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Thursday, August 28, 2008

Does Freemasonry Promote Indifferentism

Does Freemasonry Promote Indifferentism Cover No.

As always one must carefully define terms. The American Heritage Dictionary defines indifferentism as the belief that all religions are of equal validity. Religious Indifferentism, as used by the Roman Catholic Church, refers to any belief denying that it is the duty of man to worship God by believing and practicing the one true religion, i.e.: Roman Catholicism. They also define political indifferentism as the policy of a state that treats all the religions within its borders as being on an equal footing before the law of the country.
Absolute indifferentism refers to those philosophic systems which reject the ultimate foundation of all religion, that is, man’s acknowledgment of his dependence on a personal creator, whom, in consequence of this dependence, he is bound to reverence, obey, and love. Restricted indifferentism admits the necessity of religion on account, chiefly, of its salutary influence on human life. But it holds that all religions are equally worthy and profitable to man, and equally pleasing to God. "The classic advocate of this theory is Rousseau, who maintains, in his Emile, that God looks only to the sincerity of intention, and that everybody can serve Him by remaining in the religion in which he has been brought up, or by changing it at will for any other that pleases him more (Emile, III)."1
The fear is that a belief that all religions are equally good comes to mean, at bottom, that religion is good for nothing. Accusations of indifferentism are founded on a belief that there can only be one truth, that the particular religion of the accuser by definition holds the truth, and by extension every other religion must be in error.

Liberal or latitudinarian indifferentism is claimed to spring from rationalism and incorporates the theory of evolution applied to the origin of man, Biblical criticism, the comparative study of religions, archaeology, and ethnology. It also includes any perceived hostility to the Catholic Church.

When critics of Freemasonry use the term "indifferentism", they are defining not only the term, but the terms of the argument. Masonic writers, with varying degrees of authority, have claimed that Freemasonry is indifferent to religion. This is not the same as indifferentism. Freemasonry holds no opinion on any religion or the relative worth of different religions. The discussion of religion is not within Freemasonry’s province or mandate. There may be those freemasons who subscribe to some form of indifferentism, there will be many who do not — Freemasonry holds no opinion on the subject.

Downloadable books (free):

Emilie Kip Baker - Stories From Northern Myths
Dion Fortune - The Machinery Of The Mind
Summer Woodsong - False Memory Syndrome And The Inquisition