Quote:
Originally Posted by Dottore
I asked this in another thread (and never got a serious answer), but is there any deep philosophical underpinning to the funny hats, secret handshakes, mysterious numbers, vows of secrecy and small cars?
Something of general interest perhaps? Something that would help all of us to live better lives?
Or are those things alone so interesting (in and of themselves) to practitioners of these arcane rites, that a meaningful underlying ethics or metaphysics would be redundant?
Just asking. Not trolling.
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My father was a Mason and I asked him a lot of similar questions when I was a little kid. He told me he was honor bound to secrecy and that I could become a Mason when I grew up and would understand.
In my teens, he wanted me to join DeMolay International, "The Premier Youth Organization dedicated to teaching young men to be better persons and leaders", which I did. I didn't stay in long because I didn't like all the rituals and secrecy.
I remember a lot of bickering between some of the Masons and some of the Catholics in my small home town at the time, with some of the Masons yelling "You Catholics can't be Masons!" and the Catholics taking offense because they felt they were being discriminated against.
Well, the fact was, the Catholics couldn't become Masons because their church forbade them joining a secret society and if they were allowed to, the Masons would have let them in.
Sheesh!
At any rate, the Masons and Shriners (Oh, and my mother was a member of The Eastern Star) do good work. So do The Knights of Columbus.