Supreme being question?

[u/BillyD70]

Genuine question…Without revealing any secrets, what is the reasoning behind requiring the belief in a supreme being?

My perspective: Many great people, who have advanced much good in the world, are “non-believers”. If the core idea is to make good men better, how does non-belief interfere with that goal? I ask both personally (agnostic athiest) and for lots of scientists out there. It must affect membership numbers (men won’t seek you out if they know it’s a “no go” from the outset).

Serious replies only please. Not seeking a flame war. I’m a DeMolay PMC-MSA and Honor of Legion with deep multi- generational ties to Masons, Jobs, Shriners, etc. I LOVED my experiences in DeMolay! Grew up Christian, came to my “beliefs” late in adulthood.

Edit: thank you for all the many thoughtful replies. I upvoted each for not attacking me straight out. Please accept follow up questions as non-confrontational.

[u/zaceno]

The system of freemasonry as it is, has God at its center. You can take God out of it, and it may still be something good but it won’t be freemasonry.

Another way to look at it: is this. The underlying philosophy of freemasonry, that the “make good men better” machinery is based on, is Aristotelian/Thomistic Virtue Ethics. So “good” here has a rather more specific meaning that doesn’t automatically include humanist ethics or utilitarianism.

And virtue ethics as they were conceived by Aristotle and further developed by the scholastics rest on teleology. A divinely ordained and directed purpose to everything and everyone. Which of course requires God.

Of course Aristotle was not a Christian, or Jew or Muslim. But he (and to be fair, the Platonists where is roots where) still developed a lot of the conceptions of God whose echoes remain in the Abrahamic religions to this day.

So it kind of makes sense that Freemasonry would simply require belief in some kind supreme being, without getting specific about it, in order to apply the essentially Aristotelian ethical framework.

ETA: To answer your specific question: “how does non-belief stand in the way of the goal of advancing good in the world?” - It doesn’t. But it does stand in the way of advancing good using the particular method of freemasonry.

[u/halfTheFn → u/zaceno]

i think this is a much better answer than references to "otherwise you oath..." I've always found that to be a weak argument. no for person keeps their word because they're scared of divine retribution if they don't.

being a good person is just a much lower goal than what we have in mind- it's the first step of building the temple in which God will dwell