A biased opinion...what's yours?

Hello everyone! I'm very new here (just found out about the Temple yesterday, in fact.) I haven't even had time to put anything in the "Introduce Yourself" section, but that's my next order of business.

In the discovery of the actual religion of Jediism, which I have been following myself for a long time, I shared this idea with several friends. One of whom says the Jedi philosophy mirrors much of his own life. So I encouraged him to do some research and join the Temple if/when he felt the time was right. Of course, he gave me the usual skeptic "it's all just fanboys and fandom." He based this mostly on the idea of the lightsaber and several YouTube videos he had seen of people claiming they were real-life Jedi and doing mock battles with lightsabers and the Force, which I told him has very little to do with the actual Jedi philosophy. (I could be wrong, as I'm no expert...yet.) I began researching more, and found it not only to be an actual philosophy, but an actual U.S.-recognized religion.

He gave me the below Tumblr link and told me that was the extent of his research on Jedi and the symbolism of the lightsaber so far, other than the YouTube videos mentioned above. I encouraged him to look farther and deeper for more meaning, and not just someone's opinion on a Tumblr site. After reading the article, I decided I wanted to know what actual Jedi thought of what this one person had to say. So if you get a chance, feel free to read the article and let me know what you think of this one person's opinion.

https://adventures-in-poor-planning.tumblr.com/post/162180042034/jedi-and-the-symbolism-of-the-sword

Violence seems integral to nature, but for me Jedi seek essence within nature which is beyond those things, but in the fiction they have benefits from their practise which enables them to aid sufferers of oppression amongst the tumble of weeds, such that they don't have to run and hide or suffer as victims, they can defend themselves and sometimes others. The article seems to put the cart before the donkey akin to victim blaming, sorta thing? That's my 30second take on it

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As far as the fiction goes, we only really associate the Jedi with lightsabers because we most often follow Jedi Knights during wartime. The fictional Jedi Order was much larger than just a knighthood, and not all Jedi had weapons. Jedi who did not serve as Knights were members of the service corps and provided various services across the galaxy, keeping jobs as farmers or healthcare providers. In addition, there were Jedi Masters who had been Knights and did not take up the use of a lightsaber such as Master Vodo-Siosk Baas who carried not much more than a walking-stick. Much of what the Jedi actually did in the fiction would not make for a very entertaining hit film, so we mostly get to see Knights in combat.
Basic fighting proficiency was taught to all Jedi as children in the fiction. I believe that is a good thing; even in a modern context, knowing the basics of self-defense can literally save your life. Still, I think it's incorrect to paint them as warriors or soldiers. Self-defense and learning what is necessary to survive over time is not the same as aggression or warmongering. Before the events of KOTOR, the Jedi were fine with letting the Republic deal with the threat of the Mandalorian War on their own. The intended purpose of the Jedi likely was never to serve as a military force. Later in the timeline, in Rebels, Yoda even rebukes Ezra for seeking violent solutions to his problems and criticizes the Jedi Order for acting as soldiers. Consequently, I don't think Yoda (off-screen) would have emphasized martial prowess while training Luke on Dagobah. It's likely, in my opinion, that beyond the basics of self-defense learned as children, the vast majority of Jedi were not trained as soldiers or warriors -- the martial aspect of training being a consequence of the circumstances the characters on screen found themselves in.

Meh, bad representation of the fact pattern of the star wars EU. There are valid criticisms of the fictional Jedi, but starting from the first claim that they displaced a planet, there's a lot of patently incorrect info.

I mean if people use something as a symbol, you can't undo it. The argument hinges on the exclusivity of the sword's meaning which is not true.

It sounds like the author has an axe to grind. Even if we take all the factual statements prima facie, they don't apply to TotJO. Still an interesting discussion regardless.