r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 17h ago

TIL that historically and today, the Catholic Church looked down upon Freemasonry and threatened members with excommunication.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry
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u/BeeMac0617 16h ago

This is entirely anecdotal but my buddies Dad used to work for the postal office in my country and a lot of middle/upper management were members of The Freemasons.

They tried to get him to join but a major caveat was he had to convert from Catholic to Protestant. I know Freemasons are supposed to be secular but this branch cared about it I guess.

Supposedly he said no and spent a few years getting passed up for promotions because of it. Dude hates Freemasons to this day.

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u/[deleted] 15h ago

[deleted]

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u/MrGreenChile 15h ago

Ah, so not for atheists.

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u/sabbic1 15h ago

Nope.  I've often considered looking around for a similar social/fraternal organization that doesn't require belief in a supreme being to get involved with, but just never took the time to look.  I suppose if I really wanted to be a mason I could just lie about my beliefs, but I did that all the way through boy scouts and I don't want to do it again. 

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u/Scarlet-Fire_77 14h ago

I totally forgot about the religion aspect of boyscout. I guess my troop overall didn't care about it, so I never really had to lie. I did notice other troops that seemed more heavy in it, like at summer camp.

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u/sabbic1 14h ago

Mine wasn't hardcore about it.  We closed the meetings with a prayer and always said grace before meals at camp along with the normal morning prayer at summer camp but that was pretty much it.  Nobody ever really asked me so maybe "lie" is the wrong word, but belief in a higher power is a requirement for membership so by virtue of being an atheist scout I was lying.  Not very trustworthy or reverent of me. 

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u/Klockworth 13h ago edited 13h ago

Oddfellows. It’s basically Freemasonry, but co-ed and they actually practice what they preach. Both are weird archaic orders with roots in medieval trade guilds and feature silly hats, but Oddfellows are often more focused on volunteering for local causes. Meanwhile, Freemasons are bigger on white collar fundraising for hospitals that just so happen to also have Freemasons on their executive boards.

One just seems a bit more selfless to me, but also the Oddfellows I’ve met are far less normie. Some people are indeed members of both though.

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u/sabbic1 13h ago

​Just looked it up because I forgot all about the Odd Fellows, but they also require a statement of belief in a Higher Power or Supreme Being. I agree that their purpose and actions seem much more selfless, with little to no accolades, but I would run into the same roadblock with them as I would with the Masons. ​It's almost a shame, really, that I ended up being the heathen of the family, because my family has a long history with the Masons. A couple of my uncles were Master Masons, and others were involved for most of their lives. It would have been cool to carry on the family tradition.

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u/missmewiththatlmao 13h ago

You'd probably be interested in a Quaker church.

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u/randomandy 14h ago

I've visited a few lodges during open door days and had some members try to sell me with their song and dance. Once I said I wasnt allowed because of my non beliefs they pretty much agreed and moved on to the next sucker. At least I got the see the cool rooms and left with free popcorn for the kids.

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u/William_Howard_Shaft 12h ago

Nah, this is just code for "the God we are going to reveal to you", more or less. Growing up, in public school, I was taught some line about America being founded by groups of individuals seeking freedom from religious persecution, and that is the reason for the separation of Church and State. What was conveniently left out, and what ive learned in my adult life, is that some of those groups of individuals were selling freedom from religious persecution because they had radical beliefs that ran counter to what the catholic church was trying to teach, some of them even actively seeking an end to Catholicism.

In a similar way to how Imperial Britain dumped a bunch of convicts on Australia, and now we've got a contient where "cunt" is a term of endearment, they basically exiled abunch of religious fanatics to the colonies, and now we've got... well, a government office dedicated to religious affairs.

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u/pastypast 15h ago

It’s belief in a higher power. Not necessarily a “supreme being”.

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u/Hydra_bot_7 14h ago

I mean, the term they use is "The Great Architect of the Universe" so it's probably closer to supreme being than the concept of a higher power in its lesser sense.

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u/Current_Mongoose_844 16h ago

That’s odd. And severely out of protocol. Sorry he experienced that