What is Freemasonry?
“Freemasonry is a system of morality vailed with allegory and illustrated by symbols”. Better yet it’s a progressive moral science.
Today’s freemasonry is not longer operative only but speculative. That means that it’s no longer open for the stone mason workmen only but any good person who believes in the principles of freemasonry can become a member. We use the working tools of the workmen Masons who built buildings and Cathedrals to teach how to build out own Temple. Each tool as it has a duty in the building of an edifice it also has a duty in building a better us.
What are the main requirement to be a Freemason?
*The Belief in the supreme being and the eternity of the soul. Those are the first and most important requirements, an atheist can not and will never be mason at least not in a regularly recognized Masonic jurisdiction.
*Being a man, even though there are some unrecognized and/or irregular grand lodges that admit women but today let’s concentrate on the main stream of regular freemasonry. It’s is required that you be a man. Some jurisdictions admit me of 21 years old other 18.
*Free born. You can not be someone else’s slave and become a mason. Because masonry advocates free thinking free of anyone’s influence.
*Good repute. Freemasonry makes good men better, it doesn’t take bad persons and try to make them good. So it is important that the person coming to Masonry has a good reputation to be accepted into the fraternity. The reason we need good men to make them better it is like using only good quality stones to build a building; if we used bad quality stones the building will eventually collapse.
*To be recommended. Even though freemasonry doesn’t allow to its members to solicit others for membership you will need a brother mason to vouch for you to his lodge brothers in order to be accepted. The character of the candidate is the most important part of accepting him in the Fraternity.
So what is Freemasonry and what do they do?
As we said it is a system of morality vailed with allegory and illustrated by symbols.
Let go deeper. Freemasonry teaches good men to be just and upright and honorable human through it philosophy and ritual and their tools. Masonry’s goal is to make good men better to better the society and thus the world. The square and compass and the letter G in the center which are the main tools or symbol of a Mason mean as follows: The compass teaches us to circumscribed our desires and keep out passion in due bound towards everyone. The square teaches us to be just and fair to everyone around us. The G represent God or the Great Architect or Geometrician of the universe who created all seen and unseen, who without him nothing exists and He is in the middle of everything including our symbols.
As we said previously each tool has a purpose and we discover these in every degrees as we advance in Masonry.
They say freemasonry is a secret society, is that true?
I would say that it’s not a secret society since you can find their meeting place everywhere the square and compass displayed on their buildings and they are not hidden. Thousands of books are written about Freemasonry that in today’s time and age is easily found. But it is a society with secret. They have their own secrets, mainly they are the ways of recognition that allows one brother to know another. This is a privilege to all members according to their degree. Like you have your own bank account password and you don’t give it to others, Masons the same way have their passwords and modes of recognition that we won’t give it to other than the initiates. So if it was a secret society how could all these books would be written and how all these buildings around the world will display our square and compass. Also there are hundreds of website that discuss masonry and it’s open to everyone. So it is not a secret society at all.
Is freemasonry a religion?
Many say that it is a religion or a sect. They can’t be more wrong because. Masonry can not be a particular religion if it accepts from all religious groups. It’s teaching of morality may some people compare it to religion but it is another misconception. Masonry doesn’t allow discrimination or judge people according to their religion, wealth, orientation or their thinking, as we know religions do. Masonry teaches respect to other human being and love, to be tolerant and compassionate. There entire teaching is based on these characteristics.
Masonry’s principal tenets are brotherly love, relief and truth.
Brother love to all mankind.
To relief and give comfort to the distressed.
Truth, Because it is a Devine attribute and the foundation of every virtue.
How about Masonry in politics and religion?
Regular Freemasonry forbids its members to talk politics and religion in the lodge or in Masonic events. Politics and religion is a very divisive subject and creates disharmony and it is strictly forbidden to masons. Although Masons have predominant political and religious members of all sides of the spectrum but they display mutual respect to one another because first and foremost harmony is the most important part of society particularly to Masons.