Cat's Don't Go To Heaven (a masonic paper, seriously)

[Raum Sariel]

Cats Don't Go to Heaven!
by James C. Stewart

I was accused of being a Satanist today.

Let me pause to assure you, dear reader, I do not believe in, let
alone worship the devil. Those that do are naive, pathetic, confused
and/or criminally insane.

My own personal beliefs are pantheistic. I believe God and the
Universe are one in the same, that there isn’t anything above or below
that isn’t God. I think someone who is looking for proof of God is
akin to someone trying to find the sun with a flashlight.

But that’s just me.

As for the devil... well, that’s an excuse. I don’t have time for ‘the
devil made me do it.’

That’s a cop out.

You let you do it.

If you’ve transgressed, no one made you except your own dark urges.
What some call ‘the devil’ I believe are the baser aspects of our
humanity. To place the onus on an outside force or some sort of
supernatural temptation is absurd. You are your own devil.

Besides, evil is a relative thing isn’t it? It is, more often than
not, a matter of perspective. Consider the cat and the mouse. If a cat
eats a mouse is the cat evil? The cat is merely following his
instincts. But if we look at the cat from the mouse’s perspective, the
cat is most certainly evil; and from our perspective what we see we
call ‘nature.’

But I digress.

A Christian called me a Satanist today. Why did the Christian call me
a Satanist? Because I made the mistake of telling him I was a
Freemason.

The following are my opinions, not the opinions of any organization,
group or society.

Now let’s discuss Christianity.

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians
are so unlike your Christ.” — Mahatma Gandhi

By my tenth year on this rock I was having issues with Christianity,
and the various horrors that were and are being perpetrated in its
name. My mother is an Anglican priest. While no longer a Christian, I
myself was baptized, raised and confirmed in the church. And naturally
my first brush with Christian intolerance was through the church.
Watching my mother become a priest was a sketch... this was in the
1980’s. One can well imagine the interesting (and occasionally cruel)
things said to and about a woman attempting to minister “The Word of
Christ.” Now that I think of it, the most hurtful acts of intolerance
I have witnessed have been committed by Christians. And if I look
beyond that, the picture becomes quite grim indeed. One need only type
‘residential schools’ or ‘inquisition’ into Google to see what I mean.

Christians are capable of extremely warped thinking. Anyone who has
watched the Oscar-winning documentary Jesus Camp can tell you that.
William S. Burroughs put it best when he said, “Christianity is like
the inevitable course of some unsightly disease: criminal ignorance,
brutish stupidity, self-righteous bigotry and paranoid fear of
outsiders.” A former Roman Catholic priest turned Freemason
crystallized it for me when I asked him why he’d left the church.
“Well,” he said, “it occurred to me I was on the wrong path when I
considered the outcry there’d be from Rome if the planes that were
dropping napalm on villages at that time were dropping condoms
instead.”

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And
the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.” That’s Christ
in Matthew 22:37-39. Note he didn’t say, “Unless they’re non-
Christian, or homosexual, or something else you personally don’t agree
with.”

It’s part of what I like to call the Build Your Own Christianity
Syndrome... given the various inconsistencies, vagrancies and
outlandish assertions in the New Testament, Christians are forced to
pick and choose exactly what it is they believe. Some agree with this
part or that, others not so much. A sect of Christians may even decide
another sect of Christians is heathen, even though both sects fully
believe they have the Way and the Truth. The result is often very
bloody. We see this play out in history with schisms within the
church, quickly becoming schisms within the churches. Once you pick
one piece of scripture over another, anything becomes possible. Just
ask the family of an abortion doctor who’s been shot dead by the Pro-
Life Movement.

Christianity is a control system. It seeks, first and foremost, to
control your mind. It does this by controlling your beliefs with rigid
and inflexible rules which in turn control your body, your speech,
your ideas, your afterlife and even your sex. Allow me a single
example (though there are many) for each:

Your body: the Pro-Life Movement and other like-minded Christians seek
to control the female body. Simple. You are not allowed to abort.
Therefore, you have no control over your womb. Therefore you have no
control over your body.

Your speech: A short quote from a spam email I received. It was the
most legible of the bunch, “...Please boycott of the children’s movie
“The Golden Compass” and books. Also, pass information along to
everyone you know (including church leaders). This will educate
parents, so they know the agenda of the movie. I am sending this to
those of you who have kids or friends with kids, grandkids or have
influence with kids. So many today are darkness concealed in what
appears to be innocence....”

Your ideas: Christianity has always opposed new ideas. Think of poor
Galileo, confined to house arrest for contemplating that maybe... just
maybe... the Earth revolved around the Sun. In the natural sciences,
all discoveries and new theories not supported by the Bible were
opposed. Sciences that flourished in Antiquity, ground to a halt in
the early centuries AD. The church historian Lactantius (ca 250–320
AD) called the natural sciences utter nonsense, and church scholar
Ambrosius called natural sciences an attack on God’s magnificence. To
this day the concept of Evolution is under constant harassment by
Christians.

Your afterlife: if you are a Christian, and you contravene the rules,
you are going to hell... a place of unimaginable suffering and pain
for all of Eternity.

This brings me to... your sex.

“Christianity: The doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful,
infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is deeply and
personally concerned about my sex life.” — Andrew Lias

I have a desire, a genuine desire, to sit down with one of these
Christians and ask them, “Why do you care? What is it about what the
rest of us are doing in the bedroom that interests you people so
much?”

Christian control in this area starts at pre-marital sex and it
doesn’t really end. They refuse to teach their children (and would
prefer you didn’t teach yours) about birth control, instead opting for
abstinence, then they wonder why teenage pregnancy rates spike. As
AIDS ravages Africa, they’d prefer the rest of us not give out
condoms. And I seriously believe there is something insanely malicious
at the heart of the Christian beliefs regarding homosexuality. I had
my first inkling of it in 1987 when I saw a group of Christians
outside a hospital having a rally against homosexuality based upon
their understanding of the AIDS virus. There, screaming alongside her
parents was this girl, maybe eleven or twelve years old, her pretty
face twisted with hate and wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the
slogan, “Thank God for AIDS... God hates Fags.”

Since then I’ve seen families divided, teenagers forced off to bizarre
camps to become ‘straight,’ and in one case a man badly beaten because
a group of Christians thought he might be gay (he was, in fact,
heterosexual).

Christians are quick to say, or perhaps fanatically shriek, “It’s in
the Bible!”

I guess. But your Jesus never said it. Not once.

The symbol of Christianity is the cross... a symbol of execution, a
symbol of death. How many blood-soaked battlefields has this flag
flown over? I wonder... if Christ had been executed in the 1950’s
would Christians be wearing little electric chairs around their necks
today?

My guess? Absolutely.

“Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody
religion that has ever infected the world.” — Voltaire

Christianity seems focused on a man who may have claimed he was God,
rather than focused on God. Yet Christianity asserts it’s
monotheistic. I debate this. I say Christians have not one, but rather
three gods: Jesus Christ, God the Father, and for good measure, The
Holy Spirit. The so-called triune god. Now, to be fair, Christians
claim the three make one, but you must have faith in all three to be
saved. You must believe in three separate entities which mystically
make up a single god.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot wrap my mind around God separating
Himself from Himself to incarnate as a human being for thirty-three
some-odd years. And for God to then concentrate on our dour little
rock in a lonely galaxy in a far corner of space?

The Universe is a Big Place.

No, what it seems has happened is they’ve made God into a man. I’m not
going too deep into it here, but there are many fascinating books
regarding the formation of the early church, the Roman emperor
Constantine and his questionable interpretation of the New Testament.
In the final analysis, Christians have turned a man into God... it’s
only on their faith Christ becomes divine. Frankly, it’s an idea older
than Christianity. But again, there are many well-researched and
wonderful books devoted to the topic of Christianity as a form of
theological-plagiarism.

“What is Freemasonry? A beautiful system of morality, veiled in
allegory and illustrated by symbols.” — A Mason

It has been said no man needs a priest to find God, and nowhere is
this truer than within The Craft. And perhaps this is truly what lies
at the heart of Christian hatred toward it. My grandfather was a
Mason, as is my father. I became a Mason after realizing Freemasonry
was the most reasonable, if not most fascinating, institution I’d come
across. Just a couple of points I’d like clear up:

Freemasonry is not Satanic. In fact, all discussion of religion and
politics is forbidden within a Masonic Lodge.

Freemasonry is not a religion, nor has it ever claimed the
prerogatives of religion, yet Freemasonry’s detractors continue to
believe since Freemasonry doesn't define God, it cannot be their God.
Freemasonry believes that men of all faiths can dwell together in
peace. Freemasonry requires its members to believe in God but will not
dictate those beliefs.

One of the more insidious falsehoods I’ve heard regarding Freemasonry
holds it responsible for, or directly involved with, the Third Reich.
For Masons who are veterans of World War II, including my grandfather,
I can’t imagine a larger slap in the face. I’ve seen this lie repeated
on various anti-Masonic and Christian websites. Incidentally, on
fundamentalist Islamic websites, I’ve seen Freemasonry referred to as
Jewish-Zionist front. Amusing when you consider I have witnessed
Christian, Islamic and Jewish brethren sitting side-by-side within the
Lodge.

In fact, on Hitler’s rise to power, the ten Grand Lodges of Germany
were dissolved. Many among the prominent dignitaries and members of
the Order were sent to concentration camps. The Gestapo seized the
membership lists of the Grand Lodges and looted their libraries and
collections of Masonic objects. Much of this loot was then exhibited
in an “Anti-Masonic Exposition” inaugurated in 1937 by Herr Dr. Joseph
Goebbels in Munich.

Hitler’s hatred of Freemasonry is clearly documented. In 1931 Nazi
party officials were given a “Guide and Instructional Letter” that
stated, “The natural hostility of the peasant against the Jews, and
his hostility against the Freemason as a servant of the Jew, must be
worked up to a frenzy.”

To say Freemasonry was behind the Third Reich is tantamount to saying
Judaism was behind the Third Reich.

What a hateful and offensive piece of stupidity.

“If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away
from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” —
Benjamin Franklin, writer, humorist, ambassador, inventor and
Freemason

The following is a short list of famous Freemasons for your perusal:

Sir John A. MacDonald

George Washington

Giovanni Giacomo Casanova

Sir Richard Burton

Tommy Douglas

Harry Houdini

Mark Twain

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Voltaire

Mozart

Robert Service

Oscar Wilde

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sir Alexander Fleming

Salvador Allende

John Glenn

Harry S. Truman

Peter Sellers
And so many, many more....

The following is a short list of groups and people opposed to
Freemasonry:

Pope Benedict the XVI and the Roman Catholic Church

Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition of America

Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich

Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority

The Palestinian Islamist Movement Hamas

Ted Haggard and the National Association of Evangelicals
Interesting. Compare and contrast. I showed these same lists to a
Christian once. He looked it over, looked at me, and declared, “Well,
I’m on the list with the Lord.... I’m on the list for paradise!”

Christians say my cat can’t go to heaven. He has no soul therefore he
cannot find salvation through Christ. It’s an idea I chose for the
title because I find it indicative of the entire faith. It reminds me
of something I read once, and maybe it’s the most appropriate way to
close…

“No heaven will Heaven ever be,
If my cats are not there to welcome me.” — Epitaph in a pet cemetery

© James Stewart 2009