Part 4: Masons say one thing, anti-Masons say another --

Part 4: Difficult Questions About Freemasonry by Roger Firestone

"Masons say one thing, anti-Masons say another -- whom should I believe?

The history of Freemasonry is well documented, and its major players include a vast number of contributors to society--men such as Washington, Truman, and Churchill in politics, Goethe, Schiller, and Conan Doyle in literature, Burl Ives, Ernest Borgnine, Gene Autry in the performing arts, Mozart, Haydn, and Irving Berlin in music, and on and on. Freemasons played essential roles in the civilization of the New World, taming the west (Kit Carson was a Freemason), freeing Latin America (Bolivar was a Mason, as was Bernardo O'Higgins), and so on.
Freemasons have established a vast array of charitable activities, primarily focussing on the health field, such as the famous Shriners' Children's Hospitals for treatment of orthopaedic problems and burns, the Scottish Rite speech disorder clinics, the Masonic cancer centers, the Tall Cedars' activities for muscular dystrophy, and many others. Not to mention homes for the aged and even dormitory accommodations at the University of Texas.
Among the anti-Masons, one can count a single president of the US, John Quincy Adams (thirteen presidents were Masons), two literary figures (Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens--and it is not clear whether Dickens was really an anti-Mason, or one who simply felt that the Masons of his time were not living up to their standards and were therefore hypocrites), and almost no one else of any consequence in history or who has made a significant contribution to the humanities. The anti-Masons operate no charitable groups but engage in fund-raising only to support themselves: They sell books for profit, seek donations to keep their "ministries" operating on television, and contribute nothing to society at large. All of this is a matter of public record; these facts do not depend on one's ability to determine who is telling the truth. Further, we have the experience of history to teach us what to believe of a group of "anti-" somethings, whether they are anti-Semites, anti-Catholics, or anti-Masons. That historical experience has shown that those who single out a group, especially one different from the majority in society, for opprobrium and hatred are generally not telling the truth about that group, but are seeking to benefit themselves from stirring up the passions of the mob. In other words, if we knew nothing of the Masons or of the anti-Masons, it would be difficult to know whom to believe. But we are not as ignorant as that. There are plenty of epistemological reasons to choose to believe that Masons are telling the truth in the present context, as opposed to accepting the word of the anti-Masons. (E.g., one epistemological principle is known as Occam's Razor--it tells us to accept the simplest hypothesis that explains the known facts. The anti-Masons, when confronted with their own contradictions, pile on ever more assumptions. Prove that "Lucifer" is not mentioned in the Symbolic Rite of the first three degrees and they will assert that it is the Scottish Rite that teaches "devil worship." Prove that there is no such thing in the 32 degrees, and they will claim it is taught in the 33rd degree. A denial by a 33rd degree Mason will lead to the attribution of Satanism to the Knights Templar. And so on. The simpler hypothesis is that there is no such Satanic nonsense in Freemasonry--given the conflict of assertions, Occam's Razor directs us to this choice.) The anti-Masons also engage in circular reasoning: They claim that there is a great "Masonic conspiracy" to control the world. Absent any evidence of that, they claim that the very lack of evidence is "proof" of the power of the conspiracy. (Too many Oliver Stone movies? Of course, even Congressmen have engaged in such reasoning, as in the case of the "October surprise" investigation, when Tom Foley suggested that the very lack of evidence was what justified a Congressional hearing. An inability to reason against one's own prejudices is not unique to the anti-Masons.)

Anti-Masons, in discussing some of the more inflammatory allegations about Masonry, such as the worship of satanic or pagan gods, also assert that the vast majority of Masons are totally ignorant of the "real" nature of Masonry, which is revealed only to a few "high" Masons. Yet these anti-Masons insist that they themselves know these hidden secrets better than most of the millions of active members of the Masonic fraternity. Is this a credible state of affairs? In other words, there are very good reasons to believe that Masons, rather than anti-Masons are telling the truth about the Fraternity, based on the history of Freemasonry, the known character of those who have been Freemasons, and the principles of epistemology. Of course, if one is ignorant of the history and background of a witness, as well as ignorant of the theory of knowledge, one is at the mercy of every smooth-talking mountebank and charlatan to come along. (Why do you think that criminal defense lawyers seek the most uninformed jurors possible?)

A recent (Mon Aug 9 1999) update: In addition to spreading false stories about the nature and intentions of Freemasonry in print media, television and radio programs, and Internet venues, the past few months have seen an escalation of anti-Masonic activity of an active nature on the Internet.
Anti-Masons have engaged in several forms of Net abuse, including multiple repeated postings to Usenet of the same material (a dozen or more times), postings to large numbers of Usenet newsgroups, and combinations of these. Within the past week or so, one anti-Mason in Australia with administrator privileges has begun issuing *CANCEL* requests for postings by Freemasons to alt.freemasonry and replacing those messages with forgeries of the originals containing obscenities, incoherencies, and so on. Examination of the full message headers reveals these posts to have originated at telstra.net, near Canberra, and not with the ISPs of the reputed senders.

Since anti-Masons uniformly use anonymous posting methods and never appear under their own names or identities, closing down their accounts takes time. The evidence of those actions can be found at what used to be known as Deja News. Anti-Masons frequently allege that Masons are part of some worldwide criminal conspiracy; when they are caught doing the same, what does it mean for the credibility of their accusations? And why would anyone take the word of a source or group of sources that choose to be anonymous. No, the matter of whom to believe is not one which requires hard thought to resolve."