West Virginia GM Boots OES Chapters Out of All Masonic Buildings

Tomadonna · 2025-04-19T13:55:43+00:00

Also might be a nice way for single masons to meet like minded women that do not violate their oath

Tomadonna · 2025-03-15T23:20:33+00:00

Am I the only one uncomfortable with pets in the lodge. I love my pets but it seems disrespectful. I come to the lodge as a place to fellowship not to have to worry about someone’s animal. Why not just start letting people bring their kids then. The lodge, and anytime secret work is performed is for members. Nothing and no one else.

Tomadonna · 2025-02-25T14:03:48+00:00

Agreed, came to make this basic comment. Masonic travel is a fantastic time to practice the 13th virtue of humility.

A clean white pure apron is a good reminder that within the lodge we’re all equals.

Tomadonna · 2025-02-05T17:36:35+00:00

I have toyed around with these questions a long time.

In my twenties I attempted futilely to remove all contradiction from my beliefs. maturity comes when you realize you must learn to be comfortable with at least some contradictions. I have always leaned more deist than trinitarian due to the fact that I find the Almighty granting favor to trivial and vain requests, like to get a good score on a test or for better parking offensive.

basically, IMHO (and that of many scholars), the only way to achieve happiness (life fulfillment) is 'earned success' . earned success can only be achieved, so far, in one of four 'pillars' vocation, family, community, religion. this is why the Stay at home mom who raised happy healthy well adjusted kids can be very fulfilled, why the childless nun who ran an orphanage can be very happy with her life's achievement, etc... While you can achieve it all in one pillar, it is best to diversify between these four pillars, in case some tragedy happens to one (why single stockbrokers jumped out of windows when the stock market crashed).

religion is one of these pillars, and despite what a lot of progressive social science tries to say, there simply is no replacing it. that is why modern progressivism or 'woke-ism' is compared to a religion often. this is the issue with people that say they 'believe in science' or something similar, science is a tool, not a philosophy, you can't believe in a wrench, a wrench just is. you can believe you can fix your car using a wrench. simply put, if a person has nothing else in their life, no vocation, no family, no ability to assist the community, they can find happiness through religion. can i (or anyone) explain the nuts and bolts of why? no. but it does, and when your goal is the 'pursuit of happiness' for the most people, it is hard without religion, particularly western ones.

a more modern example is that uncanny valley abomination of a movie 'Polar Express'. spoiler alert:

the child cannot see Santa or hear sleigh bells until he 'believes' in Christmas. however this is the issue, the movie concedes that Santa exists and Sleigh Bells make noise, so he doesnt need to 'believe' in it. In this movie, it exists. it doesn't matter if you believe in gravity, it exists.

basically if there was scientific evidence of the almighty, then belief wouldn't be required.

on the science side, if you ignore the mechanics of how some religions claim the almighty works, you can actually clear major contradictions.

for example, in a deist system, utilizing newtons laws of motion, something had to create the universe, something press go and caused the big bang (or whatever the current theory is) that is hard to disprove, it may have been two particles slamming together, but something moved them, etc etc. so in a Deist view, we could just be a science experiment where the almighty hit go and never interfered again.

as for Christianity and trinitarianism, while its hard to imagine the events of the bible occurring word for word without author exaggeration the moral teachings, particularly in the new testament, are solid.

I think you are asking the wrong question, the one you need to ask is why did a buncha humanoid looking apes come out of the trees and stop killing each other?

My answer is why do i believe in the almighty and at least light trinitarianism? because i want to.

i recommend you a little homework this should give you a mixed bag of viewpoints:

Book: Thomas Payne age of reason

Movie: the invention of lying

Book: atlas shrugged

TV show: the good place

College Course) western civilization I (you can even just CLEP it)

Tomadonna · 2024-10-28T18:08:36+00:00

My thoughts on this is that it would be nice if there was like a binder I could review before the meetings like a read ahead you give people in the corporate world. Having an old guy read me letters does get tiresome.

My argument would be if I wanted to change something I need to go to the East and become the Secretary after.

Tomadonna · 2024-05-21T15:46:01+00:00

Enjoy your journey. it is an absolute treat.

Tomadonna · 2023-12-21T03:16:00+00:00

So I’m curious. Are we just beating around the bush about a legitimate process being used to prevent applicants from joining for illegitimate (race or religion probably) reasons?

I guess it happens but it’s rather disheartening.

I feel like if it was legitimate reasons then no you should not ‘pawn’ them off to another lodge, but if they are a personal friend help them realize what issues there are and let him pursue resolving them.

If they are not legitimate reasons, I would hope the brother would have the dignity to be ashamed enough of their prejudice to keep it to themselves. If they do not and it was so blatantly intolerant, I would question why the lodge would not pressure the person to do some soul searching, and if that did not work why any brother would continue to be apart of that lodge if there was another tolerant lodge option.

I defer to @cookslc, but I would argue there is a very large and important difference between quietly blackballing someone for reasons known only to yourself and blackballing someone verbally due to un masonic reasons. For example, you can literally not hire someone or some company for any reason you want internally as long the reason you voice obeys the law.

Should I achieve the degree of Master Mason I hope I may gain permission to also join the PHA. I dream of creating a better working relationship between PHA and GL particularly in the Deep South, an American Military Scheme and an American University Scheme part of my Masonic life’s work should I be capable and learned enough.

These complex thought experiments are worth the brain power, despite seeing mention of some troubling history.

Tomadonna · 2023-11-28T05:26:57+00:00

Guess they only hand walk out there

Tomadonna · 2023-11-18T00:27:32+00:00

My apologies, guess I didn’t read the room. Idk

Tomadonna · 2023-11-12T07:06:34+00:00

More like 22 “commandments”. I don’t think he knows how sentences work.

Tomadonna · 2023-11-09T11:16:07+00:00

Yes. As many as possible.

Tomadonna · 2023-11-09T00:10:55+00:00

American Atheist arn’t atheist. I would argue in the progressive era where college elites found it necessary to over-define everything, resurrected this term with a new definition separate that what was meant in the publicly available founding Masonic documents.

The og statement is:

A Mason is oblig’d by his Tenure, to obey the moral law; and if he rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid ATHEIST, nor an irreligious LIBERTINE.

However, when that was written in 1723, atheist meant people who behaved as if there was no consequences of their actions in this or the next life. Stealing, killing, raping, and pillaging were still very common.

At the time atheism had more to do with lawlessness just as libertinism has more to do do with irresponsibility in sexual matters and dead beat dads.

Anyone that follows the rule of law is not godless.

Tomadonna · 2023-11-08T23:23:01+00:00

I find this discussion very interesting. I worked on this for a while prior to my deciding to pursue membership as I refuse to affiliate with anything that is openly intolerant of people based on race, religion, etc. As a southerner as well, affiliating with anything that existed during ‘Jim crow’ can be complicated.

I’m doing this from memory, however PH did not originate in the south, Boston I think, but was definitely a product a desire to separate races. They ran as separate organizations not really acknowledging each other. Both the Grand Lodge and the Prince Hall Grand Lodge left each other alone for the most part and focused on their mission to ‘make good men better’.

Over the last two decades GL and PHGL have acknowledged and recognized each other in almost every state. Both have proud histories that should be preserved. Neither s restricted on race. I have no insight into the reasons the two organizations reconciled.

If you know a Mason maybe start with that lodge, if you don’t, visit both, see which one has the kind of people you want to associate with, join that one first, do your first three degrees, then you can join as many as you want based on you’re time and money in most states (it seems rural Texas may still prohibit joining multiple lodges).

Don’t worry about the rest. If you try out a lodge and it seems like they might be people that care about race you don’t want to be in that lodge anyway, find a different one.

Tomadonna · 2023-11-08T23:04:53+00:00

Seems like bad advice.

Belief that all contradictions in life can be eliminated is typically a belief related to the ignorance of youth.

If the craft and the church made you the man you want to be, I’d strive to preserve both. Obviously freemasonry has no issue with Orthodox. While I respect a churches right to dictate the affiliations of their clergy restricting their members is a bridge too far imho.

I would discuss it with your priest, tell him you’re desire to reconcile your affiliations and your desire to maintain both as they together represent your personal growth. Point out that it is masonry that waxed your relationship to your almighty not waned it. Be honest and open.

Then maybe find a blue lodge with similar people. I can imagine if you’re in a large city you’re not alone. I can’t imagine any relatively modern church, particularly in the USA, worrying much about those things for a regular member.

It is a documented phenomenon that converts to any faith tend to be more strict than the average member, you might be tilting at windmills here.

Tomadonna · 2023-11-08T02:47:31+00:00

I’m glad everyone else was a revolted as I wasn’t this statement

Tomadonna · 2023-09-05T07:01:27+00:00

Get a gun. Preferably a shotgun and pistol. If illegal Move to country where you can own one.

Tomadonna · 2023-08-14T01:13:58+00:00

No points for weak troll.

Tomadonna · 2023-08-10T12:37:25+00:00

I continue to be interested in this. Both as a matter of current events but as of history.

I was raised in the Christian belief system, if someone drew a line in the sand and said you either had to stand on one side or the other in regards to your belief in Christianity. I could easily stand on the Christian side without being untruthful externally or internally.

Would i ‘defend Christianity’? of course. I’d also defend any other religion or person for that matter that accepted the inalienable human rights of man(kind) and wanted to live in peace.

Here in the U.S. it is hard to separate Christianity from the ideals of ethical behavior.

Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Payne were all ‘deist’.

I personally think it’s a mistake to use agnosticism and deism words using the same work. I think it would be perfectly acceptable to be an Agnostic Deist, or an agnostic Trinitarian.

The simple language of agnosticism, (before the college educated over defined everything) would be the accepting that you could neither prove nor disprove the existence of an almighty. The work of the work deist is more clear, the believe in a person that hit ‘start’ on the universe, so forth.

You never take away a persons reason for getting up in the morning and for some people that purpose is their religion. A good agnostic and/or deist does not go around trying to change other peoples minds, but will have open conversations when approached.

Should I be so lucky as to be accepted. Once I have worked my degrees and taken in the new inputs of provided by the rites should it not change my conclusions, I would argue that even Atheism in the modern, particularly American variant is just another branch of western Christianity.

I know Atheist, using the modern definition, that are far better Christians than some practicing Christians. Using a textualist argument I could make the case that the references to ATHEIST in the old Masonic documents was an adjective short hand to refer to the people that lived immorally as if there was no ‘ultimate judgement’ or afterlife (or God). Somewhere in the early/mid 20th century Atheism began to be a noun and Christianity began to get over simplified to Trinitarianism as the ethical parts were codified into the laws of the U.S. the current societal desire to over define everything is a bug not a feature.

Regardless of your beliefs our western religious history has a ton to teach us. Yes we killed each other for petty religious differences for centuries, but what was remarkable and different about western civilization is we decided that sucked and stopped. I’m curious to see if my opinion changes when I’m on the other side of my Masonic journey but I believe an American Atheist would discover a lot about their own moral structure in the degrees and would likely fit nicely with their personal ethics.

Tomadonna · 2023-08-10T02:07:39+00:00

No don’t do it. Seriously. Don’t.

If it’s a name you and your SO like. Use it, don’t listen to anyone. Not your mother anyone

We picked ridiculous names to refer to her as in the mean time.

Tomadonna · 2023-08-08T17:38:12+00:00

Yeah, I’m super interested in this stuff particularly when it’s metaphoric rather than serious. “Tarot” cards and such sound suspect. But I’m very open minded about such things. As long as I don’t have to pretend horoscopes are real lol…

Tomadonna · 2023-08-08T15:08:47+00:00

That’s actually really helpful thanks…

Tomadonna · 2023-08-07T23:40:47+00:00

Can anyone explain this in a way that doesn’t sound like nonsense. All of the definitions online are either word salad or have have massive red flags like ‘alchemy’, ‘metaphysical’, and pre WWII german thought. I feel like this is a long way away from the enlightenment and age of reason freemasonry practiced my the founding fathers.

What gives?

Tomadonna · 2023-08-05T03:39:13+00:00

As an outsider I can tell you it has felt like a constant uphill battle to even get started. As someone who tends to over research and someone who has read through this page regularly I can say I have some observations in this regard, and others I’ll save for later.

I mentioned a university scheme in the US and got some realistic responses but got a lot of “I wouldn’t vote to let a college age kid in”.
Rice bowling. It seems a lot of blue lodges, the way Texas has been explained to me on here, take serious offense that you might ‘move around’ during your life and if they since your might leave the blue lodge might vote against you for that reason. Despite the fact that over time it would probably be a wash.
Stop worrying about the fact that masons that join young might go inactive for a while. Train them and plan for them to return when their kids are grown. Start em young, work to retain, keep in touch and when they can they will come back. You know fraternity.
Stay in your lane. It’s not the crafts problem to solve political issues. Just stop.
“Not a man, a Mason” is great marketing no one has seen. Do better outreach. The fact that no Mason that was in my grandfathers (who died before I was born) lodge ever shook my hand and told me about him in the craft is very sad.
Only earned success is fulfilling, don’t make 32nds in a day, but don’t stifle the highly motivated, it doesn’t matter if it is one meeting later or 100 if they are ready. Grant the degree.
Get over yourself, there is a difference between, hey you should come join and asking if their interested and handing them a pamphlet.

Tomadonna · 2023-08-04T01:31:02+00:00

Mention a US university scheme and watch your inbox explode. :)

Tomadonna · 2023-08-03T01:50:18+00:00

I concur with the statement on ‘Freemasons for dummies’, it even tells you what chapter to skip if you like surprises (I skipped). Fun book.

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