Lie of ommission or protection of privacy?

There's something that has been bothering me for a while now so I'm going to put it out here to get some opinions..

My family do not know I am a Jedi.. they've never asked, I've never been in a rush to tell them. This goes also for the Quaker meetings I go to. I did not tell them why I went to Cheltenham in the summer (for the UK gathering).
I know that discussing the above will lead to questions I am really not interested in discussing.. not just immediately, but I know it will be brought up more than once, perhaps as a dig at me in the future...

Recently though I've realised this means that my friends (who do know) know a great deal more about me than my own family and I am beginning to wonder if it has become, essentially, a lie that I am showing my family.

Any thoughts?

I don't think of it as a lie... it's more a case of discretion.

I believe your faith is a private matter which you can choose to share, or not share, with whoever you wish.

If a friend came out to you as gay, or perhaps one day told you they were Christian, would you think of them as a liar for not having told you sooner?

I agree with tzb about it being private, I didn't proclaim my faith when I was Christian or Buddhist either. I have always felt it should be personal. I don't lie about it though.

Personally, I don't tell my family. If they asked what religion I was or if I was a Jedi, I would tell them. I understand your discretion though, because my Dad has been pastor of the same church for over 20yrs. He already gets enough heat for me not going to church, I couldn't imagine how bad his reputation would be hurt because people know that I am not a Christian. So, for me I think I am doing the Jedi thing. Not lying, but not hurting my family either.

I agree with tzb, it's discretion and a private matter.

I've had some religious friends, Christian and Muslim and for some reason to talk about any other forms of spirituality and religion just goes over their heads, as if they're little children. I don't mean to sound mean but unfortunately it's true and so I am just respectful and can talk about some topics and try to put some of my ideas or beliefs in terms they can understand.

I usually just say stuff like that I think all religions have their place in time, and it's good to know your traditions and ethics - where you came from, but I think that the overall mystery of life goes way beyond the terms used by religions so by studying various ideas and beliefs one can decipher the metaphors and what not for a wider understanding or perception that makes things more interesting. The dark sides to the religions too I like to talk about, like Sharia law, the Inquisition, and mass murdering "sacrifices" because a lot of religious people I've encountered tend to only see the good parts because they are good intentioned people who would never want to have anything to do with that stuff but they wonder why certain things are going on today and what has happened in the past.

It does kind of suck and it bothers me too cause even with my family and friends who aren't very spiritual or religious I can't really talk to them about deeper spiritual topics and question the mysteries of everything and how through just realizing how intricate this all is it should be easy to find inspiration, motivation, and appreciation for things. I don't take a high horse approach or anything I'm just interested in talking and learning about stuff. We're all different though, some of us are attracted to more complex ideas and other prefer the simple approach.

On a personal level I think it's about the weight of the burden. Having taken all factors into account, if not telling one's friends or family becomes more of a burden than telling them - then tell them. So far, so utilitarian . . .

I think there is also a question of relevance when it comes to omission / privacy. In a discussion about religion or philosophy I'm typically quite happy to talk about Jediism with anyone. If it takes a crowbar to shoehorn the topic into a conversation then we can run the risk of 'floodlighting' people - and that rarely goes down well!

if its beginning to bother you then thats possibly a clue right there, but theres no way i could feel confident in saying "this is right" or "this is wrong" on a situation in a family that i am not REALLY well informed on

just generally speaking: one of the conditions of being a jedi is making a commitment to whole heartedly facing up to life

i know people get uptight when someone goes around saying "jedi is this" and "jedi is that" and i agree with that in most cases, because people focus on details at too high of a resolution and make lofty pronouncements which dont really fit into most of our real live, but if it isnt SOMETHING then it isnt ANYTHING, and this one is pretty tough to argue: Jedi must ENGAGE with life in an active way - we have to face the circumstances of our lives, thats implicit within the jedi ideal

it doesnt mean to "leap without looking", and it definitely doesnt mean that we cant take as much time as we really need in order to understand what we're getting into and why, and to figure out the best way to navigate the situation: we shuld always be willing to do that

but we can only look at something for so long, at some point we have to leap

i also believe that its an important part of individual identity to be able to say "this is me, this is what i do, this is how i live" and to own that

not to put it in anyones face or demand that anyone change their whole worldview just because we exist, but just to own it - its my life: i own it as if its valuable in its own right - i own it as if i respect it and its MY respect that matters most (because in this context i think that it is)

all this being said, every family is unique and everyones circumstances are different: i honestly have no idea of whats right or wrong for your particular family, i only want to encourage you, and myself, everyone else, to look honestly at what we do at what we avoid, understand why, and determine - without being motivated by fear or laziness or any kind of selfishness - what the IDEAL way to handle any given situation might be, and then what we can do to actualize that ideal

It probably very much depends on the individual's understanding of what a 'lie' looks and sounds like...

If someone asks you "What are you looking at on the internet?"and you answer "I'm just checking into a forum that I go to to discuss religious and philosophical ideas", some of us would feel as though we were lying if we said that and some of us wouldn't. Similarly it could be both true and untrue to explain attendance at a Gathering by saying "I'm just going to hang out with some friends for the weekend" (for instance, I personally would have considered that possibly an even more truthful reflection of what I was doing in August than actually describing it as a Jedi Gathering). It's very much a gut feeling, I think.

I don't think that there's a right or wrong way of looking at it really...

When these sorts of things start to feel persistently uncomfortable for us deep down, that tends to be an indicator that we've crossed the line into the territory in which we consider ourselves to be in some way lying, and it's pretty hard to get rid of that feeling again once it's really taken root.

But, you know, telling your family can yield unexpected results...sometimes your sibling rocks up at the UK Gathering...

Thank you for your thoughts everyone.

It occurred to me today that I have never had these thoughts about my beliefs/practice with regards to Satan/Set, and I don't feel the same kind of obligation to tell my family that I'm feeling with Jediism. I'm not sure what that means, other than I need to have a deep think about what those two things mean to me.

It might depend on if religion is used as an attribute of identity with those people or in that community that a practitioner might strongly not want people to think the wrong thing about their path. So you might prefer to have them know the truth in terms which resonate with the practitioner themselves. I think its polite to be accurate in that regard, and so truth is requisite for that to happen.

Though if religion is not commonly used in defining someones identity then it might never need to be said, and that is ok too. If religion is never used in that way then it's just not an issue.

But that raises an interesting question. Should it be an issue! Maybe its important to get real Jedi out there and known. If so how would we want to be known
:blink:
I think that is an individual question, both in asking and answering. So much in the same way as telling people, as has been said here before by other, it might be better if we show them and let them ask. Let the label be an explanation, instead of one that requires explaining.