Freedom of Speech Was Not Granted as a License For Ignorance

Good grief! Another elected official in Oklahoma has embarrassed our state by making a bigoted and ignorant statement about something for which she has not a medical or academic clue. This time the subject is homosexuality.

State Representative Sally Kern, in a recently televised speech, stated that homosexuality is more dangerous than terrorism; that gays are destroying our society. She goes on to compare gay people to cancer, calling them “deadly, and destroying our children and this nation.” Hers is the kind of remark that leads people to think Oklahoma and ignorance are synonyms. It is particularly discouraging to those of us who believe what the world needs now more than ever are speeches with words expressing love, compassion, cooperation, and understanding rather than hatred, divisiveness and intolerance. Even more, when we have a sense that moral judgments should, at the minimum, start with a belief in the brotherhood of Man under the fatherhood of God, her comments are downright offensive. They are an insult to any thoughtful person’s sense of reason and intelligence. We must never forget that all homosexuals are born of heterosexual parents.

Sure, it has yet to be proven beyond debate that gay and lesbian behavior is genetically embedded in those who are; just as it has never been proven that sexual preference is a matter of individual choice. But herein lies a remarkably sobering question. What if gay and lesbian tendencies are indeed genetic? How would this modify the categorical imperatives? What impact would this have on society’s collective moral conscience? How would one feel if he could know with certainty whenever he encounters a gay that, except for biological fate, there he himself is!

Besides, regardless of how we may feel about this issue, it is getting increasingly more difficult to argue that genes play no role in homosexuality. In the last 15 years, more and more research results are leading scientists to an increasing likelihood that one or more genes are connected with gayness. This has already been proven in monkeys, cattle, fruit flies, in DNA tests with X chromosomes, in brain differences between gays and straights; and even in tendencies that twins are more likely to share the same sexual orientation than other siblings.

And this brings me to the real point of this musing. If gayness turns out to be genetic, then it can no longer be considered a 100% non-impeachable moral sin. Moral values will no more depend on sexual orientation than morality depends on religion. As hard as we have often tried over the centuries, no individual or group has ever been able to supplant or replace the innate human capacity for knowing the difference between right and wrong. The bottom line is that moral judgments are based as much on reason as on blind faith or blind feelings. There is a morality in reason just as there is a morality in dogma. It begins with the individual’s life as the primary value, and the recognition that that life contains the same spark of the Divine as yours and mine. We are all Sons or Daughters of God.

Of course, we still have to ultimately identify the further values that will enable us to sustain our life with some sense of fulfillment and contentment. But, in the overall scheme of things, our very nature demands that we not live by random urges or animal instincts. In fact, most of us don’t. Rather, we live by a moral principle which distinguishes us from animals and upon which our existence fundamentally depends. That principle is reason. Some prefer to call it good old common sense. It is the faculty which enables us to experience the world, understand it, and make judgments of fact about it.

Just because a particular religion holds its doctrines to be absolutely true is no evidence that they are. Sally Kern’s convictions which have convinced her that gays are as much a threat to the world as terrorism is no evidence that they are.

But then, educated, intelligent, reasonable, and compassionate people already know that. This is why Sally Kern’s recent remarks are so embarrassing to Oklahomans.

We Can Think. Therefore We Are...Aren't We?

One of the most common quotes taken from any philosopher is that of Descartes, who said; “I think; Therefore, I am.” He posited the statement around the philosophical themes of a 17th century view of reason and rationalism. It was a new idea at the time. But I’ve always thought it to be a bit of a stretch to conclude, without limitations, this declaration to be categorically true.

I think most people would agree that our ability to think does, in fact, prove we are not just mere matter. It proves, for instance, that we are different from, say, rocks or vegetables. Descartes would say that matter itself has to have an essential attribute of extension, meaning that it has to be capable of undergoing change. With the possible exception of humans, everything we could classify as matter has a fixed duration, i.e., it exists from one moment in time to another moment in time. In the case of rocks and minerals, or even atoms, this duration may be eons. In the case of plants and animals, it is but a season.

But in the case of humans, we hold a rather arrogant view that our ability to think yields for us the possibility that material substance may not be defined by time. Rather, we are the product of reason. And this takes us to an understanding of God.

To forge an idea of God in one’s mind requires the ability to think, analyze and reason. Of course, we know that thought alone does not distinguish man from animals because we know that animals have some reasoning ability. They can be cunning, sly, selfish, sharing, like my cats; they can solve elementary logic puzzles, they can learn the like/dislikes of their owners/caretakers, and they are even aware that some things will occur before they actually happen. The essential difference between animals and humans, however, is that humans alone seem to have the ability to use concepts acquired through the process of learning and direct these toward goals which exist beyond themselves. The mental processes of animals are confined to thinking only in rigid terms, without qualifications and without sensitivity to the subtleties of an issue. Only humans have the innate ability to infer that because something is true to the extreme, then something contrary to it must be false.

And this is the distinction Descartes made. “I think; therefore I am.” Man alone seems to have the ability to think cosmically; to reason that his mind is separate from his body; that he has a soul which can move beyond matter by the will of God; that a part of him can stay with him forever by the grace of God. Therefore he cannot merely be matter.

Of course, if this is indeed true, then we are all faced with another question. Does a belief in God rescue us from an existential predicament?

It might, but only if there is a God and a part of us is immortal; i.e., we have the ability to transcend the human condition. Existentialism is based on the tragedy of the human condition. This idea was advanced by Kierkegaard on the basis that the 19th century had created an age of mediocrity by exalting conformity of group behavior over the creative impulse and intelligence of the individual. The 19th century existentialist would argue the resulting melancholy and despair of individuals in the population who happen to be individualists or nonconformists is due to their feeling of aloneness in the world.

However, the modern view of existentialism is that the individual himself has no essential nature, no self-identity—he just exists. Existential philosophy concerns itself with human predicaments associated with such things as alienation, anxiety, depression, inauthenticity, death, etc. In this worldview, the world can provide no rational direction or scheme which can move man beyond his predicaments. Moral principles are simply human constructs which are tied to the level of responsibility humans take by their own actions.

This is the reason some kind of Savior, or God, is needed to raise a man out of his physical environment. Some form of metaphysical experience is required for man to overcome himself.

Everything will then work out fine if there indeed is a God; provided, of course, that such a God is benevolent enough to come to our rescue. The obvious problem is that there is no proof that such a God exists. And, if God does exist, there is no assurance that the human predicament will be reconciled by death alone. After all, an afterlife might well bind a person to another human condition—or worse. And some people believe that we must ask for forgiveness before God will listen and act on our frailties. If this is true, then the soul is no more immortal than the body. Without metaphysical grace, it could well die with the body.

Since we really have no way knowing the outcome of all this, the best assurance humans can have of reconciling an existential predicament is to work on overcoming themselves while they are mere mortals. Indeed, humanistic existentialism suggests this to be the path of reason. All things are contingent on something else; nothing is decreed to occur. All meaning, order, and harmony are given reality by consciousness alone. There is no reality apart from consciousness.

So the path of man is to raise himself to higher levels of consciousness.

Now, in spite of which path we choose for accomplishing this lofty task, our essential work in this life is to prepare our soul for rescue. The Kabbalist would say we should climb the Tree of Life. The Buddhist would claim we can purify our mind only through silence and detachment. The Hindu and Christian would argue we need a personal relationship with some intermediary, a part of which is divine, in order to know ultimate reality. The Mason would suggest we take on the mantels of virtue and morality together and make these the resounding focus of our life’s purpose.

The point of all this is that, regardless of how things will reveal themselves to us in the end, one thing is certain. We must prepare our soul by what we do in the here and now.
Self improvement may not get us to heaven, but it will certainly give us less for which to be embarrassed if there is a judgment day. Faith alone is not enough to insure a positive outcome for our soul’s future; or to take us out of the human predicament.

Conspiracy Theory--the product of paranoia and ignorance

I don’t know about you, but I’ve enjoyed about all the conspiracy theories I can stand. I’ve personally been accosted by them since John F. Kennedy’s assassination in the early 60’s. I really feel for the poor chaps who have had to endure them all the way back to Pearl Harbor.

I have no idea how old these things are in our culture. Someone told me they started in the 1920’s. If that’s the case, we’ve now gone through 4 generations of Americans being duped by someone else’s ignorance. And that’s my point. With few exceptions, conspiracy theories are born out of ignorance. My favorite exception, of course, is the theory that Freemasons are out to establish a New World Order. Being a Mason, I rather like that one. I’ll clarify what we are up to a little later on.

For now, let’s say that a conspiracy theory is when we attribute the ultimate cause of an event or events to some underlying secret or deceptive ploy that is held from public knowledge by some powerful individual or alliance. Usually such individual or group is purported to have a sinister purpose which is why the whole thing is secret to begin with. We tend to lose sight of the fact that those who subscribe to these theories are usually convinced the world has always been dominated by conspirators who manipulate political, economic and future happenings behind the scenes. The events themselves eventually fall into the category of folklore or urban legends.

The perplexing thing is why so many of us believe them to be true! Unfortunately, there’s no good answer because these things are so often driven by paranoia and ignorance. They can be a form of scapegoating where people with diverse or politically questionable points of view identify other people or groups as being the blame for their own political, social or economic shortcomings. It’s the old blame game. The idea is that, if only we remove those who are harming us from positions of popularity or power, things will be better. If we can get enough people to believe like us, then we, the scapegoater, will be seen as the hero for sounding the alarm.

Conspiracies are also a way for people to respond to events or circumstances which have an emotional impact on them. The events or topics most often talked about fall under the areas of religions, disasters, morality, politics and science.

Now, I don’t have a problem with people trying to make sense of things which cannot be easily explained. What I do have a problem with is assigning blame to other people when these unexplainable events occur. It didn’t used to be this way. A couple of centuries ago, it was popular when a disaster occurred to say it was “an act of God.” It seemed reasonable enough to blame God for something so large that a mere mortal could not possibly have created it. But that brought on a new challenge. It gave God a kind of undeserved and seedy reputation. To neutralize this potential spiritual blunder and ease our sense of unworldly guilt, it became easier to suggest that such events were really a manifestation of God’s anger toward the sins of the world. Alas! This didn’t work either because most people were not willing to place a part of the blame on themselves. Disasters then quickly became acts of nature. This worked out fine until technology finally reached a point where almost anything seemed possible for man. Ah! Even better, since it then became easier for us to blame almost anything on human action or irresponsibility. Now when almost anything painful happens, the first question is, “who is there to blame?”

The sad fact is we now live in a world where we no longer accept that accidents, disasters, circumstances, or misfortunes just occasionally happen to people. Obviously, no one’s to blame for acts of nature. Neither can we, in honesty, blame anyone else for our own negligence, superstition and ignorance. Yet, more than ever, we keep applying our own distorted perspectives to the cause and meaning of catastrophes and circumstances without regard for individual accountability. Of course, the media exacerbates the problem by its own rushed and short-sided receptivity to personalized, dramatic accounts of social and natural phenomena.

All this creates a multiplier effect. If we can’t accept that things happen occasionally which are not the fault of anyone, then we are bound to live in a world full of bitterness, fear, suspicion, isolation, and confusion. Now that is a catastrophe.

My suggestion is that we start using some common sense in assessing the likelihood of truth in these matters. Does the theory meet the test of rational thinking? Are the events upheld by structured and institutional accounts, or only by individuals or special interest groups? Are the media keeping it alive for its sensational appeal? Does the basis for the theory appear, at best, to be unfounded or speculative? Are the proofs offered for the theory well constructed, using sound methodology? Are any clear academic standards prevalent as evidence of proof or disproof? Who and what kind of people appear to be the loyal conspirators?

The bottom line is that conspiracy theories are not really worth our time if they can’t meet these basic tests of verification. You are free to believe that the federal government is in league with space aliens to enslave humanity if you want. Just don’t make a public nuisance of your nonsense.

And, as for the Masons being out to bring about a New World Order, I can attest to the truth in this. That was indeed our task during much of the 17th and 18th centuries when the world desperately needed to organize a model for civil society based on liberty and equality. Once we accomplished that, we have spent the last couple of centuries trying to keep it that way. You can call it a new world order if you like; we prefer to think of it as order in the world.

In Defense of Fraternity

I am a Freemason. I am also a Baby Boomer. In my generation that would make me a bit of an anomaly because most men in America born after WW II have not been joiners until very recently.

But my father was a Freemason; as was his brother. They owned and operated adjoining farms on the great wheat and cattle producing plains of Oklahoma. For as long as I can remember, my dad would come in from his work every Wednesday afternoon, take a shower, and put on his Sunday suit My uncle would come by and pick him up and they would go to the Mason’s Hall together. They did this for 50 years. I can’t remember a time when I was not going to be a Freemason.

I also knew the men in my community. It was a small place of only about 2,500 people. It was where we celebrated the festivals of our lives, went to church, and participated in social conversations outside our home. I knew the most respected men in my town. I can’t remember when I did not know them.

I entered the fraternity of Freemasonry during the summer of my 21st year. When I arrived at the lodge for my first degree, or stage of joining, all these men I had known and respected in my childhood were there. They were my father’s friends. I can remember to this day standing in the ante-room of the lodge, duly prepared in a garment provided me for the occasion, waiting for someone to return my knocks on the door, and thinking to myself: Tonight, I am going to be initiated into Manhood.

Although at the time I didn’t realize it, through my initiation into the world’s oldest secret society for men, I was participating in one of the most ancient traditions of manhood. In every culture the world has ever known, men have yearned to be initiated into manhood. It is fundamental to man’s understanding of his own process of growth. And we have always known it even if we have not defined it for ourselves.

There are many examples of such initiation. The first kill in the hunt is as old as humankind. It is an initiation. Men have always taken their sons hunting. And the stakes are high. It is important for the boy to have a kill. It is a mark of success.

Other examples include basic training in the military; the Bar Mitzvah in the Jewish tradition; and our own high school graduation. The commencement exercise is classic initiation in every detail, right down to the change in clothing. Moving away from the home of our childhood is another example.

It’s important to understand that these examples are never meant to teach anything. They are done to convey one most powerful idea to the young person; that he has left one life and is entering another. He is putting away an old life and taking on a new one.

Now, in the case of males, it is inherent to the nature of manhood that males be assimilated into it by other males. Men have to be initiated into manhood by other men. This is true across every culture.

And this is why I firmly believe Freemasonry to be an essential institution for men. The truth is that women do not have to be initiated into womanhood, as men have to be initiated into manhood. Unlike women, there is no defining moment that proves for a boy that he has become a man, or that he is entering manhood. His mind does not mature at the same rate with his body, nor does his body take on immediate physical changes that are observable to the outside world.

Even in societies where there have always been initiatory rites for women, such ceremonies have related to menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth. Thus, girls’ initiations are determined by a mystery natural to the female sex itself. Such rites have never been based on an “origin myth.”

Conversely, in the case of men, initiation ceremonies are always focused on “invisible” realities. We learn a sacred history that is not evident; i.e., it is not known to have existed in the physical experience. In the ritual ceremonies of Freemasonry, for instance, we observe that everything happens because certain events took place in some historical or mythical time which changed the human condition. For us, initiation represents an introduction into a world that is not immediate. It is a world of spirit and culture. Ours is not a rite of puberty, but a rite that incorporates us into society as responsible adults; a collective consciousness—a society of men.

Being initiated into manhood means that the initiate is consciously aware he has entered onto a path toward mature masculinity. And the journey to manhood begins with this awareness. A man’s awareness begins with understanding who he is, how he feels, what makes him feel, and how his feelings have been effected by outside attitudes and influences in his life. He has to know what “doing the right thing” means. His perceptions and enforcement of responsibility must come from within. There is not supposed to be an internal competition between reasoning and impulses, where the outcome of this balance determines his status as a man.

Rather, the path to mature masculinity starts with his becoming consciously aware that he is accountable for his own actions—that he alone bring responsibility to his work, his relationships, his behavior, and the choices he makes in life. Mature masculinity also implies that he is consciously aware of how he represents himself to others.

A man’s integrity is clearly within himself, to himself, and for himself what it is to others. To claim our manhood, we have to take charge of our life.

And for young men, this process is always best facilitated by other responsible and mature men. One of the key ingredients of a man’s growth and development is making friends and maintaining friendships with other men. It is as vital to our health and happiness as believing in ourselves. We need older men as mentors in our life. We not only need the stamp of approval from our fathers; but from other men in our life.

Manhood does not come from our mothers. We can be nurtured, comforted, educated, sang to, and nursed by our mothers. But mothers cannot teach us how to be men. That is the role only men can play for each other.

And here is where Freemasonry has been so critically worthy to the culture of men for so many generations. To be sure, there are certain rites of manhood which connect young males with the collective masculine soul, to the spirit of being a man, and to the community of men—sports, college, military, sex, bars, occupation, to name a few. But there are few that teach what a good society expects of men. There are even fewer which give him the lasting standards of male responsibility. There are still fewer that teach the magic of manhood. There are fewer yet which can affirm a sense of belonging to a traditional male brotherhood. There are few institutions which eliminate the generation gap by the very act of belonging. There are few that facilitate an understanding of true fellow feeling—that feeling which is at the heart of Masonic ritual, symbolism and lodge space.

Freemasonry exists first and foremost to transform men. And that transformation takes place because one is initiated into a fellowship of men. It is within that fellowship that he is introduced to his own path to self improvement—the journey which enables him to harmonize his individual need for fulfillment with a collective well-being. This pathway is nothing less than the road to mature masculinity.

The corporate task of freemasonry is to not only erect this path, but to make sure that its members are on it themselves; and those who come after them will also be on it.

The inherent role of any morally based male-only organization is to take on the virtues of manliness, to enhance and extend the male tradition; and to embrace that tradition irrespective of how formidable the demands any present society may place upon it.

Freemasonry’s strength lies in the fact that it offers the right model by which men can grow and achieve balance in their human and spiritual lives. It tenders a medium for collective dialogue in the ways of virtue and ethics. It offers the role of patriarchy to men—male role modeling, if you will—which guides younger men from a sort of boyish impetuosity to mature and manly judgment. It does this by leading them back to timeless, ethical, and spiritual traditions which facilitate their own transformation and rebirth into manhood.

And it has done this for every generation of men for more than 400 years.

A Dilemma of the War on Terrorism

As long as humankind is inspired by the notion that there is a Deity, that some form of metaphysical reality exists beyond our finite world; and this unearthly principle also has the ultimate power to penalize or reward our actions and can decide the kind of future we may have beyond our mortal days--then we can be sure we will also always have religion.

I suspect this same innate ambition which drives us to believe we are all immortal will also insure that we will always have wars which begin over religion. In fact, history is replete with examples of such conflicts—conflicts over one man's "vision" that his religion was right and all others were wrong. It’s the age-old fallacy of humankind—there’s always some guy or some group out there who believes he/they have dominion over the "truth" about Deity.

The reality is that errors will be built into ALL faith systems for no other reason than the interpretations of faith are always man-made. So what’s all the fuss about over who’s right anyway? If we can accept and understand that we have "errors" in our own faith (we just don't know where they are), and equally accept the same of other faiths, why would we want to "fight" over a mistake? If you're going to fight over something, fight over something that you can prove - something that has certainty. In the meantime, be satisfied that "you" have discovered what is "true" to you and don’t demand that others agree with you.

The Golden Rule is a common thread of most all religions and boils down to a really simple principle. We are to live our own lives without dictating our understanding of Deity to others. Live the example others will want to emulate; always taking concern for the one stone in the quarry that we actually control and shape--our own rough ashlar.

One would certainly think that hastily applying dynamite to all the rough ashlars at once is more counterproductive than allowing each to shape his own ashlar at his own pace. Yet, as simple as this may seem, there appear to be some fundamental problems with it as a solution in an era of religious terrorism.

First, I would suggest that, while we have heard the Golden Rule stated in every religion in the world; the rule is, in reality, an insipid truism that has no force of law and certainly no force of meaning to a terrorist. The terrorist always calls on the religious authority of his faith as his rule of law. God becomes his sanction to kill or maim. In fact, most terrorists would never kill except in the name of God.

Further, since most monotheistic religions of the world were born before the New Testament era (an era which at least suggested that God was a God of Love), the more prevalent historic ideal of sacred authority is based on the premise of God’s role as a warrior. As an example, the Thirty Years War (a war fueled by religious hatred between protestants and Catholics--1618-1648), left more killing and devastation behind it than any event since the Black Death. It created the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 which was the first legal instrument calling for the separation of church and state. It didn’t matter that much that the wrecking of Germany, for instance, was brought on by cynical leaders. In their hearts, most of the combatants believed they were carrying out acts of piety. When the war ended, many cities had less than half the population they had before; many towns had only one-fifth.

The conflict left a mark on the West that cemented our attitude for church-state separation. In fact, the fundamental reason the West has worked so hard to keep religion out of dealings between states and nations is precisely to banish religion from the repertoire of acceptable reasons to wage war.

But as the world turns more religious, more adherents of the great faith systems, particularly the newer cults, seem to be placing violence back in at the heart of their beliefs. As the economic and political state of countries get poorer and more unstable, a platform exists to spread sectarianism. This is the kind of seed that often brings extremists to the forefront of those who will kill in the name of God. And it is important to understand that we are not dealing here with the traditional ethical rules of war. When a war is waged by a perceived sacred mandate, we can be sure there will be little compromise from the true believer about the sacred. There is one God; one Truth.

Tolerance is not an intrinsic part of any monotheistic religion because the outcome of a conflict cannot be ambiguous. When the issues are sacred demands, there can be no bargaining. The believer cannot compromise on the will of God. Killing becomes an end in itself. The extreme believer wants a lot of people dead and may not care whether a lot of people are watching, as long as God sees that what has been done is in His name.

The Bible’s division between those who belong and those who don’t belong makes it natural to see life as war. We all know the imagery of battle occurs throughout the Old Testament. This same violent imagery is also a part of the earliest Islamic writings. Raiding is common, people are killed, and blood feuds are pursued. God’s angels intervene on behalf of the Muslim combatants.

The point is that scriptural emphasis on warfare in the world’s great religious traditions has armed successive generations with powerful mental images of an embattled world. The community of the faithful is perpetually in crisis, or at least on the edge of one.

There is even a growing sect of American Christians who also embrace the notion of a cosmic war. More Christians are becoming fascinated with apocalyptic speculation and with signs that the events depicted in Revelation are at hand. Books based on prophecies in Revelation are being sold to millions upon millions of folk. A recent Time/CNN poll suggested that fifty-nine percent of Americans believe the future will unfold in accordance with Revelation. The fact is that whether we see it in our church pews or not, we are a more religious country today than we were when we were founded. The new approach to Christian fundamentalism is that the coming war is a war to create God’s government on earth.

We can be sure the attack against America on 9/11, 2001 was an act of consummate religious devotion. Those who committed it were deeply pious. They expressed their motives in indisputably religious terms. And they saw themselves as carrying out the will of God. To them, the hijackings were the performance of a sacrament, one intended to restore to the universe a moral order that had been corrupted by the enemies of Islam and their Muslim collaborators.

The reality of 9/11 was that the motivation for the attack was not political calculation, strategic advantage, nor wanton bloodlust. It was to humiliate and slaughter those who defied the leadership of God. It was to please Him by reasserting His primacy. It was an act of cosmic war. What appears to most of us to have been senseless violence which violated all our known treaties about war, actually made a great deal of sense to the terrorists and all those who sympathize with them. For them, the act of killing was an act of redemption. Our modern notion of separate realms of the religious and the secular is simply inconceivable to a religious zealot.

How then can a simple and dignified ideal that we follow the Golden Rule find application in an eastern religious system, or even a Western fundamentalist system that almost universally agrees to some form of struggle for the sake of God? Can any moral and ethical system of thought improve mankind if it cannot find a venue where the duality between Toleration and Liberality against Fanaticism and Persecution cannot be reconciled?

As challenging as it seems, it really does come down to the Golden Rule. No one knows with certainty what Deity has in mind and therefore can have no divine sanction to condemn the faith of others, marking them as heretical. Likewise, there is no moral or ethical basis to approve of any actions that endanger the peace and quiet of great nations, or their people, by indulging in a fancifully imaginary philanthropy, imagining one's self to be "different" enough to be separated and self-proclaiming in one's holiness.

Such activity can be more harmful than the ambition of kings. Such intolerance and bigotry have been more repeatedly harmful to mankind than ignorance and error. Surely it is better that we know that our "truths" are not perfect and accept these errors than to live under persecution. How absurd it is to think that when we cannot even understand our fellow man, we can begin to expect to understand Deity in any uniform manner. Torturing and killing other people simply because they do not think and believe the way we do is indeed an absurd thought~ and should be to all men.

The gist of all this is that it is perhaps a much better aim to simply offer moral progress rather than dogma to the world. Just as we each individually grow by unlearning what we learn before we "see the light," mankind is also growing. It, too, can outgrow its own childhood and never go back. It is, after all, only human laziness that gets in the way of such advancement.

The object is to be a good man. The good man does the good when he gets the chance, often because he has the chance. He does it because he wants to - he loves the duty- and not merely because some law (by God or by man) commands him to do it. He is true to his own mind, his conscience, heart, and soul, and feels very little temptation to do unto others in a way he would not like to be done unto. He really does keep coming back to the Golden Rule.

And such men are found in all religions over the world. This is how a society becomes free and does the work it is meant to do.

Old theologies and philosophies of religion of ancient times may no longer suffice. We must advance. The duties of life are to be done. There are errors that we must replace with new truths. There are great wrongs and evils that must be righted and outgrown.

Why is it that mankind can't seem to learn from history- from our past atrocities? Why do we continue to ignore these powerful warnings of the unspeakable evils which follow from these past mistakes and errors in the matters of religion? What religion can actually invest the God of Love with such cruel and vindictive passions, of such man-made ideas?

Man has never had, nor will he ever have, the right to usurp the unexercised prerogative of God and condemn and punish another for a different belief. No man is entitled to positively assert that he is right where other men who are equally well-informed hold a directly opposite opinion. Each thinks it impossible for the other to be sincere, and each, as to that, is equally in error.

"What is Truth?" was a profound question, the most suggestive one ever put to man. But never forget that what once was believed, we now find incomprehensible. These startling insights give us a fresh glimpse of the human soul. If we cannot understand our own soul, much less the souls of all mankind, how can we expect to be able to have a full and error free understanding of the even more complex Deity which encompasses all souls? How can any one man possess such knowledge? None do.

This is why Toleration is so important. It is our chief duty, without which we stand for little. We can be tolerant of each other's creed because each faith holds excellent moral precepts. One does not have to look far in any teaching to find "good" teachings. The common thread, again, seems to be the Golden Rule, and the goal is goodness and getting along with our fellow man.

Perhaps we should remind ourselves that intolerance of religious beliefs has afflicted the world worse than any other evil. All the treasure and human labor we've lost throughout time in such silliness would be enough to have now made the earth and all its inhabitants a Garden of Eden.

Old Glory Flies For All Of Us

I remember how easy it was to grow up in America. My father's generation had already survived the Great Depression of the 1930s. Many from that same era then crossed the ocean their forefathers had once sailed, but the other way. They sailed to Europe to fight World War II and defeat a global challenge to America's idealism.

And when all the military strength and national rhetoric had run its course, the world was once again at peace. We had fought the great fight. We had rallied around "Old Glory." We had won the "Big One" once again.

I came along as a product of that celebration. There were more of us born in the 10 years following WWII than in any other decade in history. We were the "Baby Boomers," and over the past half-century, we have been the beneficiaries of sustained economic innovation.

We have moved to the suburbs and traded radios for televisions, typewriters for computers, telephones for digital message centers, letters for E-mails. Over the Internet, we transact important business deals with people we never meet. We own every device imaginable, from remote control camera blimps to digital TVs posing as framed pictures. We dance apart, endure music which cannot possibly be harmonic, and consume microwave meals with our diet pills. We drink flavored coffee and imported beer, and we can count on one hand the times each year our entire family sits down together for a real meal, served at the same table, at the same time.
Now, this may not be exactly the America our fathers envisioned when they came home from the Great War. And it most certainly is not the America our forefathers founded. But it is the way we define ourselves today—with things rather than ideals, with self-interest rather than national pride or social unity.

And, to make matters more complicated, we live in a multicultural world, with many different personal sentiments and ethnic interests. It is much harder to have a sense of national unity. It is not easy to know what being patriotic means. Our children have no understanding of military conquests. We no longer rally around the same icons, such as the flag. We no longer have a single public spirit in America. There is no one event which makes us feel a sense of togetherness. We have made being an American a very complicated thing. Indeed, it is alarming to ponder if we still have a national heart.

And yet, amid the rapid movement of technology, the burgeoning influx of people, and our materialistic path to self-reliance, our flag still waves above much of the public architecture across our great land. But, today, rather than being the symbol of national unity, "Old Glory" has increasingly become the icon of public diversity.

To those who are the veterans of long-forgotten military campaigns, it represents the principles we cherish as Americans. To Baby Boomers, it signifies unlimited opportunity and the pursuit of happiness. To many others, it represents freedom to be, to love, to believe. To still others, it symbolizes the right to live in this country and hold to cultural values of another homeland far from our shores.

The challenge today is how we make all this diversity work together in harmony for the good of the whole. To be free means that we are each free to express our cultural differences, attitudes, feelings, and opinions. And to be an American means that we all have the same duty to tolerate the differences in our fellow Americans, and to be careful not to impose, by regulation or any other means, our beliefs on others. The first act of tyranny is to legislate that everyone should feel and think the same way. Such actions of law hinder free will and violate our constitutional rights as citizens of a free country.

And yet, to remain free also requires some personal sacrifice. Every generation has an equal duty to understand that the collective intelligence and wisdom of its people determine the greatness of our nation. National unity is more important than individual, ethnic, religious, or any other pride.

A collective consciousness is the only thing that can hold us together as both a people and nation. Social responsibility is more essential than cultural isolation. Patriotism is the steady dedication of a lifetime of people who realize they are one nation together.

It is true that we cannot legislate or force patriotism any more than we can force another person to attend the same church. Matters of faith and public spirit are matters of individual choice in America. And it must stay that way, or it may no longer be the America we inherited.

The question is how we teach each new generation of Americans that our national consciousness must still be connected to our past. The past must be known to every generation of Americans. The past must meet the present through education and national understanding. The spirit of those who labored to establish the foundation for free government must be felt in the spirit of those who benefit from the opportunity it has given. Every generation is a vital link in keeping America strong and great.

Yes, we have made being an American a very complicated thing! But, above all the rhetoric and progress of our times—regardless of our faith, creed, color, lifestyle, or national origin—each of us still has that same timeless duty to first have a national heart.

When we do, then we can still rally around our national symbol, "Old Glory"—because it flies for the sake of our ancestors, our children, our institutions, our country—and it flies for each of us!

To Be The Heroes We Are Supposed To Be

Like the archetypal hero, we each can transcend to a new level of awareness and attain a veritable rebirth.

One of the powerful icons of antiquity is displayed in a section of a votive relief at the Louvre in Paris. From the Hellenistic period, 1st century, B.C., the sculpture is titled "Offering to the Dioscuri." It represents Castor and Pollux, the most famous twins, dioscuri, of Greek mythology, riding magnificent steeds across the heavens. According to the myth, one of the twins is mortal, the other immortal. One represents the divine principle within us; the other signifies the energy in life which we must eternally encounter and transform. As the story goes, the twins spend alternative nights in the heavens and in the netherworld seeking, through their experiences, the light of tomorrow.

We commonly think of them as the zodiac sign Gemini. In astronomy, they are the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini.

Contemplating the imagery of this myth, we can see the twins as heaven and earth, day and night, past and future. Also, they represent the tension of opposites within ourselves at the very point of our transition from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge. Thus, this relief carving offers a pictorial description of the classic journey of the hero—the journey each of us is to make in life. It is an uncertain, often dreadful, and always dangerous night journey into the deepest reaches of ourselves. But through this journey, this confrontation with ourselves and our experience, we each can transcend to a new level of awareness and attain a veritable rebirth.

Only a hero, which we all can be, can wage such a battle. For it is only when we have an unrelenting resolve to overcome our deepest fears that we are enabled to know ourselves and fulfill our true potential. We labor and strive and learn in this world so that we may hope to live perfect in the dawn of eternity. That is the quest of the hero.

Of course, the symbolic meaning of the "Offering to the Dioscuri" is the same as depicted in Masonic ritual by the young Fellowcraft as he passes between the pillars of the Middle Chamber. At that moment in his life, he begins his journey into the greater mysteries which will enable him to become transformed into his better, truer self.

In contemporary Masonic symbolism, the Fellowcraft is the exemplar of the Gemini twins. His spirit is integrated by the dual nature of the pillars. Everything which represents the opposites in his life—passion and reason, aggression and cooperation, weakness and strength, anger and compassion, selfishness and charity—he takes with him on his subsequent quest toward self-improvement. Every emotion, experience, and lesson he learns on his own life journey, represented by the winding stairs, he integrates into his being.

He has only to make this hero's journey—this path of initiation, separation, and return—to see the Light of Lights and understand why Masonry is itself a timeless Truth, like the myth frozen in a piece of stone from two millennia past.

In the Scottish Rite (the college course in Freemasonry), our hero's journey is reinforced time and again. In the 13°, the candidate makes the descent into the cavern of his own life to discover the Lost Word. In the 18°, he finds, from his own journey through darkness, the light of the world. And in the 30°, he becomes the Dioscuri yet again, this time in the symbol and form of the black and white double-headed eagle.

Thus, when he becomes a Master of the Royal Secret, if he has taken seriously the path of the Rite, he is enabled to look back to the pillars of symbolic Masonry with new eyes—the eyes of a hero—and marvel at what Joseph Campbell has called the "song of the soul's high adventure," the path of his own self-meaning.

Perhaps it is really not so hard to be a hero. Maybe we need only to dream of a magnificent steed that will carry us aloft to a castle that knows no East nor West, but reveals the treasure of our soul's deepest longing.

Or, as Scottish Rite men, maybe we need only to know in what we are engaged--to be the heroes we are all supposed to be.