I had an interesting meeting last evening with several of my friends who are Masons.  The subject came up regarding people not liking Masons because they were so secretive.   I had a personal experience just moments before my dinner meeting with these guys and I want to share.

I have a close friend that my family and I cooked out with last night after my dinner meeting and while at my friend's house before the meeting I was telling him how I was in DeMolay as a teen and that I was meeting some friends from the lodge to work on joining.
and was kindly asking his thoughts.   In my mind thinking because he is my good friend this was going to be a pleasant conversation.    The first thing out of his mouth was that Masons were just a bunch of secretive, satanistic, Devil Worshippers.      WOW   that hit me like a brick..       ???   I was completely dumbfounded!

When I finally got my wits about me from being broadsided I had to stop and gain my composure before lashing out and saying something I completely regretted.  

Eventhough I am not officially in the Fraternity yet,  I felt compelled to defend the fraternity at all cost "even to my friendship with him"

I explained that The Fraternity was no such thing eventhough there was a certain amount of secrecy

I went on to tell him that its members must believe in their "God"  whomever that may be and quoted to him a passage I read by Jim Tresner

Is Masonry a religion?

No, not by the definitions most people use. Religion, as the term is commonly used, implies several things: a plan for salvation or path by which one reaches the after-life; a theology which attempts to describe the nature of God; and the description of ways or practices by which a man or woman may seek to communicate with God.

Masonry does none of those things. We offer no plan of salvation. With the exception of saying that He is a loving Father who desires only good for His children, we make no effort to describe the nature of God. And while we open and close our meetings with prayer, and we teach that no man should ever begin any important undertaking without first seeking the guidence of God, we never tell a man how he should pray or for what he should pray.

Instead, we tell him that he must find the answers to these great questions in his own faith, in his church or synagogue or other house of worship. We urge men not to neglect their spiritial development and to be faithful in the practice of their religion. As the Grand Lodge of England wrote in "Freemasonry and Religion", "Freemasonry is far from indifferent to religion. Without interfering in religious practice, it expects each member to follow his own faith, and to place above all other duties his duty to God by whatever name He is known." Masonry itself makes only a simple religious demand on a man--he must believe that he has an immortal soul and he must believe in God. No atheist can be a Mason.

ALL I want to say is this, For those who do not know  about Freemasonry and the Fraternity, Please read more than one  book or internet site or document for that matter.  Do not assume or state what you do not know.   You may just be surprised how many of your friends and loved ones are Masons  and what great people they are and the wonderful things they do for our Country and Communities

One of the things which seems obvious to Masons but must be really confusing to non-Masons is the emphasis we place on spiritual development. To the average person, this topic would seem to fall clearly within the role of the church, synagogue or mosque. In today's world, we tend not to explore ideas; rather, we like to place everything neatly into a kind of memory catalogue that keeps our associations with various subjects simple. This is the kind of shallow thinking which categorizes Masonry as a cult.

The fact is that Freemasonry is the study of man. We study man, both the "individual and the species," because our task and interest is the improvement of mankind--the improvement of ourselves first and then of society as a whole.

Essential to this study is the study of mankind's religious and spiritual development. It simply is not possible to understand either human psychological, social, or moral history or human potential and geographical history without an understanding of the great spiritual forces which have produced so much of those histories.

Much of the misunderstanding between Freemasonry and its critics comes from two essentially different views of human history, especially pre-Christian history.

One view, taken by many fundamentalists, especially those of the "Christian Reconstructionist" movement views man's early spiritual longings and development with a rather contemptous pity. Essentially saying, "Isn't it too bad that those poor fools living in 2000 B.C. weren't Christians," they deprecate or even hold as "devil inspired," all spiritual knowledge such people may have possessed.

The other view, taken by Freemasonry, says; "Isn't it wonderful that, as far back as we can trace man's human history, man seems to have been aware of something outside himself--a higher power--which, however imperfectly, he has been driven to recognize, honor, and venerate."

Many of the most harsh criticisms center around this difference. We have often been accused of using pagan symbols, while, as it happens, almost all symbols used by church, state or individual can be traced to early pre-Christian times. We could point out many examples such as the cross, chalice, bread, fish, etc.

The point is that the origin of a symbol is insignificant. Its use by any group is determined by their own interpretation. It is as wrong to insist that Msons use pagan symbols with pagan intent as it is to insist that Christians use pagan symbols with pagan intent.

It is clear that ethics, morality, and spirituality did not begin with Christianity. The Church recognized this fact when it developed the doctrine of the "virtuous pagan" in the Middle Ages to account for the fact that some of the most powerful and insightful writing in the area of ethics and morality came from pre-Christian writers. To understand ethics, one must know BOTH Aristotle and Augustine.

Again, Freemasonry is the study of man--man with all humanity of all times, cultures, and faiths. In the process, we try to understand those things which we all have in common. And we strive to be the best people we can be. Surely, these goals are not in conflict with any faith or creed; any ethic or creative and productive view of life.

Well written Brother