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"I consider
it useless and tedious to represent what exists, because nothing that exists satisfies me.
Nature is ugly, and I prefer the monsters of my fancy to what is positively trivial."
Charles Baudelaire (1821–67), French poet
Has this ever happened:
 | You walk into a bookstore and in wandering through the "Religion" section come across a condemnation of Freemasonry... |
| You're reading messages in a newsgroup and there's some snide comment about Masons... |
| You see a car go speeding by a police radar trap and notice that there's a Masonic decal on the back... |
| A fellow at your office decides to talk to you about the 'Evils of Masonry... |
At some point, you begin to wonder: is it true that
"Where there's smoke, there's fire!"?
The answer is NO!
We suggest you use your common sense and do a REALITY CHECK:
Some people, on religious grounds, feel there are incompatibilities between their beliefs and Freemasonry. If they come to that conclusion, either before or after they've joined, that's fine! Freemasonry won't belittle their religious beliefs and it won't encourage them to remain members if they feel they don't want to. The way Freemasonry and Freemasons behave toward such a person is FAR from the manner in which the anti-Mason treats a Mason. In fact, the anti-Mason seems nearly universally compelled to tear down and belittle Freemasonry, hardly the mark of a religious person who should be providing support and encouragement to seekers of truth.
Some people, using conspiracy theories, will link Freemasonry to the web of deception they've created in their mind. It's convenient, of course - and there are SO many things in the universe that we don't know about, anyone can knit together a bunch of disparate events (ignoring rational explanations in the process) to come up with some fantasy about the evils that a group of men meeting once or twice a month are plotting to take over the world.... For the rational mind, however, looking more deeply into the concept of Masonic conspiracy, will reveal that foolishness about creatures from outer space and scenarios that are woven from far less than whole cloth are nothing more than fantasy.
And finally, there are those who only want you to buy their tapes, books or videos. These hucksters are hardly the ones to be considered when determining whether there's any truth to the accusations.
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