Syman describes yoga as a varied practice, but she makes clear that yoga cannot be fully extricated from its spiritual roots in Hinduism and Buddhism.

That's because that's an author that has really researched it. For those who practice the physical disciplines of yoga (rather than the entirety of the practice, which certainly includes religious aspects) it's entirely separable from religion, it's just that studying it yields a sort of "what has been seen cannot be unseen" effect with its historical ties to a type of religious meditation.

Believers are called to meditate upon the Word of God - an external Word that comes to us by divine revelation - not to meditate by means of incomprehensible syllables.

If he's referring to the lotus prayer, that's completely comprehensible if you know the language. He realizes that the word of the Christian god is primarily in Latin and Aramaic and Greek, which are 'incomprehensible syllables' to most these days?

But, in more recent times, America has developed its own obsession with syncretism, mixing elements of worldviews with little or no attention to what each mix means.

"In more recent times"? We were founded around sets of colonies that were already mixed groups of widely divergent worldviews and countries, and our initial success was in a significant part due to the assimilation of the native tribes and nations. He's basically complaining that the US is the 'melting pot', which has been our greatest strength pretty much since the day the first colonist decided that tobacco was where the real money was.

Consider this - if you have to meditate intensely in order to achieve or to maintain a physical posture, it is no longer merely a physical posture.

Spoken like someone who only gets off of the couch to roll ponderously onto the hoveround. Almost every even mildly impressive physical feat requires a certain amount of mental focus, from sprints to paddling to the parallel bars. Am I committing heresy every time I do a push-up? Or only if I'm paying attention to my form?

//Yoga is silly because empirical testing has demonstrated that a stretch exceeding thirty seconds has no physical benefit, so something more motion-intensive is better exercise. Being taken from a religious tradition is really the only thing about it that is kind of neat.

jingks: Stop with your anti-circumcision thread-jacking

I prefer to jack pre cut !!!

post cut jacking chaffes

// so I am told

Needlessly Complicated: Veteran of the Cola Wars:

yoga is a complete waste of time

Where is that article from a few days ago about stretching, not worth a fark?

I'd like to see it.

Lifting weights is much more useful than stretching for an hour and a half ever could be.

adaptations are a result of specific stimulus, and it's hard to imagine an evolutionary need to stretch, while lifting something heavy is quite useful and the necessary adaptation of increased strength is sure to follow

I respectfully disagree... What about people who have arthritis? Stretching and joint maintenance is far more important than strength. I am still physically strong, but if I can't move my joints, my strength doesn't do me much good, does it?

Isometric exercise done during stretching has boosted my already impressive strength considerably, more so than I would have thought possible. I thought the whole thing was bunk my self at one time.



In addition there is a LOT of strength involved in some of the positions. There are many good positions for core. Try holding plank (properly) for any length of time. You'll feel the burn in a few seconds.

Just held a plank for 30 seconds with no trouble (I never do planks), but the problem with planks is - they're good, but there are more effective ways to strengthen the core. The core's purpose is to stabilize the spine, so natural compound movements train this best.

If you want to keep doing planks, throw on a 45lb plate or two. Now that will get you strong :p

Jakevol2: I attend a Catholic University and they offer free yoga classes every week. We also just had a big campus wide celebration of Ramadan. Today we hung Tibetan peace flags on campus. Only closed minded, ethnocentric, bigoted Christians would say you shouldn't do yoga if you want to be a good Christian.

That's ok, my Atheist university celebrated the birth of Christ every year.

Listerine: Veteran of the Cola Wars: Listerine: StoPPeRmobile: StormnMormon: Yea I purchased Yoga for dummies awhile back, in an effort to start stretching and stuff as a prelude to more exercise for weight loss. After slogging through a few chapters of BS (Seriously, just so much crap about "connecting to the universe" and creating a sense of harmony") I returned it and just bought stretching for dummies.

So there are some pseudo-religious or at least "mystical" elements or whatever, but just enough to be annoying.

advisable: a cool story, bro:

at my yoga class, the woman in charge plays johnny cash as the background music during practice. It's phenomenal.

Listerine: more like "do yoga? you're a weak as piss"

yoga is a complete waste of time

Where is that article from a few days ago about stretching, not worth a fark?

I'd like to see it.

Lifting weights is much more useful than stretching for an hour and a half ever could be.

adaptations are a result of specific stimulus, and it's hard to imagine an evolutionary need to stretch, while lifting something heavy is quite useful and the necessary adaptation of increased strength is sure to follow

I respectfully disagree... What about people who have arthritis? Stretching and joint maintenance is far more important than strength. I am still physically strong, but if I can't move my joints, my strength doesn't do me much good, does it?

Isometric exercise done during stretching has boosted my already impressive strength considerably, more so than I would have thought possible. I thought the whole thing was bunk my self at one time.

if you have arthritis you are probably weak (you might not be, but how do you know you yourself are strong? what are you basing it off of?)

and of course some sort of joint mobility work may be necessary for some people, but for the vast majority of the population who don't have arthritis, strength is the key attribute they need to strive for, and because it is such a basic attribute, many other benefits will follow (cardio work capacity for example).

Because. I was gifted, or cursed, depending on how you look at it, with the body type of a neanderthal. Exceedingly dense and overbuilt bone structure, short overly thick tendons, and a short compact body built for mass and leverage rather than for height and speed. I tip the scales at around 250 pounds, and one of my regularly isometric exercises is doing a handstand against the wall, head on the floor, and then lifting my whole body with nothing but my arms, extending my arms to full length, and then if I am having a good joint pain day, lifting my palms up away from the floor using my fingers to support my whole body weight. I then hold this position until the count of 10, and then slowly ease my head back down to the floor by the count of 15, doing deep breathing till the count of 20, and then I begin to lift my self up off the floor again, starting over at 1. It is sort of like a push up, except your whole body rests on your hands, with the wall balancing your body.

When I first started, I could barely count to three before my whole body started to shake and my joints screamed in agony... Now, on a good day mind you, I can do this about 10 times before I have to rest. On a bad day, maybe two or three times, lifting my whole body off the ground using my hands and counting to 10.

I don't think it adds much to muscle mass, or maybe it does and I haven't noticed, but it really boosts your stamina and for arthritis sufferers, it keeps many joints flexible... Fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders, spine, hips, knees, well, almost everything. But the shoulders and the spine really get it.

Raising your self up isn't so bad, but even on a good day, lowering your self down slowly can be a real pain.

YOGA FLAME!!!

ninjakirby: Slartibartfaster: // I cant prove that there is no white rhino behind me

...

Thats the best example of an unprovable you could come up with?

Yeah. (1) They are pretty well extinct in the wild and (2) they smell like a large pig that's been rolling in dung.

ninjakirby: Slartibartfaster: // I cant prove that there is no white rhino behind me

...

Thats the best example of an unprovable you could come up with?

It's like they've never heard of mirrors.

NeoKhan: Jakevol2: I attend a Catholic University and they offer free yoga classes every week. We also just had a big campus wide celebration of Ramadan. Today we hung Tibetan peace flags on campus. Only closed minded, ethnocentric, bigoted Christians would say you shouldn't do yoga if you want to be a good Christian.

That's ok, my Atheist university celebrated the birth of Christ every year.

I love that my college goes against pre-existing expectations, but this should come as no surprise since my school's patron saint is the mystic St Theresa of Avila.

Slartibartfaster: what is wrong with it ?
I cant prove either of those ridiculously vapid claims are untrue. (proving negatives etc...)

Proposition: There is a white rhino behind you.
Protocol: Look behind you.
Observation: __________
Conclusion: ___________

This is not rocket science.

Veteran of the Cola Wars

Thanks for the tips. My husband was diagnosed in 2005 also has arthritis. The car accident in which he survived years earlier did not help much.

I'm hoping that this class will help him immensely.

BTW, we do have a dog. (new window) She's a bundle of joy and loves to be held by Mr Theologian.

MadTheologian: Veteran of the Cola Wars

Thanks for the tips. My husband was diagnosed in 2005 also has arthritis. The car accident in which he survived years earlier did not help much.

I'm hoping that this class will help him immensely.

BTW, we do have a dog. (new window) She's a bundle of joy and loves to be held by Mr Theologian.

Damn. Link got thrown out. Here is our dog, as the 404 Dog:
http://www.carolrutz.com/404.htm

No Downward Dog?

Well I can tell you that doing a lot of yoga you're bound to wind up farting. In public. And if there's one thing that'll send you to hell in a hurry it is FARKING. I mean, *farting* of course...

Oh FFS.

3 G's: Shoot, they have "christian" karate schools in my area....they actually call it "Karate for christ".

Somehow when I think "WWJD" the first thing that comes to my mind is not the martial arts.

Personally I'd think that it would be much more acceptable for a christian to do yoga than karate.

Why? Most unarmed martial arts are designed primarily for sport, not for actual combat. Tae Kwon Do, for instance, would be a terribly bad choice for an actual fight, and Judo is explicitly a wrestling style, created as an exercise in history and discipline significantly after ranged combat had supplanted close combat in warfare. Brazilian-style jiujutsu, probably one of the most popular, is again a competition style and not for real combat.

So even if you ignore that christianity includes some pretty direct imperatives toward warfare, saying that Christians shouldn't learn Karate is like saying that Christians shouldn't learn to play ping-pong.

Oh, and before anybody tries the handstand body lift thing, for the love of Eris go and check out a book or video on isometric exercise and using your own body weight and mass. It is, uh, actually a bit more complicated than it looks, good way to get hurt, I learned a few lessons the hard way. With the handstand position, you can slip up and break your neck. Or your nose, if you are looking down at your trembling hands, I'd imagine.

Eventually, I want to ditch the wall for support, fold my legs into that lotus position thingy, where the bottom of both feet are pressed together, and your heels tucked into your groin, and once balanced, do hip and spine rotations. I doubt I'll ever get there, but damnit, I keep trying.

Holding up 200+ pounds on just your fingertips, even with a wall for balance, was something I thought I'd never be able to do, so we'll see about the whole hand stand upside down lotus position.

/I expect a lot of bruising once I begin those attempts.

Wow. TFA started soo well. I was starting to believe this guy was going to poo-poo the whole yoga=heathen thing.

Oh well, another shiat-head in the pulpit..

These people are such complete morons I feel sorry for them. Fortunately, from doing yoga, this doesn't raise my blood pressure.

/hot chicks, few men, tight and often minimal clothing - what's not to like

Silly Christians. This is just like your fight against premarital sex, except now most of the women are hot, sweaty, and breathing heavily while shoving their sweet asses in the air all around your precious snowflakes. Yeah, good luck.

NSFW #1 (new window)
NSFW #2 (new window)

Your 16 your old will take Going-To-Hell for $1200 Alex.

Was raised around people who believed yoga was of the devil and rock and roll backward masking was Satan delivering his message. It warps a young mind and takes a while to untangle. Luckily college did it quickly and I got over most of that.

If you're truly afraid that your flock is going to go to hell because they stretch using the principles of yoga, then maybe your religion isn't as secure as you think it is.

Sheesh.

/Did some yoga. I think I was possessed.
//By the hottie in front of me in spandex.

elev8meL8r: impaler: Don't get me started on the heresy of pilates.

They're still pissed off that crucifixion thing.

Oh, you mean about Pontius Pilates?

Witch's Bane by Susan Wittig Albert, which takes place in Texas a couple of decades ago, has a character claiming she had to call the yoga class she teaches a "stretching class" because some folks might get scared off by the term yoga and think it means something satanic.
The crazy thoughts people have.

mail­r­e­lhomt­reb­l­ac­om


Write him. I just did. If you know my work here, you can imagine how it went down.

Iron Nacho Melt: I first ran into someone of this stripe in the late '80s. a Born Again Christian who had already been raised in a very politically and socially "conservative" environment, it was part of her worldview that this was just another gateway to paganism, at best.

My Dad used arguments like this on me growing up. Magic the Gathering was a gate way to the devil, Dungeons and Dragons would have me become a satanist, video games would lead the devil into my life... Yet his battle was lost once I got onto the Internet. Oh god how he lost the battle to keep me in religion once I got onto the Internet!

So evil.

Don't tell the author about men's naked yoga.

"Erections are not an issue and in fact should be celebrated as part of our manhood, although to be honest, you'll probably be working too hard to get hard but in the event that you experience an erection enjoy the sensation, but breathe and continue with your practice."

Anothjer thread that proves America has its head securely planted up its arse.

buckler: topcon: I have no idea why I remember this, but I do:

Back when I was a kid and had to go to church with my parents, I remember my Sunday school teacher talking about yoga for one reason or another. I have no idea what would have started that conversation, because I'm pretty sure us thirteen year olds didn't give two shiats about yoga. Anyway, I remember her saying that yoga "opens up your mind to demons" or some such nonsense. I knew fark-all about yoga at the time, nor do I give a shiat about it now, but I knew what she started saying about it sounded pretty farking kooky.

They say the same thing about martial arts.

Well, to be fair...

jingks: Don't tell the author about men's naked yoga.

Thanks. That's now on my list of things not to do when I go to Canada.

I love how people who know nothing about yoga or have never tried it think they know all about it. It's a lot harder than you think, or so I hear from the few muscleheads who do venture into our classes on occasion. They think it's going to be easy, but they're tired out after 15 minutes.

Many guys come back to the class because they realize it's a good addition to their regular cardio/strength training.

We don't even say OM, in our class. ;)

Marla Singer's Laundry: Write him. I just did. If you know my work here, you can imagine how it went down.

So he's filing a restraining order then?

trillium13: I love how people who know nothing about yoga or have never tried it think they know all about it. It's a lot harder than you think, or so I hear from the few muscleheads who do venture into our classes on occasion. They think it's going to be easy, but they're tired out after 15 minutes.

Many guys come back to the class because they realize it's a good addition to their regular cardio/strength training.

We don't even say OM, in our class. ;)

I made that mistake. Sort of. I thought, "how hard could a few stretches be?"

I've been doing it almost every single day now for about seven years or so. So long in fact, that I can't imagine not doing it.

I don't need no stinkin' yoga to be a godless heathen.

ninjakirby: Slartibartfaster: what is wrong with it ?
I cant prove either of those ridiculously vapid claims are untrue. (proving negatives etc...)

Proposition: There is a white rhino behind you.
Protocol: Look behind you.
Observation: __________
Conclusion: ___________

This is not rocket science.

Turn around, it is now still behind you, it will stay behind you, whatever "behind you have"
now prove it does not exist....

I turned, it was not suddenly (by change of perspective) in "front" of me
I must merely have faith that it is behind me

Is this the first time you have heard the white rhino concept ?!?

I cannot prove a negative

/// Douglas Adams said this a lot better
// until the guy got killed on a zebra crossing
/ I can not prove god does NOT exist, and you cant prove there is no white Rhino BEHIND you (hint eggspurt, if you turn around, it AINT behind you, this is not rocket science)

Mark 7:20
And He was saying, " That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.

Maybe she has a point....



Then again

Slartibartfaster: Turn around, it is now still behind you, it will stay behind you, whatever "behind you have"
now prove it does not exist....

I turned, it was not suddenly (by change of perspective) in "front" of me
I must merely have faith that it is behind me

So if your faith in (based on what exactly in first place?) white rhinos forbids your to improve your methods of probing the real world around you? Use a farking mirror, you dolt! Look ahead: no white farking rhino. Look behind you, using the damn mirror: still no white farking rhino. Toss a flash-bang grenade behind yourself: no sudden clattering of little rhino toes! Yes, a negative CAN be proven. There is no white rhino, because the facts do not support this assumption. Like, there's no change in o2 content in line with the presence of a large rhino. The floor boards do not creak ominously. No rhino taps me on the shoulder as I'm playing Solitaire and tells me to put the black 7 on the red 9. No farking rhino, white or otherwise. The non-existence of a large, albinoid pachyderm has been proven conclusively!

I'm a big supporter of anything that makes my gf more flexible. Gymnastics, ballet, yoga, whatever. In fact, all girls should have mandatory classes.

/yes, I'm open to mandatory classes for men if it makes us better at sex

Slartibartfaster: ninjakirby: Slartibartfaster: what is wrong with it ?
I cant prove either of those ridiculously vapid claims are untrue. (proving negatives etc...)

Proposition: There is a white rhino behind you.
Protocol: Look behind you.
Observation: __________
Conclusion: ___________

This is not rocket science.

Turn around, it is now still behind you, it will stay behind you, whatever "behind you have"
now prove it does not exist....

I turned, it was not suddenly (by change of perspective) in "front" of me
I must merely have faith that it is behind me

Is this the first time you have heard the white rhino concept ?!?

I cannot prove a negative

/// Douglas Adams said this a lot better
// until the guy got killed on a zebra crossing
/ I can not prove god does NOT exist, and you cant prove there is no white Rhino BEHIND you (hint eggspurt, if you turn around, it AINT behind you, this is not rocket science)

What about using a mirror?

Kar98: So if your faith in (based on what exactly in first place?) white rhinos forbids your to improve your methods of probing the real world around you

wow big jump in logic

I cannot prove a negative, I like to probe the world around me
I can (and greatly enjoy others doing so) prove a positive

I personally do not believe there is a god, or a white rhino behind me

God aint tapped my shoulder, nor has a white rhino, I cannot PROVE either do NOT exist, but it makes no logical sense to be afraid of either, or have faith in either.

I can prove a positive, but not a negative.

/// I have a reasonable expectation that both god and the white rhino may exist, but probably do not
// I also hold a mild disdain for anyone that thinks they can prove otherwise
/ The unobservable MAY exist, but by the definition of unobservable (aka, behind you, or requiring faith) cannot be proven in the negative, therefore the argument is moot

Kar98: There is no white rhino

how can you prove it without observing the absence ? note: behind you, didnt move, so didnt disturb the floor boards... is the absence of evidence - evidence of absence (Asimov) you cannot prove something does NOT exist.

// farcical faith is the only way to believe them, but science and logic are defined to not be able to prove that, and I kinda like science and logic
/ I rate the chances of god right up there with the white rhino, but a white rhino would be way cooler - rhinos do not impregnate unmarried teens, and they are ... ya know.... white rhinos

Kar98: Slartibartfaster: Yes, a negative CAN be proven.

From the strictly mathematical logical point of view, a negative an only be proven if the positive can be shown to be lead to a contradiction.

The negative of "there is a white rhino behind me" is "there is no white rhino behind me". Unfortunately, the negative test for a white rhino is the same as the positive test for a white rhino, and none of the observations can conclusively prove it one way or another.

So in this case, there is no way to prove that this guy doesn't have a white rhino behind him - albiet a particularly clever white rhino with remarkable agility. Some may say - white rhino ninja.

Your methodology, however, does strongly indicate that the probability of a white rhino behind him is so low as to be evident to a rationally thinking human being.

The legal professional calls this "beyond reasonable doubt". As far as I know, the existance of God has never been tested to this level.

Still, remember we are talking about loony religious nuts who rant in the name of Christ, so "rationally thinking" may be a long shot.

jharbor: Can't believe this hasn't been posted yet.

Heh, my mother in law bought me that shirt.

meat0918: What about using a mirror?

great point

wanna start a website ? jesus mirrors !!!!

// sounds like a download port for kinky stuff

Slartibartfaster: how can you prove it without observing the absence ?

I observed and documented evidence for its absence. Also, the wife would have mentioned something if there was a white rhino behind me.

Slartibartfaster: meat0918: What about using a mirror?

great point

wanna start a website ? jesus mirrors !!!!

// sounds like a download port for kinky stuff

No no no, Jesus saves! Right click and save as...

Can I just be a heathen and not have to try to get my feet behind my head?