They say yoga is a religion, and shouldn't be taught in public schools.
A school program to fight childhood obesity that includes yoga is drawing complaints from some Christian parents in the Quesnel area in B.C.'s Cariboo region.
They say yoga is a religion, and shouldn't be taught in public schools.
Chelsea Brears, who has two children in the school system, said her son was asked to do different poses and "to put his hands together."
Brears, a Christian, said she doesn't want her children exposed to another religion during class time.
"It's not fair to take prayer out, and yet they're allowing yoga, which is religion, in our schools."
Local rancher Audrey Cummings doesn't believe Christian children should be doing yoga at all.
"There's God and there's the devil, and the devil's not a gentleman. If you give him any kind of an opening, he will take that."
The two women have complained to the education minister and the Quesnel school board.
But school board chair Caroline Neilsen said the yoga is being taught as a stretching exercise, not as a spiritual practice.
Neilsen also noted that children who don't want to practise yoga can do different exercises or leave the classroom.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/01/09/bc-yoga.html?ref=rss
It is totally possible to teach yoga without any religious connotations. Hell - I am taking it up because I think it'll help my rock climbing. And if you've ever done yoga, you know how good of a workout it is. If they teach spiritualism and chi along with the yoga, then yeah, that's religion and should be removed. However, it is totally possible to teach the necessary movements and poses without teaching that you should be getting in touch with your chi or such.
Let's just ban all PE in school, kids moving around playing sports, well that will just open the door for the devil, when they're out of breath he'll swoop in and take them!
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Comment by SabreNation on April 15, 2009 at 4:36pm -
Wow... just wow.
What's really sad is that if the decision in question was whether or not to teach creationism in the school those same parents would stand FIRMLY on the opposite side of the religion in schools fence.
What about Kung Fu? Shaolin Kung Fu's roots can be traced back to Buddhist monks. So should we deem Kung Fu classes religious study? Should I now scrap my plans to put my children into martial arts classes once they're old enough?
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Comment by Johnny on April 15, 2009 at 5:23pm -
"A school program to fight childhood obesity that includes yoga..." -- This definitely seems to imply it as a physical education or extra curricular activity. I think entertaining ideas to help fight childhood obesity is a good idea.
But as Meme points out, you can't let those ideas drift into religion. And especially can't allow that drift in religion to be taught as science.
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Comment by a7 on April 15, 2009 at 6:18pm -
hi from Glasgow Scotland, I don't think wow is enough. Fucking wow, now that's a bit better.
What a great idea, there should be more exercise in schools to combat all the wee fats or potential fats cunts.
This is were we fall down, they should have been laughed out of school, so to speak. the
more we take of this shite the harder it become to make any real impact.
george
x
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Comment by Misty: Baytheist Living! on April 16, 2009 at 12:04am -
A7- bwahahaha...
Seriously, man. My boyfriend is Scottish.. Fife Kilcaldy... and he says 'wee fat cunts' or just 'fat cunts' all the time. It cracks me up.
I do yoga.. and it's all in Thai, but it isn't like.. conversational Thai, so I only understand a few words they say and I can't translate the pose names into English.
I do it at the gym, not at church.
I've never experienced anything even close to spiritual, religious or devil-opening....in fact, my class consists of an American atheist (me), a handful of Muslim women, a bunch of Thai (I'd assume Buddhist) women and one fat white guy that speaks German.
What yoga religion are we practicing again?
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Comment by Rev. James Thomas Hicks, D.D. on April 16, 2009 at 4:55am -
I prefer Yoda yoga. Just leanin' on my walkin' stick, sittin' 'round all the time, & talkin' like him.
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