Talk:Freemasonry/Archive 1

message: I won't claim that the sources were credible or otherwise, but I have both read and heard (on the telly), that Philip was a mason (with a long line of masons in his own family backround). To be more specific, the claim was that a source of friction between him and his son, was that Charles refused point blank to join a lodge. Again, I certainly cannot speak authoritatively about this, but the claim certainly is out there. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 10:37, Aug 23, 2003 (UTC)
It is probably true,  I have heard the same story.   I do know that the Supreme Grand Msster of the Grand Lodge of England is usually if not always a member of the nobility, a duke or somesuch person.   Since one of the basic tenets of freemasonry is the supposed equality of all men I have sometimes wondered how the practice can be reconciled with their beliefs.
Ping 08:01, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: It's very bad form to alter another user's comments on article talk: pages. It's common practice to move copies of controversial deleted material from an article into a comment on a talk: page like this, so that it can be discussed without leaving it visible to the casual reader; that's why I copied the line verbatim. I've restored my comment above. Bryan 06:04, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

text: Anyway, I can't really comment on how important or useful such details are since I don't have an in-depth interest in Freemasonry. But plenty of other articles on Wikipedia contain detailed descriptions of stuff that isn't directly relevant to "understanding" the subject of the article, and there are other articles on Wikipedia that contain "secret" stuff (with appropriate spoiler warnings). See Xenu, for example (note: I'm not saying that Scientology and Freemasonry are in any way similar other than having secrets. The Church of Latter-Day Saints may be a better example, I just didn't know of any Mormon secrets in Wikipedia offhand). Bryan 06:04, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

text: Done. I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I just get rather reflexive when I see information being deleted. It's still in the page's revision history if it's needed later, though. Bryan
There's probably not a lot point arguing about this until someone comes along and decides they do want to write such an article, but I certainly think it would lead to less aggravation were it in a separate article rather than part of this one. The discussion currently at Talk:Temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over whether to include temple secrets should be taken into account when making any decisions about similar issues here. 
In response to Bryan's point, I don't see anything wrong with removing text from other people's comments on talk pages; though it might be best to substitute it with [...] to make it clear you've done this. If someone finds something offensive, inappropriate or whatever, then I can't see harm in this sort of refactoring (see Wikipedia talk:Remove personal attacks for related discussions about refactoring - not that I'm saying personal attacks were made - just that the refactoring arguments may be relevant). Angela 19:47, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

text: I don't object in principle to deleting old discussion that's no longer relevant. But in this case I pasted the line verbatim in here because it had been deleted from the article without explanation, and I wanted to know if it was useful information or not without it vanishing into the lower strata of edit history in the meantime. Deleting it from the talk page defeated the whole point of bringing it up here at all, and the way it was done made it look like the line had never been pasted here in the first place. Hence my strong reaction. Bryan 07:55, 18 Nov 2003 (UTC)

text: It's a type of flower. Bryan 17:48, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: If the information above, or parts of it, are true then it is important that the article reflects this. The part in the article (shown below) is indeed very convenient for freemasonry. Here it should be the truth that matters, thus someone should do a research on the credibility of the claims above and change the article accordingly. I will see what I can do, but in the meantime I will add a some NPOV to the claim in the article.  Finlander 23:16, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: "Freemasonry is almost universally banned in totalitarian states. In Nazi Germany, Freemasons were sent to concentration camps and all Masonic Lodges were ordered shut down. German Masons used the blue Forget-Me-Not as a secret means of recognition and as a substitute for the traditional (and too-easily-recognized) square and compasses."
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I'm not an expert in freemasonry, but to be honest with you I have never heard of a "Canadian Rite".  I've heard plenty of times about a Scottish Rite, is it the way it is called in the US or something? Ruiz 09:51, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  On Prince Philip and freemasonry.