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Post by Smithee on Aug 6, 2013 21:37:38 GMT 10
All Master Masons are given the authority, indeed the duty, to defend the good name of the Craft and to correct errors and irregularities among their fellows, wherever encountered. You see here MM at a conceptual level I have a lot of sympathy for you here. In fact I would positively support you in this and respect you for it. I require neither your sympathy nor your respect for performing my duty. Your support would be appreciated but from your participation so far I doubt your sincerity. And this is where you loose that respect. Character assassinations and rudeness are very dark work, and difficult to reconcile with what the tenets explicitly say - at least in UGLE. As an outsider I can only gauge you against your own published standards of how a True Freemason acts. And here you lose any lingering respect I may have had for you. Specific, warranted and substantiated criticism is not abuse. Nor does it constitute character assassination or rudeness. You left out where I justified my remark by noting how most days they tried banning me several times, so they demonstrate not patience but incompetence. I now add that LorrB had admitted, “I don't think I am intelligent enough or experienced enough to do either of those things”, in the context of being asked to, “Speculate by all means: Then corroborate or debunk.” So we have both incompetence in running a forum and incompetence in basic reasoning. Sore liabilities where running an Esoteric Freemasonry forum. Remember there will be Freemasons who visit here who hold those tenets dearly and they will be judging you against what you are complaining about, and those memories will last a long time. And before you wrongly state that all posts have been respectful, the above one isn't and it hasn't been the only one, a few of the ones I have read nearly made me cry with sadness. As a non-mason whose application was rejected, tell me again about our tenets. Remember unqualified tolerance is not one of them. We do not tolerate the intolerable. If you want visitors here to get the right impression of the Craft you must be beyond reproach yourself. By the same logic, to criticise my behaviour you too must be beyond reproach. But that reasoning is false. Otherwise it is just another mason having a go at other masons because they see things differently and the masonic internet is full of such petty behaviour. I would rather visitors here witnessed robust and reasoned debate than have them assume that silence in the face of the W00 here meant that it was accepted as esoteric Freemasonry. Post reproduced at....
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Post by Smithee on Aug 7, 2013 3:58:28 GMT 10
.... mutually agreeable esoteric discussions with similar minded people. Individual masons have various interests, they may even have humoured you on your one and only attendance. They may well discuss diverse esoteric non-masonic topics but not specifics of Esoteric Freemasonry.
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Post by Smithee on Aug 7, 2013 15:08:53 GMT 10
Has the use of Jacob's Ladder been lost to modern Masonry? No. Its introduction to Freemasonry was an innovation of modern Masonry, as described in the first post of this thread.
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Post by Smithee on Aug 7, 2013 15:24:16 GMT 10
Now the word "truth" is a reification. The quality of being true - to some reference - has been turned into an independent object. Using the word "truth" allows one to propose that truth is absolute rather than relative to some reference point. Rubbish. Reification involves the purported concretization of an abstraction. While some truths may be abstract or relative, some truths are True. In other words, they correspond with a concrete, objective reality. “Society's pursuit of truth and understanding demands intellectual honesty.” - Abscondo. www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/24/995211/-Enough-with-the-intellectual-relativism#
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Post by Smithee on Aug 7, 2013 15:28:49 GMT 10
The statement "without truth All is lost" is a bit of a conundrum. If all is in ALL how can we lose anything? L.O.L. Look at the context. I was mirroring your statement that "without love All is lost."
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Post by Smithee on Aug 8, 2013 22:08:02 GMT 10
No. I the case of Jacob's Ladder, your strained and contrived theory is an anachronism and has a different significance. Use of Jacob's Ladder is one of the secrets of the Kabbalah and teachers are very fussy about teaching that. It was also taught by the Masons of the Golden Dawn but they too were fussy about whom they initiated. Still from what you write you seem to claim to able to distinguish the genuine secrets of Masonry from the genuine secrets of the Kabbalah. An impressive claim. I am guided by evidence, not assertion. Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur. “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” - Christopher Hitchens. It is curious how practice is distorted. The Kabbalistic practice of ascending and descending the ladder was that of prayer (before New Age rogues tried catering to sensation seekers). www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/361883/jewish/The-Ladder.htm. This is the understanding and practice of S.R.I.S. and S.R.I.A. The Golden Dawn was founded by S.R.I.A. Fraters and presumably had the same understanding. Your understanding of Rising on the Planes was first specified by Aleister Crowley, is practiced by Thelemites and appears to be one of his innovations. www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/Rising_on_the_Planes
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Post by Smithee on Aug 8, 2013 22:13:38 GMT 10
LOL I slap people around with humour when I don't know what the heck they are talking about. I have quite a keen sense of humour Discussing the nature of Truth to me is a futile occupation. I believe that we all live in our own worlds to some extent. And I believe that what we hold to be true or Truth will be the benchmark against which we will be held accountable. One man's minor infringement might be another's mortal sin. ... and sometimes I believe lying is the best option. I see no glory in proclaiming a truth if the result produces misery for another. Spend time in an ER and you will get my gist. I think Truth is something one stumbles across when they are doing their darnedest to do the best they can with heart and hand. “Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle that they are laboring to dethrone: but if they argue without reason (which, in order to be consistent with themselves they must do), they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.” - Ethan Allen.
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Post by Smithee on Aug 8, 2013 22:20:15 GMT 10
I have quite a keen sense of humour
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Post by Smithee on Aug 9, 2013 15:30:38 GMT 10
A first rule is rarely the last word. Peirce also said “It is the man of science, eager to have his every opinion regenerated, his every idea rationalized, by drinking at the fountain of fact, and devoting all the energies of his life to the cult of truth, not as he understands it, but as he does not yet understand it, that ought properly to be called a philosopher.” - Charles Sanders Peirce. And “There never was a sounder logical maxim of scientific procedure than Ockham's razor: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. That is to say; before you try a complicated hypothesis, you should make quite sure that no simplification of it will explain the facts equally well.” - Charles Sanders Peirce. And “It is terrible to see how a single unclear idea, a single formula without meaning, lurking in a young man’s head, will sometimes act like an obstruction ... in an artery, hindering the nutrition of the brain, and condemning its victim to pine away in the fullness of his intellectual vigor and in the midst of intellectual plenty.” - Charles Sanders Peirce. And “When a man is about to build a house, what a power of thinking he has to do, before he can safely break ground! With what pains he has to excogitate the precise wants that are to be supplied. What a study to ascertain the most available and suitable materials, to determine the mode of construction to which those materials are best adapted, and to answer a hundred such questions! Now without riding the metaphor too far, I think we may safely say that the studies preliminary to the construction of a great theory should be at least as deliberate and thorough as those that are preliminary to the building of a dwelling-house.” - Charles Sanders Peirce. And so on.
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Post by Smithee on Aug 10, 2013 13:23:10 GMT 10
Discussing the nature of Truth to me is a futile occupation. There we have it. The Forum Administrator's position on Truth. ... and sometimes I believe lying is the best option. I see no glory in proclaiming a truth if the result produces misery for another. Even where the other is seeking truth and you have led them top believe they have come to the right place? I think Truth is something one stumbles across when they are doing their darnedest to do the best they can with heart and hand. In masonry it is with heart, HEAD and hand. “The heart is a vital organ, but it is a faulty guide to conduct. It is the mind makes judgements and comparisons, furnishes evidence on which ideas of truth can be founded.” - Barry Unsworth.
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