What is a mason?

Question

Just out of curiousty, what is a mason? My boss told me he was a mason and his church frowned upon this...I really have no clue what he was talking about.

Answer 1

We are a fraternal organization. The tenants of our fraternity are brotherly love, charity, and truth.

If you know what a stone mason is, you are familiar with some of the jobs that a Mason might have, as far as building with stone and brick. Masons use certain tools and concepts to do their work. These are called operative Masons.

Freemasonry is also referred to as speculative Masonry, and this is a fraternal organization that (to make things simple), assigns certain ideas or principles to the working tools of operative Masons, and uses these to teach certain moral lessons. Our group is a fraternity based on this concept of conveying intangible ideas through the use of symbolism derived from ancient Masonic teachings.

As an example, Masons use a square to make sure that structures adhere to perfect angles. We may use this to remember to square our actions with others (to deal with people squarely and fairly). Also, an operative Mason uses a level to make sure that something is evenly perpendicular to the ground. Speculative Masons use this to teach that we are all equal and on the level with others.

Those are just a few examples of how Freemasonry and operative masons are related. However, it in not required that Freemasons be operative masons. We are bankers and ditch diggers, waiters and software engineers, preachers and bartenders, and all other occupations.

While it was pretty common for men at the time of the founding of the United States to be Freemasons, not all of the Founding Fathers were brothers. Ben Franklin, George Washington, Paul Revere were members, but John Adams and and others were not. Thirteen signers of the Declaration of Independence were Masons. The reason that so many were members is because the Masons believe in freedom and equality, so it stands to reason that men of such belief would be involved in the creation of our country. It should be mentioned, however, that this political activity was not done as an act of the Masons. In fact, many Masons at the time were also loyal to England.

There are a lot of conspiracy theories about the Freemasons out there, and many outrageous claims that we are Satanists or that we rule the country. First, how could an organization that gives about $2 million dollars A DAY to charity be an evil organization. Second, we are forbidden to discuss politics in our lodge meetings, so it would be pretty difficult to run a country while not speaking of politics.

Some branches of Christianity (such as the Catholic church) think that Freemasonry is evil or that members of the church who are also Masons are in a state of grave sin, but their claims are unfounded and are based on erroneous propaganda.

If you have any more questions about Freemasons, please feel free to ask.

Answer 2

Freemasons (Masons) are members of a worldwide fraternal and charitable organization. Some, but certainly not all, churches tend to frown upon Masonry because it's a secret society with passwords and rituals. Some churches forbid their members to become Masons, but others have no prohibition against it.

Answer 3

Your boss is likely a Freemason, which is a member of the social fraternity of Freemasonry. They study morality through symbol, ritual and allegory.

Over the past 700 years there have been a lot of wild, and false, accusations about freemasonry from various Churches; all of which are false and have been shown to be false time and again.

In addition to studying morality, they provide over $2 billion per year in charity.

Answer 4

Freemasons are kind of like the original union, although now they are a mystic club of sorts.

Answer 5

A mason is a craftsman.
A stonemason is one who works in stone to create works of art?
Try reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, as I guess that Freemasons is what you weakly refer to.

Answer 6

This link can explain it better than I ever could. Hope this helps.

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

Answer 7

A person who lays bricks. Free.

Answer 8

It is a kind of jar.