You should be more suspicious of men who are NOT Freemasons. At least I know a Freemason knows what honor, duty, tolerance, prudence, justice is, just to name a few.
The girl you belittle is right on the money. If you meet a Freemason, chances are they will be one of the best people you know. As all Freemason are on a search for light or enlightenment, knowledge you are right as all questions are valid questions. You are free to question any Freemason. Although there are a few things that a Freemason is honor bound not to repeat, except to another Freemason. This is a test of trust and in the days of Freemasonry's origins, trust was paramount. A slight against another could get you called outside for a duel to the death. Today if a Freemason cannot be trusted to keep a simple secret like a password or a handshake, then he cannot be trusted with anything.
All powerful 33rd degree...methinks you have been watching way too many UBoob videos.
See here: http://www.masonicinfo.com/33rdsrule.htm
It's actually logical that many men who are movers and shakers in this world are Freemasons. Freemasons have a duty to leave this world a better place then they found it.
As such I think you also confuse secrecy with privacy. Freemasons meet in private. Just like companies that have a board of directors for example. You could not just walk in and listen to a companies board meeting, they would show you the door, quite quickly.
As JR said there are hundreds or maybe even thousands of books that explains the symbols used in Freemasonry and this is not the forum to explain them in full.
Freemasons don't feel any more superior then you do. They just do something about it instead of ranting about what someone else is doing.
The greatest duty of a Freemason is to aid and assist any member of the human family that they deem worthy and can do so without injuring themselves of family.
It seem your question about worship and beliefs have been answered quite well by another, but I will add, that a Freemason worships nothing in a lodge as that is not the purpose and the Lodge cares not what faith you have, just that you have some faith in a Supreme Being. A Freemason believes the same things as everyone else does, there is no teaching that states that Freemasons must believe the same thing.
There are things that the public at large does not know, but it is nothing nefarious. And if anyone wanted to know a 5 minute search on the Internet would answer that question. I am honor bound not to reveal what I know.
Lastly you mention the Illuminati. This kinda pegs you as a conspiracy theorist or at worst ignorant. You see the Bavarian Illuminati was started in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt in Ingolstadt Germany. He was a Jesuit trained non-ordained professor at the University. He at some point began to surmise that having the Church so intertwined with government was a bad thing (separation of Church and State), sound familiar. Then he went even further and said that monarchies were bad too. In a time and place where monarchies were still the norm and most were absolute monarchies, this if said out loud could get you jailed or worse. So he decided to join Freemasonry and used it as a recruitment tool. He was quickly discovered and his own people turned him in and he fled for hi life and the Illuminati was no more, completely disappearing by 1797.
So I would like to point you to a few authoritative books on the subject to further enlighten you. After you read these works I think you will have a very different opinion. You may still not trust or like Freemasonry but you will understand it better and know that the wacky theories floating around in cyberspace are just that.
Freemasonry for Dummies by Chris Hodapp (now a 33rd degree Freemason)
Is it true what they say about Freemasonry by Art DeHoyos and S. Brent Morris
Solomon's Builders by Chris Hodapp
A Pilgrim's Path by John Robinson
These works will help you get a better understanding in today's terms as most are modern works.
If you want more of the spiritual side I would recommend The Builders by Rev. Joseph Fort Newton (Baptist Minister)