I live in Japan, so reading this was entertaining. Most Japanese I've met have no idea what the specific meaning is for many of the rituals associated with visiting a shinto shrine.
The saying in Japan is that you are born Shinto, married Christian, and die Buddhist.
I am not a historian, but here is my understanding of the current "history" of Japan.
Shinto had an artificial resurgence during the meiji restoration as money was pumped into it. Shinto was seen as a way to push society back toward an emperor-centric governance model. Shinto at the time was closely aligned with the powers that believed propping up the emperor was important.
If you travel around Japan you'll see many jinja (shinto shrine). Within a few minutes walk from my house there are three large shrines and maybe six small shrines. Most of these were built during and immediately after the meiji restoration.
The modern view of the 'history of Japan' was actually heavily influenced and curated by the powers that shaped Japan in the second half of the 19th century. Many things that people believe are part of 'ancient Japan' are mostly handpicked tools used by the political elites of the time.
Yes, although this is true of history everywhere. Why are there statues of Columbus and Pulaski in the park by my house? Because my city had active Italian and Polish communities in the twentieth century, and having mythic great American ancestors helped them cement their identities.
Japan and America really are different, but any explanation you create to systematically explain the differences (communitarian vs individualist, Shinto vs Christianity, Plato vs Buddha, etc) will only be correct to a limited degree and miss many important edge cases.
Especially "Japan: An attempt at interpretation" I found remarkable, It really struck a cord and goes in-depth on cultural expectations and habits in Kami (villages). "Tales of Old Japan" is a great collection of mythological tales.
The discussion here, exclusively from Westerners, is focused on the anglosaxon semantics of religion.
It would be blasphemous and offensive to Japanese people to suggest these sites aren’t sacred. Yes, Japan is developed and people might not need to believe in the supernatural, but, to Asian people, Confucianism and respect for ancestors is borderline religion. The very word religion has different meaning in Asia, so to map it back into Western’s archetype of religion is weird. The word religion in the sinosphere could be translated as “way of living”, and tea practitioners consider their practice as such. Shinto, whether it’s actually belief in the Kami or reverence of the imperial family, is culturally the same. When American politicians float the word God, are they really speaking in actual terms or figures of speech?
Regarding the idea that Shinto is mostly a modern invention by the ruling class. The imperial shrines look this different. They have different motifs such as horses. Datapoint : I’ve been to thousands if not tens of thousands of shrines. The naming system of shrines is also a cue. It also doesn’t explain why there are thousand year old shrines, not in one region, but every region of Japan. Datapoint: I’ve been to all 47 prefectures.
Also, go to a rural remote fishing village. The shinto shrines there have a different level of spirituality. They aren’t tourist spots. They don’t have money. But the locals worship and pray for safe passage in the seas. When I went through Mie prefecture, the Ama, freediver women, have all had friends who died. The people in harsher economically deprived regions are much closer to reality, and if that’s not religion, I’m not sure what it is.
I've had a huge argument before with an ex about what happens when I die. She was insistent that we be buried in her family tomb, so that our descendants may continue to visit and remember us. I rejected that because I'm an atheist and I want a space burial [0]. That then detoured into a huge argument about how that's not really religion, that's just tradition, and following tradition is The Right Thing™.
I tell my relatives to bury such that I become a fossil, to be discovered by future paleontologists, probably of some species other than human. Bury me in a muddy river bed that will become sedimentary rock in a few eons.
But I want to take a message to the future. It would have to be made of wood or similar so it too fossilizes, something like an abacus or an astrolabe, so the future excavators know that we had a technological civilization.
If I can’t rot away inside a photon torpedo drifting endlessly in space, the next best thing is burning in a blaze of glory as I re-enter the atmosphere.
The kids can keep my pinky bone if they insist on following silly ancient rituals.
Anyway, the point is that I have not and probably will never have the good fortune of traveling into into space in my lifetime. At least let me do so in death. I promise you you’ll still get your inheritance.
Disclaimer: I am no expert, have never been to Japan, and know no Japanese people. That said, I've read or watched several pieces [1] which state the complex relationship Japan has with religion.
It is said that modern Japanese see Shinto as one of the factors that drove into the Asia Pacific War and World War II. Aum Shinrikio [2], a sect that did terrorist attacks also contributed to giving religions a bad name. Christianity is practiced only by a very small minority and modern Shinto has been reduced to consist almost exclusively of ritual, with little belief for gods, souls, or the afterlife.
I'd be interested in hearing more perspectives on this from anyone with first hand experience, or that just knows better.
> Shinto has been reduced to consist almost exclusively of ritual,
I really don't think this is true, or rather: it is a view shaped by biased expectations of how a "real" religion should look like, namely like the Abrahamic ones.
Shinto always was a religion of rituals that aim to gain some measure of control over a chaotic world.
>with little belief for gods,
That is definitely untrue - Shinto is all about gods. Just not omnipotent big-G Gods. Shinto Kami are approachable spirits of nature and places, who might grant you a boon if you do the right things and it is in their realm of responsibility.
>souls, or the afterlife.
Yes, Shinto does not have a concept of "soul" and doesn't concern itself much with an afterlife (that's why Japanese people get Buddhist funerals) - but why would it absolutely have to?
> religion of rituals that aim to gain some measure of control over a chaotic world
Yes, my experience is that most Japanese are into "actions/practice" more than philosophical "big ideas".
Ise Jingu is my favorite place anywhere; it is a place to stop thinking, become humble before nature and appreciate things as they are.
I think it's better classified as animism, though there is certainly some overlap.
But while Shinto priests' roles in the religion can be compared to that of shamans, Shinto doesn't actually place that much emphasis on them - individual and group practice also play a big role.
Interesting. It sounds like in shamanism the spirits are more "real". In Shinto it seems like a commonly agreed-upon belief that they exist. Shinto relishes the belief whereas Shamanism relishes the experience.
As far as I have seen "Shinto as a religion" plays a relatively small role in Japanese society. I am American and Japanese shinto looks almost nothing at all like American Christianity.
Many if not most Japanese people visit shrines (especially on set dates throughout the year), at which time they give a small donation and prayer, but from my perspective this is indeed mostly ritual. Routine you might say.
You could also say Japanese culture has high inertia. People tend to do things because (a) that's what other people do or (b) that's what's always been done. Of course things do change, but without a strong impetus they tend strongly to coast along the same road.
Shinto from a broader perspective, or simply Japanese culture as I am tempted to call it as it's difficult to draw a line, has many other influences other than simply visiting shrines. Festivals, rituals, and so on. But here also I don't see what I would call a "religion" based on a "strong belief" in "higher power(s)."
An example is when a new house or building is to be built, Shinto "priests" are called to perform a ceremony at the building site. Another is the little salt dishes they put around houses and buildings to keep "demons/bad luck" out. Seems to me it's closer to superstition!
Occasionally I come across something like this PDF and it confuses me. It portrays Shinto as very mystic, but that doesn't match well with the reality on the ground of everyday life in Japan, at least through my lens.
Note: my experience is in the last decade and a half. I haven't asked or heard much about the past. It's not a stretch to imagine that "shinto" used to look more like a "belief based religion" some decades or centuries ago.
I agree with this but I don't think it refutes anything that GP was trying to say.
I've spent a few years in Japan and religion really does have a bad rap here. My experience is that if you talk about large religious organizations, people will assume "cult" until proven otherwise. I wouldn't be surprised if Aum Shinrikyo and other extreme (but not representative) groups is one of the driving factors behind that common skepticism.
People visit Buddhist temples as social get togethers. It’s common for friends to meet up, walk through a temple, and pray. There are also very devout branches and even political parties with strong Buddhist connections.
This comment chain seems to increasingly be full of people who haven’t been to Japan talking about it, and it shows.
isn't there a saying that goes something like 'Japanese are born Shintoist, marry as Christian and are buried Buddhist' ? Like as if religion was a more mutable part of one's identity, compared to other countries.
This, too, is an artifact of viewing about religion through the lens of a tradition which is unusually (a) more concerned about having the right beliefs ("orthodoxy") than performing the right rituals ("orthopraxy"), and (b) centered around a jealous god to the exclusion of other religious practice. Without (b), there's no need for such a strong delineation between religion and general cultural practice. You perform "Shinto" rituals because that's what everyone around you has done and you're pretty sure it's worked out fine for them. You have a "Christian" wedding because that seems like the most legibly festive (and accordingly popular) marriage ritual available to you, out of a handful of distinct but all perfectly functional marriage rituals that you're pretty sure have worked fine for people around you. You conduct "Buddhist" funerals because those are the most practical funeral rituals for your setting and you're pretty sure they've worked out fine for people around you.
You don't need to think very hard about the fact that these rituals come from different traditions and follow different and contradictory "theory" behind the scenes; it's just a curiosity if it comes up, but mostly it doesn't. As long as the rituals seem to work and life goes on, it doesn't really matter.
Most people who get married the "western style", do it w/ fake priest, etc. It has no recognized religious value. Other people do it the "shinto way" or the "buddhist way".
That book is controversial and has to be taken with a large dose of salt. It was written by a "Westernized" Japanese and targeted at Westerners. Some articles;
I think calling the book controversial is too strong. Maybe "highly romanticised" (as quoted in the above rather good BBC culture article) is a better description.
The "Legends of the Samurai" book sounds interesting and worth a read too.
My take: Just read, make up your own mind, disregard labels like controversial, westernized, etc. Those come off as trying to tell me what one should read and what one should not read, which should raise alarm-bells.
You can read whatever you like but should strive to find out whether it is/was factual (assuming non-fiction). When it comes to Cultural/Social/Historical accounts of any Civilization this becomes even more important since so much has been lost and hence needs to be rediscovered/recreated. Nothing is simple and homogeneous but interpretations, point-of-view, agency all matter.
When the "West" discovered the "alien East", partial knowledge, romanticization, Social/Cultural Darwinism were the coloured lenses through which they interpreted everything. Thus all accounts were necessarily incomplete and distorted but once they were written down became "gospel". This is why "Historical Revisionism" (in the positive sense) is so important nowadays.
You should always strive to understand the context in which something is written, meaning the times, the habits of those times, its biases etc. I don't think we're better off with a group-consensus "historical revisionism" to "guide us". Again, I would call to think for ourselves, read and make up our own minds.
I agree that it might not be historical accurate, but it became the standard narrative of modern japanese. So it actually helps you to understand modern japan instead of the era it describes.
I have been reading and learning about shintoism for the past one year now. I want to explore it more deeply. Anyone here wants to make this a co-op journey?
The saying in Japan is that you are born Shinto, married Christian, and die Buddhist.
I am not a historian, but here is my understanding of the current "history" of Japan. Shinto had an artificial resurgence during the meiji restoration as money was pumped into it. Shinto was seen as a way to push society back toward an emperor-centric governance model. Shinto at the time was closely aligned with the powers that believed propping up the emperor was important.
If you travel around Japan you'll see many jinja (shinto shrine). Within a few minutes walk from my house there are three large shrines and maybe six small shrines. Most of these were built during and immediately after the meiji restoration.
The modern view of the 'history of Japan' was actually heavily influenced and curated by the powers that shaped Japan in the second half of the 19th century. Many things that people believe are part of 'ancient Japan' are mostly handpicked tools used by the political elites of the time.