Surrounded By Myopia

Several times per week I use Technorati, Google Blog Search or the Blog Search Engine to find blogs that discuss Taoism. My hope is to find more blogs to list in the links section to the right. Of course, not every blog that writes about Taoism is doing so in a positive light. Some have a tendency to confuse or lump together philosophical Taoism with the religious form. In such cases, I try to set the record straight by leaving a comment.

There are other blogs that treat the very idea of Taoism in a hostile manner -- most of these turn out to be fundamentalist Christian blogs! I sometimes leave comments on these blogs too, though I skip most of them.

Today, on a blog entitled "Keith's Journal", I came across a post, "Drawing the Lines". Here's a portion:

Someone asked me today about whether Tai Chi is an acceptable form of exercise or not. I have to confess that I know very little about Tai Chi.

I did some research and discovered that it is based in Taoism, which is a Chinese traditional religion which features, amongst other things worship of ancestors. Many commentators expressed the view that of all the martial arts and related exercise systems, Tai Chi is one which draws deeply on the spiritual aspect, seeking a harmony of the physical and spiritual aspects of the practitioner. Because it is more than movement, but includes meditation, I believe that it is not appropriate for Christians to engage in it...I do think that any activity, whether of Eastern or Western origin where a form of meditation requiring an emptying of the mind or an agreement to a non-christian form of spirituality will open people up to demonic activity.

While it should go without saying that I think the idea of an evil spirit surreptitiously impregnating someone's mind with dastardly thoughts is completely asinine, I'll skip over that argument today. What I find completely bonkers is that this bloke would dismiss a form of exercise simply because it comes from a philosophic tradition other than his!

I suppose this means he would find something satanic in yoga or pilates too. It makes me wonder what kind of physical exercise is acceptable to fundamentalist Christians. Maybe 50 lift and jerks of a stack of bibles?

Addendum: Yikes! It's worse than I thought. Here are two other blogs that are reporting on the Wynyard Baptist Church of Tasmania which has canceled Tai Chi classes because they are...gasp...not Christian-based! 1) Forlorn of Thee and 2) Blogocrats