Not Religious and Interested in Fraternity Recruitment

[naraht]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

This is what I was trying to say upthread. I think it's important to live our VALUES, but I also don't think that means we have to live them in the very literal way in which they were put down on page.

If some groups still actually require statements of belief, that's one thing, but to compare two rituals side-by-side and count the number of times "God" appears in each one would be futile in determining which group is more religious.

Absolutely. And once you hit phrasing in the ritual like "Our common god", trying to figure out whether that requires theism, theism + agnosticism or nothing at all gets even trickier.

And conversely, for the Masons, Great Architect of the Universe would be used rather than God.