My Response to YouTuber Rfreeman

Today a link was shared with me that goes to a video entitled "Mormons and Freemasonry, a Satanic Cult." For some reason, I was expecting something new; not only were these expectations not reached, but I found that over half of the video is dedicated to other subjects completely irrelevant to the Church's relationship with Freemasonry.

The video wastes the viewer's time by starting off talking about how Joseph found his seer stone (a topic that is completely irrelevant to the subject of Freemasonry). The video later makes the following claim:

"On March 15, 1842, Joseph joined the Masons, which is an organization that believes that Jesus is not divine, and is on the same level as Buddha, Mohammed, or any other religious teacher."

This is a false claim. Freemasonry does not advocate any such belief, given that it is neither a religion nor a substitute for one.

Since Freemasonry is not a religion, it does not take any stance concerning Christ being on a higher, equal, or lower level to any other religion's deity; to expect any non-religion to take such a religious stance is illogical. That stated, most Masons happen to be faithful Christians.

The video then goes on to cite cherry-picked quotes from Reed Durham's opinion on the matter, which (so far as I can ascertain) lacks any primary knowledge/experience in Masonry and focuses on a commonality of symbols and vocabulary.

As has been clarified in other articles on this blog, Masonic influence in the Church's temple ceremonies has only ever been limited to that of the temple endowment, and even then it is limited solely to the teaching method employed.

Durham states quite clearly that Masonry is not the only possible source of inspiration for the Church's temple endowment ceremony, and limits his list of examples of similarity solely to symbolism (which, by the way, is a teaching method and does not in and of itself constitute subject matter).

It is quite clear that the teaching method was adapted from Freemasonry; nothing else in the Church's temple endowment ceremony, however, can be traced thereto.

The video then wastes the viewer's time by talking about the Jupiter Talisman (which also has nothing to do with Freemasonry). The video then makes the false claim that the Jupiter Talisman was found in Joseph's pocket the day that he died; yet the list of contents on Joseph's person (itemized by his lawyer James W. Woods) at his time of death did not include any mention thereof. The video is propagating gossip here in order to overplay its importance in Joseph's life.

The fact that not even half of the video could be dedicated to the subject matter in its title shows just how much antagonists to the Church are willing to hide behind changes in subject just to make their "gotcha" content look impactful.