[Serious] Freemasons: why is there such a negative view of this group?

[GODZILLA]

Freemasonry was basically a movement that  felt that God was man made.

That's actually incorrect; one of the requirements for becoming a Mason is a belief in some sort of supreme being. From my understanding, you don't necessarily have to be a Christian but you have to believe in a god of some sort. Freemasons are very spiritual in their teachings and they're very religion-centric as an organization.

Why does the organization get such a bad rap? Conspiracy theorists. I think a big thing with all conspiracy theorists is having some ominous organization to blame the world's problems on, and Freemasons get the short straw because they're a "secret" society. In all reality, Freemasonry is just a frat club for grown men who get together, do silly rituals, learn about the organization's history, learn about the teachings of the organization, etc. etc. They all go out to eat together and I'm sure plenty of them do business together, so on and so forth. It's just a social club, really.

People often equate or associate Freemasonry with the Illuminati, which was a secret society in Bavaria in 1776 that was outlawed, along with Freemasonry and all other secret societies, by Bavarian ruler Charles Theodore. This, however, doesn't really make sense because the Bavarian Illuminati was notoriously anti-religious. The purpose of the Illuminati was to oppose superstition, combat the influence that religion had on people's lives and promote rational thought and skepticism. They certainly did not like the amount of power that the church had over the people during the time, which is why the Catholics pushed Theodore to pass the edict that banned secret societies. The Bavarian Illuminati and the Freemasons believed in and practiced completely different things, so I'm not sure where the idea comes from that the Illuminati has anything to do with Freemasons.

I guess the idea, according to many youtube conspiracy theorists, is that after the Illuminati and the Freemasons were forced to go underground because of the ban, the Illuminati sort of "joined forces" with the Freemasons to undermine and oppose the church and rid the world of religion. Once again, this makes no sense because the Freemasons are a religious/spiritual organization and the Illuminati was notoriously anti-religion. But I suppose facts aren't conspiracy theorists' strong suit. They basically believe that the Freemasons are secretly devil-worshippers that want to control the world; that they're secretly pulling the strings behind the scenes, controlling major world events and crap like that. It's all nonsense.

There's also the idea that the Illuminati still exists today, but this really doesn't make sense because if it did, it would probably be like the Freemasons in that they would just be out in the open; there's no reason to hide anymore because the church doesn't have the influence it did in the 18th century. If the Illuminati was still around they'd probably have a website.

So yea, it's just because of the conspiracies surrounding the organization. In reality it's just a glorified boys club that does philanthropy and donates to charities and does fund-raisers and stuff.

Excellent analysis.