Is Freemasonry A Religion?

Freemasons always deny that their organization is a religion but they meet all the requirements of a religion, as I demonstrated in my article, Freemasonry - An Occult Religion.”

Well, while still cleaning out old files I found a couple items about Freemasonry which I typed up many years ago, and which I decided to share on this blog.  This post will be the shortest of the articles, and when I get a chance to type out the other one it will be posted also.  It is unclear from the sheet if wrote the whole thing or copied some of it from some publication (this was done back when I had a typewriter, which would have been in the 1980s, and I didn’t make any notations as to whether I was citing anyone—it sounds like my writing).  Herewith is the first one:

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Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma is described as the basis for Masonic philosophy.  This book identifies Masonry with the “Ancient Mysteries” and star worship.  It presents Masonry as an organization which thrives on tension, conflict, and revolution.  Pike notes that Masonry is in constant opposition to the Catholic Church:  “We do not admit that the Messiah was born in Bethlehem.”  Pike said that the writings of the apostles are only “articles of the vulgar faith.”  

Pike proclaimed that “every Masonic Lodge is a temple of religion; and its teachings are instruction in religion…. This is the true religion revealed to the ancient patriarchs, which Masonry has taught for many centuries, and which it will continue to teach as long as time endures.”

Pike also states that Masonry owes all its symbols and secrets to the Jewish Kabbalah.  He further states, “Masonry propagates no creed except its own most simple and sublime one; that universal religion, taught by nature and reason.”

[I had a copy of Pike’s book for many years but gave it away last year.]

R.W. Orlady, in his Address to the Craft, stated, “We are members of the universal religion…. As Christians, we worship God through Jesus Christ; as Parsees, through Zoroaster; as Mohammedans, through Mohammed; as Jews, through Moses.  We believe that in every nation, he that feareth God and works righteousness is accepted by Him…. We know that the end of our journey is the same.”

The Masonic publication New Age has said, “The kingdom of God is to be established among men by the evolution and development of man himself.”

The manual, Introduction to Freemasonry, states that, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.”  Other Masonic writings say, “Man is divine and his divinity is within himself,” and “When we talk to God we are talking to ourselves, for God and man are one and the same through the ties of love.”

It’s plain that Freemasonry is a religious system, but none of these writings are of Christian doctrine or thought!