Talk:Christian attitudes towards Freemasonry/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Grand Orient atheism

I added a sentence saying that belief in a deity is not required in Grand Orient lodges and Pershgo reverted me. My information comes from Continental Freemasonry. I'd like to know who's right. --Kenatipo ^speak! 19:25, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I suspect it's a question of nuances - it's almost impossible to make a statement about Freemasonry that is correct in all cases. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:34, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

That's some nuance! If what you say is true, then Pershgo should have just qualified what I wrote instead of reverting it, and he should have qualified the statement I was contradicting. --Kenatipo ^speak! 21:59, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Your edit was "Anglo-American Freemasonry requires of its members no specific view of a supreme being, but rather a simple belief in a supreme being. Continental Freemasonry does not require belief in a supreme being" when in reality requiring belief in a supreme being isn't limited to just Anglo-American Freemasonry, but is the norm worldwide. This is true of both regular and irregular grand bodies. In addition it is only some continental grand bodies that allow atheists, there are even some continental bodies that only allow Christians, and all such bodies that allow Atheists are generally considered irregular (meaning not mutually recognized) by the vast majority of Freemasonry. Because of such inaccuracies I saw nothing in the edit worth saving. And as for the Continental Freemasonry article, the problem is that it’s written from the Masonic perspective where “Continental Freemasonry” has a definition that isn’t in line with the general use of the term “continental.” PeRshGo (talk) 04:31, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Masons often use the term "Continental Freemasonry" but what they really mean is the "Grand Orient de France" and it's small group of friends, not Freemasonry as it is practiced on the continent of Europe. PeRshGo (talk) 07:15, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

You know, all this could be solved if either of you actually came up with a WP:RS...Coffeepusher (talk) 11:46, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah! An optimist! --Kenatipo ^speak! 13:59, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps something like this might be acceptable? (it would be to me):

• The vast majority of Masonic Grand bodies around the world have only one religious requirement: A belief in God (the form that belief may take is left up to the individual, and is not asked). A minority of Grand bodies (belonging to a branch of Freemasonry that is commonly termed "Continental Freemasonry", because it is dominated by the Grand Orient of France) do not include this requirement, and admit atheists as well as believers. This branch is deemed irregular (non-legitimate) by the majority. A few Grand bodies require membership in a specific religious faith (for example, the Grand Lodge of Sweden requires its members to be Christian)

Possible sources for this are:

• Hodapp, Christopher, Freemasons for Dummies, Whiley Publishing, 2005
• Morris, S Brent, The Idiot's Guide to Freemasonry, Alpha Books, 2006

(I can track down specific page numbers if necessary) Blueboar (talk) 20:47, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Looks like an improvement to me, Blueboar, with or without page numbers. (Except I would say "large" instead of "vast". What is the ratio, in numbers?) --Kenatipo ^speak! 22:35, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Well... there are something like 500 Grand bodies listed at List of Masonic Grand Lodges... perhaps 50 of them (being generous) don't require a belief in God, which means 450 of them do require a belief in God. I think more than a 10:1 ratio counts as a "vast" majority, don't you? Blueboar (talk) 17:30, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

No. To my mind, the word "vast" suggests something almost immeasurable, almost approaching infinity. --Kenatipo ^speak! 23:46, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

A number on the “Grand Orient de France” wouldn’t be too difficult to come by but as for the rest you’re dealing with groups that often consist of as little as one lodge. And the group just got even smaller as the Grand Orient de France just broke ties with the Grand Orient of the United States. There is a reason why in most reliable sources on the matter of Freemasonry contain little more than a footnote on “Continental Freemasonry” if they bother to mention it at all. PeRshGo (talk) 04:08, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

If your sources think Grand Orient freemasonry deserves only a footnote or no mention, then they're not reliable sources. --Kenatipo ^speak! 23:46, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, if we are going to discuss the number of brothers in each Grand Lodge/Orient... with the exception of France, and perhaps Italy, the "regular" (must believe in God) bodies tend to have larger memberships... The elephant in the room in terms of size are the 51 mainstream US Grand Lodges and their Prince Hall counterparts. These tend to be very large (both in total membership numbers and the number of lodges under their jurisdiction). The "continental" style bodies on the other hand, are extremely tiny. Between the mainstream and prince hall Masons, the US has (I am guessing here) about 75% of Masons world wide. There are something like 3 million Freemasons in the US that belong these Grand Lodges... while I would estimate the combined membership of the "continental style" bodies in the US at around 5,000 (and that is being generous). Factor in the UK, Canada and Australia, where there are even fewer continental style Grand Lodges, with even smaller numbers and the ratio of Masons who belong to jurisdictions that require believe in God compared to Masons who belong to jurisdictions that allow Atheists and we are probably around 1000:1. Blueboar (talk) 17:53, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

A ratio of 1000:1 could be described as a vast majority. --Kenatipo ^speak! 23:46, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

@ Pershgo: I'm no expert in this area, but wasn't the Catholic Church, historically, reacting to the Grand Orient style of Freemasonry found in Catholic countries like France, Belgium, Italy and Spain? She would have been less concerned about Masonry in Protestant countries like England and the USA. If you minimize the importance of Continental masonry, then you (and the reader of the article) will not understand the historical reasons for the negative view of the Church. --Kenatipo ^speak! 23:59, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Why so many well-known and reliable sources on the subject of Freemasonry fail to spend much time on the Grand Orients if mentioning them at all is that in removing any reference to a higher power they effectively gutted the institution and given their relative size and prominence it’s much easier to just refer to “Regular Freemasonry” as “Freemasonry” and leave the subject of Grand Orients separate. But you are right in that it was the Grand Orients’ anticlericalism that led to the Catholic opinion of the institution as a whole and Regular Freemasonry is still dragging the weight of Orients’ acts to this day. It’s just a delicate subject. PeRshGo (talk) 06:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The Grand Orient Grand Lodges, and their subordinate Lodges, who practice Continental Masonry, have been declared irregular and clandestine by the United Grand Lodge of England, the Mother Lodge, since 1877, thus they are not regular Freemasonry, and the two should not be confused. The two are as different as daylight and dark, and can be seen by the Grand Orients allowing atheists membership, along with a multitude of other irregular changes. Regular Freemasonry has no ties to the Grand Orients, and the regular membership is banned from attending their lodges. Regular Freemasonry's Grand Lodges are in amity with the United Grand Lodge of England, and they are the only regular Lodges, worldwide.--Craxd1 (talk) 05:32, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

@Craxd1 Please don't post pompous rants to obsolete threads. The UGLE is NOT the mother lodge of regular freemasonry. The "Modern's" rite of the 1720s was dropped (with an admission of error) as a condition of the Union of 1813, by which time the Scottish, Irish and "Ancients" had spread worldwide. The 1717 Grand Lodge did, however, pass its rite on to France, where it is still the basis of the French Rite, and Grand Orient Freemasonry. The Premier Grand Lodge was also a hotbed of atheism in the 1720s - three Grand Masters and at least one assistant Grand Master being prominent unbelievers. A minority of Grand Orients are in amity with some or all regular lodges, and the manner of the schism with GO de France definitely puts UGLE on the dark side of the equation. As the French believe that the UGLE take dining more seriously than Freemasonry, they use regular as a term of abuse. They have admitted two atheists since 1877 (they say one, but I did some research), because the inherent mysticism of traditional French Freemasonry is unattractive to unbelievers. This is an Encyclopedia, and partisan dismissal of people and bodies that you don't happen to agree with has no place here, especially when you don't seem to have read round the subject. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 22:49, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Are you a Freemason in a regular lodge? I happen to be. A regular lodge of Freemasonry is in amity with the United Grand Lodge of England, whether you like it or not, and the Grand Orientes were declared irregular and clandestine in 1877. It started with the French allowing atheists membership, and grew to the Grand Orients allowing religion and politics to be discussed within the lodge, to the point that the Grand Orients got involved in politics, whis has always been banned in regular Freemasonry. That is fact, and is why the Grand Lodges in the US, except one, (51 of the 52), will not admit any member of a Grand Orient Lodge into their lodge, nor will the regular lodges in the UK. The regular lodges do not practice Continental, nor so-called "liberal" Freemasonry, and NEVER have. Oh, and the UGLoE is the mother lodge, the first Grand Lodge of the fraternity, who gave the first patents, and if a patent is pulled, you are not regular. That is recorded fact and history, so don't try to downplay the truth. There is as much difference between Continental and Regular Freemasonry as daylight and dark.--Craxd1 (talk) 07:42, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

For the record, I am a past master in a UGLE lodge. Please try and read something. The GOdF HAD to get involved in politics to fight the attempts by the Catholic church to eradicate them. This was a century before the Lausanne debacle. Can you find me a US Grand lodge that doesn't recognise the Grand Orients of Brazil and Italy? You are conflating the UGLE with the Premier Grand Lodge of England (the "Moderns"), an ancestor, but by its own admission in 1811, irregular. The Ancients, and the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland played a far bigger part in the formation of US Freemasonry than the Moderns. Your rant is uninformed and unencyclopedic. Lastly, which part of "stop posting to obsolete threads" did you not understand? Fiddlersmouth (talk) 23:24, 6 August 2015 (UTC)