I didn't mean accepting the tenets of the other faiths as truth, just believing in the sincerity of the other member's faith.
The reason the big three are always butting heads is that they all believe in a specific spiritual reality that everyone is subject to, a specific God with specific character traits and choices He has made throughout history... and they disagree on the specifics.
Freemasonry (at least at the lower levels, from what I've read) tries to avoid religious debates by saying "we all believe there is a grand Architect of the universe, so let's not take it farther than that."
Getting along with each other isn't against their religions, it's accepting others' faiths as accurate. As such, only the more "liberal" of each faith will stay in the Masons into the higher ranks.
Actually,no.IIRC the viewpoint of the masons is essentially all monotheistic religions are more or less true.It's a fundamentally deist(though supposedly its actually outright gnostic in the higher degrees) organization and as such is fundamentally incompatible with any of the abrahamic faiths if you bother to think through what the philosophy implies for any of the faiths.Plus,they've historically been involved in some really shady stuff to say nothing of some of the stuff that(allegedly) is revealed in the higher degrees.You are absolutely right in that you need to be a bit of a modernist or nominal believer to not feel at least a little conflicted being a mason.
I didn't mean accepting the tenets of the other faiths as truth, just believing in the sincerity of the other member's faith.
The reason the big three are always butting heads is that they all believe in a specific spiritual reality that everyone is subject to, a specific God with specific character traits and choices He has made throughout history... and they disagree on the specifics.
Freemasonry (at least at the lower levels, from what I've read) tries to avoid religious debates by saying "we all believe there is a grand Architect of the universe, so let's not take it farther than that."
Getting along with each other isn't against their religions, it's accepting others' faiths as accurate. As such, only the more "liberal" of each faith will stay in the Masons into the higher ranks.
Actually,no.IIRC the viewpoint of the masons is essentially all monotheistic religions are more or less true.It's a fundamentally deist(though supposedly its actually outright gnostic in the higher degrees) organization and as such is fundamentally incompatible with any of the abrahamic faiths if you bother to think through what the philosophy implies for any of the faiths.Plus,they've historically been involved in some really shady stuff to say nothing of some of the stuff that(allegedly) is revealed in the higher degrees.You are absolutely right in that you need to be a bit of a modernist or nominal believer to not feel at least a little conflicted being a mason.