Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Straight Poop on Masons..?

I joined Boy Scouts when I was young to learn about citizenship & some basic survival skills. I joined a school for an education. I joined a health club to be the strongest & healthiest I could be. I joined a youth organization to charitably give back to the community. I joined a church to improve my soul. All these organizations have something to offer.

What does Freemasonry offer you to be the best you can be?

A network of businessmen that can do each other favours.

Am downloading Ridge War Z as we speak.

Torrentz


And if they did hawk wouldn't be so annoying.

Then it's like Rotary.

Hard to believe nobodies Google-fu has turned up a picture of the title.

Consider that I know less than Zilch about the Masons, but I think Rotary has all the crooked membership tied up.

Wow.

I guess my father liked the mundane too. He was also a Cubmaster.

Still waiting to read what you get out of Freemasonry that you can't/don't get out of Rotary Club, Elks, VFW or chambers of commerce or whatever.

Am I wrong in thinking that it is just like a lot of other orgs only with a layer of pomp & secrecy?

I'm asking you here, I'm not making accusations.

ETA: They include secrecy and then wonder why everyone assumes the worst.

And all very good organizations that have helped men along their paths for a long, long time. They are time tested and approved. For me personally it offered a couple things that I just didn't get from any other source.

One, it offered me a chance to interact with and learn from men who grew up in a much different environment from me. My boyhood was a very rural, very white, very mountain culture. Protestant to the core or just plain not religious at all depending on the person in question.

Being masonic brothers with big city catholics, mormons, Jewish folk, even a Hindu, gave me a chance to interact on a social basis with folks very different than me. Further this was all done in a way that was in no way normal in the other ways it may have happened. We all went into lodge and enjoyed the fellowship afterward with a firm belief that it was pleasing to God (regardless of our respective religions) that men of such different beliefs and backgrounds meet in friendship and invoke his blessing.

Second there is also the mindset. It says that praying for improvement and forgiveness etc may all be well and good but that what a man becomes is, for the most part, up to him. Here is a set of tools and a philosophy on how to become a better man. It wasn't just about sin and forgiveness. It was about that sure, but even moreso it was about an obligation to improve yourself. To get your hands dirty in that work. A way you are expected to approach your work, your dealings in business, your role as a father and a husband and a citizen. This emphasis on reaching your potential as opposed to just trying not to sin appealed to me and was a big change from the religious environment I grew up in.

But there was also 9/11. If I had to pick a reason that I joined the Masons it would be this day and the carnage that it entailed. When this happened one of the first things I did was to actually read the Qu'ran. I was dumbfounded that men would sacrifice themselves and murder others in a religious undertaking in this day and age. I had to know what drove them.

After reading the book I figured I must have missed something. I read it two more times. At the end of it I remember thinking that this book was half gibberish. I also thought that it seemed impossible for anyone rational to take this book at face value, which millions upon millions of Moslems do. Then I decided to go back and read the bible. I wanted to know what I thought about the religion of my youth. Well that wasn't comfortable either.

Anyway, at the end of this I wanted to take a personal stand on what I believed. On which direction I personally believed that faith should guide a man. Masonry fit the bill for me. I looked at masonic philosophy and agreed with it moreso than any other I had found.

So I petitioned and joined up.

Will

There we go! Thanks!

You're quite welcome. I just hope it wasn't too long winded... the post kind of got away from me.

Will

That's the crux of the question, am I good for the Masons and in my case no.

I had a chance to join the Elk's Lodge too but I wasn't good for them either.

Do Masons serve strong drinks for cheap like the Eagles do?

Your close. But

But we don't put a "U" in favors.

Double entendre interpretation is OK.

Not all but most Masons keep the lodge dry

If you want to drink there are other avenues you can travel

Not at all. Good post.

TASTE GREAT!

LESS FILLING!

BARNES X!