seriously dave, your trying to explain reason to him? To him your whole life is a joke.I'm certainly not going to discuss Freemasonry with a cowan.
I leave it to HW108 to properly educate himself on the matter and that's all I can do.
But in all seriousness, I am very proud to be a Freemason and it has contributed greatly to order in my own life and better understanding of self and the world around me.
I can say that it is prevalent in western society because it is foundation stone to the success of many of these countries as FREE.
Freemasonry is despised and outlawed only in the countries where there is dictators or extreme intolerance. there is a long and colourful history of that sort of behaviour from ignorants.