.
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Nov 22, 2023 03:19
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I'll go against what others are saying here and say that the requirement is having a positive belief in a supreme architect. You don't. You fail the membership requirement. You shouldn't join until and unless that changes.
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Nov 22, 2023 03:46
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I would say there's not much to gain as a hard line agnostic. Gonna agree with Sub Rosa here. I'm a Buddhist but I can make it work and there's not supposed to be an investigation into what your conception of it is, but the answer should be honest and if you're not meeting that requirement explicitly I might reconsider why you're interested in joining. I'll also say that the amputation thing is generally not going to be a problem but if you were looking into it I'd be up front about that. At the time of my initiation in a neighboring state, West Virginia explicitly forbade making a member of anyone with any sort of amputation under fairly dated interpretation of fairly niche language specific to their ritual. I am not going to launch into apologetics for this because I think it's silly and a lot of other grand lodges do too but it's a thing. Not knowing where you are, it's impossible to say that it would absolutely be fine, though it seems more likely than not that your bigger issue is whether you can honestly and without mental evasion or deception of mind answer the question of whether you believe in a creator god.
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Nov 22, 2023 08:44
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Certain disabilities traditionally used to exclude new candidates from becoming members - but we are going far back with that interpretation and I haven't heard of it ever being enforced in my lifetime. I believe it was due to Freemasonry operating as a kind of insurance policy for its members in the time before modern health insurance, where you would pay money towards the lodge and if you suffered an injury, illness or similar you would be looked after by the Almoner or relevant province/district charitable foundation. If you are in the UK I can say that it would not be a problem at all, the lodge can make formal request to adapt ceremonies to suit disabilities. See page 18 onwards from Freemasonry Today (Spring 2021) for an interview with a triple amputee who went through the process: https://issuu.com/freemasonrytoday/docs/fmt_spring_21_combined_pdf_low_res
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Nov 22, 2023 20:11
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We lowered our knocker to accommodate a wheelchair
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Nov 22, 2023 21:40
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No one keeps the Bitcoin system down. We are the Newluminati. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xH1vBuDbBA HOLDING IS A USE CASE. It's called store of value. I see people post things like, "Bitcoin is meant to be used. If 70% hasn't moved, then it's not being used." A post like this assumes that Bitcoin's utility is only being met if it is spent to purchase something. But why would I use Bitcoin to buy something when I can use a softer currency like USD? I live in a major city. There are merchants around me that accept Bitcoin, but I still don't spend it. The only time I'll EVER use Bitcoin to buy something is if I've run out of fiat USD, or if the merchant ONLY accepts Bitcoin. So until then, it'll remain in cold storage. --- Bitcoin's properties are and always will be unique to bitcoin. Could another coin be created? Yes. But ask yourself, who would do the creating? Imagine you want to be the guy to create a new one. You clone bitcoin code, change some variables and names, and then put it out there. Or even get clever and write a new protocol from scratch, it doesn't matter. Then what? Who is going to use it? Nobody seems to care. So you assemble a marketing team or invite your friends and families to "invest" their dollars to bring you funds needed to get developers, servers and marketing to get the word out. Maybe you entice these friends by giving them some coins upfront before anybody in the public could have a chance to obtain them fairly. Still it's just you and a handful of colleagues running your nodes in a very centralized fashion, trying to entice the world at large to come play with you in a decentralized and leaderless way, despite being centralized with leadership. You see the problem here? You are a person or small group of people with financial incentives to "pump" your new coin to the world. And for what reason? So you can ultimately exit - i.e.. "dump" your coins on retail. Everything that's NOT bitcoin, was created in this way, with these motivations. A person or people who created the coin and remain in control of the coin or token with the intention of profit. Bitcoin was created and given to the world by an anonymous person before there was any monetary incentive, and it grew in a grass-roots way without any leadership, without any central authority or early/insider/unfair access to profits. This sort of "immaculate conception" can only happen once. All the imitators will can never share Bitcoin's best properties, in part because Satoshi Nakamoto is unique among crypto creators. It appears he/she/they acted without an interest in personal gain, considering none of their coins have ever moved. --- The dollar will continue to fall against Bitcoin Why? I can't speak to other nations, but I can guarantee you that the debt of the United States will be inflated away. In practice it will be a soft default, and the quality of pensions and entitlements will be inflated away. There is no need to cut spending, if you simply devalue it via inflation, and it's far easier politically to deal with it that way. I cannot recommend Nate Hagens two recent podcasts enough: Luke Gromen: "Peak Cheap Oil and the Global Reserve Currency" | The Great Simplification #91 Doomberg: "Our Fragile Energy Economy" | The Great Simplification #83 The dollar is clearly overvalued at the moment, but international trade is still reliant on it, which even hints at a deliberate printing of excess dollars, that are traded for international assets while time still is. This will only last so long. There is a few terminal events that have and will take place. When the US defaulted on bonds held by the Russian state with the war in Ukraine as the official cause, it in simple terms signaled to all US trade partners, that the US is willing to default on debt if they don't like you. China saw that, and the Chinese is divesting as bonds and treasuries mature. This is maybe the first nail in the coffin, as US dollars can be increasingly risky to hold if you are politically vulnerable. The question then remains on the extent that large countries and commodity producing countries are willing to increasingly hold other currencies than the dollar for international trade. Rather then saying that the dollar will be replaced, its possible we will see a bit of a multipolar currency regime, where rubles, yuan, dollars and the rupee will "normalize" their exchange rates. The value of the dollar will decline, imports will be more expensive and yes inflation will arise. And its possible that only way out for the Americans is war, which is the scary part. So yeah, there are domestic reasons for increased inflation, while international political shifts take effect as well. Whether the nominal debt is 10 or 100 trillion matters not. Nobody feels that. What matters is the future price of eggs, bread. potatoes, concrete, oil and gas in hours worked equivalents. All but a tiny few will feel that. --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy1TqiPpyJs           
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Nov 23, 2023 09:54
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Sub Rosa posted:But it should be a big deal, imo. And that’s fair. All I can really say is that my belief in a supreme being is much stronger than it was before I got involved with Freemasonry. Yeah I ain’t reading that
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Nov 25, 2023 02:01
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INTJ Mastermind posted:and you can’t bring any metal objects like a cane. Do... Do you put guys through an MRI machine? 
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Nov 25, 2023 03:14
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Most lodges have upgraded to CT but we're all beholden to tradition
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Nov 25, 2023 03:23
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Paramemetic posted:Most lodges have upgraded to CT but we're all beholden to tradition
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Nov 25, 2023 03:45
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Bargearse posted:And that’s fair. All I can really say is that my belief in a supreme being is much stronger than it was before I got involved with Freemasonry. Same for me. Nessus posted:Caprine Technology 
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Nov 25, 2023 13:03
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https://msana.com/services/u-s-membership-statistics/ The North American 2023 masonic membership numbers are out! Membership currently stands at 874,548 masons, down from 881,219 in 2022 and 919,129 in 2021.  It may seem like the decline has levelled off, but that is apparently more due a lot of individual jurisdictions not reporting updated numbers since 2022. I don't know if the MSANA are planning to update those as they come in, or if this is all we get this year (Edit: MSANA confirmed they're still getting 2023 numbers and will update later).  
SimonChris fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Jan 22, 2024 |
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Jan 21, 2024 08:02
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I wonder how many of those brothers have laid down their working tools vs having been NPDed out?
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Jan 21, 2024 17:50
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Cimber posted:I wonder how many of those brothers have laid down their working tools vs having been NPDed out? Either way, there was not enough new members to fill the ranks. But with the US population at 339M and 875K members, it is still higher than my country with 18M and 6K members.
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Jan 21, 2024 22:26
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Keetron posted:Either way, there was not enough new members to fill the ranks. Bro Keetron, for some reason I always thought you were an Aussie until I read your member numbers (Nederlands, maybe?  )
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Jan 28, 2024 18:34
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