My Baptist father was horrified a few years ago when he learned that I was practicing yoga. I was doing it because I was a serious runner at the time, and I needed to be more limber. I wasn’t stretching enough, and yoga was a great way to discipline myself to be more flexible.

Like Evangelical Christians tend to do, he immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was worshiping demons in the guise of Hindu gods. “Um, Dad? I’m an atheist, remember? I’m stretching my muscles.”

That didn’t seem to have any impact on him, though. I once tried to have an actual conversation about Hinduism with him, telling him Hindu theologians often don’t even consider Hinduism to be polytheistic, that the various mythical Hindu gods are archtypical manifestations of God as Universe. Yeah, that went over like a lead balloon. LOL.

It’s typical, though, of conservative Christians who have understandings of religions like Judaism or Hinduism that are mere caricatures of what they really are.

Don’t even get me going about trying to explain to Dad that some forms of Buddhism are not religions and that some serious Buddhists are atheists. Lol