Shinto

[drain.you]

I stumbled across the Shinto religion earlier today. I have to say, it fits my belief system the best out of the religions I have previously read about. What do people think of it? Theres a fairly good page on wikipedia about it and only on the bbc website.
I dont want this to turn into a religion bashing areana, just want to discuss its beliefs.

[Oh-Dae-Su]

i think its bullshit, lmao, sorry, but thats what i believe. The belief that everything is alive, is not so unbelievable, because if you look at it in a certain way like iv said before in another post, we are one and the same in with the universe, so everything is made up of matter, yet i highly doubt rocks are thinking : "gosh this is a hot day", lmao....so Shinto has some interesting principles, which are facinating to us westerners because our religions are much different than the east. But it's still a religion made by men, which in conclusion is all bullshit.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Yes, you have to love nice quiet religions such as these, being the state religion of murderous regimes. How is the "kami" of Nanking doing :rolleyes:

SPIRITS DON'T FUCKING EXIST! :angry:

[RedStarOverChina]

Shintoism, unlike the "real" religions, does not have any "philosophical basis". No "Holy Scripture" or anything like that. It's just gross superstition. It consists solely of rituals or ceremonies ripped off of Taoism, Confucianism and even Buddhism.

I frankly see no reason why one would become a "Shintoist"...of course that can be said of any other religion.

The general Japanese public are not Shintoists...the only Shintoist I know of are the Japanese supremacists, or the "National Shintoists". It worships the "Heavenly Emperor" of Japan as a living God...And when the Emperor admits that he isn't in 1946, Shintoism collapsed.

And now the Japanese fascists want it revived. :(

Now pray tell. Which part of it fits your belief system?

[Severian]

As RSOC says, Shintoism's closely associated with the Japanese Emperor, who is supposed to be descended from the sun goddess. It's long been one of the props of the throne, and of the pre-WWII imperialist wars.

When Christianity got its first footholds in Japan, it was sometimes associated with peasant rebellions...I vaguely recall Buddhism also was to a lesser degree.

In any case, that was probably a big reason the Japanese rulers tried to hard to keep out Christianity.

[Zak]

Well as you predicted it did turn into a religion bashing section. What did you expect?


Interesting thing about Shintoism is that there are no real consensus of beiliefs. There is no Shinto text that the religion is derived from. Not that most religions follow their own texts.

The closes thing to living shintoism today is Japanese Aikido. The founder Morieh Ushida was shinto and the practice incorpirates shinto harmony. This might seem odd if you speak japanese because arts ending in "do" (way) are usually buddhist. The original art was Aikijutsu and then he changed the name and he made the art softer and more a way of life than fighting system.

Hope that's the sortof thing you were looking for.