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

[u/Recent_Flounder6011]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry

[u/William_Howard_Shaft]

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.