Have you ever lied about your faith/religion/religious beliefs?

[schaeffer]

In any case, why lie? What does it hope to achieve?

Some people are put into situations where their lives, or those of their children are put at risk if they tell the truth about their religious beliefs. Not all have the calling or strength to be martyrs, or feel that they should put their child’s life in danger.

That may not be considered a good reason by some, but it’s hard to know ahead of time if we’d be willing or able to be tortured or killed, or have our children tortured or killed over it. Clearly there are people who have and do.

Also, I think it’s not uncommon for young people to feel shame about their faith. Or maybe their family is a particular faith and they participate but don’t believe but don’t want to cause family strife etc.

I remember as a kid lying about various things to kids at school because I was ashamed of the truth (there was a lot of abuse in my family) or because I was jealous and wanted to feel more like them, or that I had a life similar to theirs.

 

[Robyn_p]

Never lied about being Catholic, but I remember when I was taking some theology courses, some atheist family members would ask me what classes I was taking in college, and I would lie and just say history or something random like that.

It was wrong, and I still feel bad as I think it could have opened up some interesting conversations, but I was usually just not in the mood to explain what Christology was or defend theology as a useful thing to study. So I avoided the topic.

 

[anilorak13ska]

This is an interesting question, thanks to the OP For posting it
I am in a bit of no woman’s land right now. I went from a cultural Catholic upbringing to a spiritual quest to a reversion to practicing Catholic to essentially secular back to seeking.
I continue to attend mass with my husband, but I’ve long since left the church in my heart. I miss it and tried to regain the passion i once had for it, but postpartum anxiety and depression seemed to strangle the last bit of religiosity out of me.

My lie, or what I’ve been trying to determine if indeed it is a has been reception of the Eucharist. I’ve stopped saying the creed since it no longer reflects my spiritual beliefs, but there are so many views of what communion is (obviously there’s just the one official Catholic teaching) that I’m finding myself rationalizing why it’s still ok for me to receive communion. I know Catholics wouldn’t want me to receive it, but since I no longer feel bound by Catholic teachings, I am not sure I need to stop. I miss when I believed and all was well with the world, so communion for me is a cherished habit. I see it as a reminder that we are all God’s children, we are all one interdependent body.My husband also doesn’t have the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist nor the church as a whole, but he still considers himself Catholic and didn’t want to attend a non Catholic church, which may have alleviated the communion conundrum.
As for me, I am considering requesting membership in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), so my Catholic participation is strictly for the sake of family unity and personal tradition. (Quakers allow dual religious affiliation, though of course I know Catholics do not.)

So there’s my confession It pains me to think about sitting out communion, but it may be the only way to maintain my integrity. Clearly I have some more discerning to do. Thanks for this opportunity to “think out loud”

 

[drac16]

No. I haven’t been a muslim for very long and I’ve never been in a situation in which I’ve been threatened, so lying about my faith hasn’t been a possibility. I hope it never happens.

 

[Potter]

On facebook, my religious views are “Jedi”. My political views are set to “Alliance to Restore the Republic”, though, so I don’t think that counts.

 

[Reuben_J]

Some people are put into situations where their lives, or those of their children are put at risk if they tell the truth about their religious beliefs. Not all have the calling or strength to be martyrs, or feel that they should put their child’s life in danger.

That may not be considered a good reason by some, but it’s hard to know ahead of time if we’d be willing or able to be tortured or killed, or have our children tortured or killed over it. Clearly there are people who have and do.

Also, I think it’s not uncommon for young people to feel shame about their faith. Or maybe their family is a particular faith and they participate but don’t believe but don’t want to cause family strife etc.

I remember as a kid lying about various things to kids at school because I was ashamed of the truth (there was a lot of abuse in my family) or because I was jealous and wanted to feel more like them, or that I had a life similar to theirs.

Thanks and for being candid too. I see now. I hope my post did not sound arrogant or maybe boasting. I do not have such experience even as a young child. Growing up in a Catholic school and living a very intense religious life in a predominantly Catholic town, I was proud of my religion and never had a chance where being one that it could embarrass me. So unlike St Paul, perhaps unfortunately I did not have much to boast about in my religious experience.

No, martyrdom did not cross my mind when I made that post and I kind of feeling ashamed that it might compel you to mention it. I guess if I should ever come to a situation to choose between life and deny my religion, I would probably take the latter. It is easy for me to deplore Islam’s doctrine of acceptable lying but that was an honest opinion; not that it was easy to do.

God bless.

Reuben

 

[Reuben_J]

This is an interesting question, thanks to the OP For posting it
I am in a bit of no woman’s land right now. I went from a cultural Catholic upbringing to a spiritual quest to a reversion to practicing Catholic to essentially secular back to seeking.
I continue to attend mass with my husband, but I’ve long since left the church in my heart. I miss it and tried to regain the passion i once had for it, but postpartum anxiety and depression seemed to strangle the last bit of religiosity out of me.

Hi. I am sorry for what you have gone through. I hope you do not mind my comment here as any post in the Forum can be responded to by the members. It is not that I am trying to be nosy.

My lie, or what I’ve been trying to determine if indeed it is a has been reception of the Eucharist. I’ve stopped saying the creed since it no longer reflects my spiritual beliefs, but there are so many views of what communion is (obviously there’s just the one official Catholic teaching) that I’m finding myself rationalizing why it’s still ok for me to receive communion. I know Catholics wouldn’t want me to receive it, but since I no longer feel bound by Catholic teachings, I am not sure I need to stop.

I would be more concerned that you have not given the benefit to be honest with yourself because you are certainly entitled to it. I would see double fallacies there that though you do not believe in and thus not bound by it, you still receive Communion, an act declaring that you believe in it. Think of the many Catholics or when you still believed that many times we received Communion even though we knew we were unworthy because we did not want others to notice we were skipping it.

Logically when we are not bound by it because of our disbelief we would not receive Communion and we could not care less what others think of it. But then life situation does not always take its logical course.

I miss when I believed and all was well with the world, so communion for me is a cherished habit. I see it as a reminder that we are all God’s children, we are all one interdependent body.

This is simply beautiful, and sad. I think it reveals an inner part of you that there is somehow somewhere within you that you love the Eucharist. Would you allow God to speak to you about this? Would you like to listen to him to tell you of his love for you? I think maybe you give yourself this chance and seek His mind, like a child seeking the embracing arms of its father.

So there’s my confession It pains me to think about sitting out communion, but it may be the only way to maintain my integrity.

How ironic for you to maintain your integrity by covering a lie with another lie.

My husband also doesn’t have the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist nor the church as a whole, but he still considers himself Catholic and didn’t want to attend a non Catholic church, which may have alleviated the communion conundrum.

As for me, I am considering requesting membership in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), so my Catholic participation is strictly for the sake of family unity and personal tradition. (Quakers allow dual religious affiliation, though of course I know Catholics do not.)

…

Clearly I have some more discerning to do. Thanks for this opportunity to “think out loud”

I guess so. Maybe you can recollect those things that you do not believe in Catholicism and to go through them deeply trying to know them in the best possible way so that when you make that decision to reject or accept them, at least you know that you have given them serious thought and not due to mood change through no fault of yours.

God bless.

Reuben

 

[JustaServant]

The title pretty much says it all.

Curious how common this is and in which circumstances people feel compelled to lie.

I still need to contemplate this some more, but I think most of the time I’ve been false about my faith/beliefs it’s been a case of me being evasive or leaving out information.

There were many oppressed people at various times in Europe, Jewish and Catholic, who lied about their religion so as not to be killed.
Intriguing question.

 

[anilorak13ska]

How ironic for you to maintain your integrity by covering a lie with another lie.
Reuben

Sorry my phone doesn’t let me quote my own quote that you are commenting on here, but I said I thought sitting out communion may be the only way to maintain my integrity. Which part of that is ironic and which part is a lie covering a lie??

 

[IdiNaPut]

Chances are at some point I probably have lied about my faith, although it likely did not be of any help that at my most practicing, I was also in one of the most anti-religious atmospheres, given I was at university and a significant proportion of my social stuff was religious in nature (both church and on-campus groups). I found that more than often the two clashed head-on, and rather than standing up for myself, I often chose to either avoid the truth or simply outright lie about it.

Looking back, I am actually pretty saddened at this whole situation. If anything, I feel I let not just myself down but those people I was challenged by. I question whether my reluctance to stand as an open Christian served to weaken my faith. I also question whether, if I had taken that stand, if I could have had an impact on those other people and perhaps brought them to faith even.

 

[SnowAngels]

NEVER!
And even if I were tempted, I always keep the quote that CruceSignati mentioned in my mind!

 

[cmodrmac]

Please clarify

Lie about a particular denomination membership?

or lie about being a Christian?

here in the USA no one that I know cares one bit about denominational membership

 

[schaeffer]

Please clarify

Lie about a particular denomination membership?

or lie about being a Christian?

here in the USA no one that I know cares one bit about denominational membership

Any kind of lie, about any kind of religious belief.

Doesn’t have to be Catholic or Christian. Anyone of any faith could be untruthful. Atheists sometimes lie that they have a faith to avoid repercussions in places where not being a particular faith was a liability.

I’ve known parents who don’t believe, but feel it’s good for a kid to be raised in some sort of faith community, so they take part, not telling the children that they don’t believe all the things the community teaches.

 

[schaeffer]

This is an interesting question, thanks to the OP For posting it
I am in a bit of no woman’s land right now. I went from a cultural Catholic upbringing to a spiritual quest to a reversion to practicing Catholic to essentially secular back to seeking.
I continue to attend mass with my husband, but I’ve long since left the church in my heart. I miss it and tried to regain the passion i once had for it, but postpartum anxiety and depression seemed to strangle the last bit of religiosity out of me.

My lie, or what I’ve been trying to determine if indeed it is a has been reception of the Eucharist. I’ve stopped saying the creed since it no longer reflects my spiritual beliefs, but there are so many views of what communion is (obviously there’s just the one official Catholic teaching) that I’m finding myself rationalizing why it’s still ok for me to receive communion. I know Catholics wouldn’t want me to receive it, but since I no longer feel bound by Catholic teachings, I am not sure I need to stop. I miss when I believed and all was well with the world, so communion for me is a cherished habit. I see it as a reminder that we are all God’s children, we are all one interdependent body.My husband also doesn’t have the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist nor the church as a whole, but he still considers himself Catholic and didn’t want to attend a non Catholic church, which may have alleviated the communion conundrum.
As for me, I am considering requesting membership in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), so my Catholic participation is strictly for the sake of family unity and personal tradition. (Quakers allow dual religious affiliation, though of course I know Catholics do not.)

So there’s my confession It pains me to think about sitting out communion, but it may be the only way to maintain my integrity. Clearly I have some more discerning to do. Thanks for this opportunity to “think out loud”

A lot of what you shared resonates with me. I went through a time of conversion/shake down…when I would be going along practicing the faith I was raised in, and hear myself saying words and thinking “I don’t believe this, why am I saying this?”

Until I felt wrong saying it, going through the motions, lying to myself and good people around me. I stopped saying the creed, receiving communion etc.

People urged…just keep doing it, keep praying, etc etc. But that felt like a lie and I respect these people and their faith enough to not make a mockery of it. I remember the moment I knew that I needed to live what I believed, what I knew, rather than try to pretend I believed a stack of things I did not, and never had.

It was very difficult. Very sad. Grief and mourning over losing something that was dear to me, community, traditions, security. People who haven’t been through it would ask why would I mourn if it was MY choice to leave.

But it didn’t feel like a choice. I would have stayed if I could have done it and not been lying. I wanted to believe and be part of. I stayed for a long time, I came back, tried, and tried again hoping it would take. it didn’t.

Once I started living the faith I’d always had, I’ve never looked back. I can live with integrity . I’ve had people try to sway me, argue me out of my faith, tell me why all the things I believe are stupid and/or wrong…but it’s made no difference, no dent in my faith, no dent in the strength and joy it provides me with.

The same way any devout person of faith feels.

 

[anilorak13ska]

Schaefer, I’m curious where you are on your spiritual journey. Do you still consider yourself a Christian albeit not a Catholic one?

The other day as i was thinking about being Catholic without belief, I was reminded of blessed mother Theresa’s dark night of the soul which lasted for years. I wonder if any scrupulous Catholics would’ve told her she was no longer Catholic and should stop receiving communion. I believe the difference was that she wanted to believe. Well, I wish I still believed too. I don’t doubt God’s existence, so I’m going to trust Him over the RCC.

 

[technatrix]

Yes, for self-preservation reasons when I was a teenager. I haven’t since then.

 

[Indigo_Cardinal]

No. Why should I? Somebody has a problem with my faith, then that’s their problem and not mine.

Nor would I expect anybody else to lie about theirs. I’d be more suspicious of somebody who did then somebody who came straight out and said, “Yeah, I’m a Member of the Church of Only Wear Blue Socks on Tuesdays.” I might think what they practice is weird, but I also figure they have the right to practice what they want (barring physical harm to another living creature. We could argue mental harm, but people have a lot of different definitions of what constitutes that.)

Granted, I take the attitude that while I’m not going to lie about it, I’m also not going to make a spectacle of it either. My folks raised me with the thought that religion is a private business and should be kept that way.

 

[KidCatholic1]

I’m going to come clean and say that “yes” I have lied about my beliefs in conversations with others. Nowadays I try to avoid the topic or be silent (except for around others I can trust to be mature about it) when I hear people making fun, or telling me that this is wrong, or something along those lines. I am an introverted person.

But I have never lied about being Catholic, however.

 

[schaeffer]

Schaefer, I’m curious where you are on your spiritual journey. Do you still consider yourself a Christian albeit not a Catholic one?

 

[JustaServant]

The title pretty much says it all.

Curious how common this is and in which circumstances people feel compelled to lie.

I still need to contemplate this some more, but I think most of the time I’ve been false about my faith/beliefs it’s been a case of me being evasive or leaving out information.

Reviving this thread.
Sometimes around evangelicals I will speak about religious matters and then await the shock when they ask what church I attend.