Are japanese people religious or spirtual? what do they believe?

Its mostly just shintoism + zen buddhism
Confuniacism and taoism doesn't have as much influence there compared to China and korea

>Taoism is pretty minor in Japan though some elements made their way into some Buddhist sects especially the early esoteric sects.
>Zen is just a sect of Buddhism. But most Japanese today are Pureland or Reformed Pureland not Zen. Zen was just really popular with the samurai class.
>Confucianism isn't a religion its more of a philosophy, it doesn't really deal with the concepts of the afterlife or gods. Ming and Qing dynasty Neo-Confucian scholars questioned Christians and Buddhists because they argued they couldn't possibly know what happens after death.
>Buddhism doesn't deny the existence of gods or any other religion. It can jell with anything. There's an Indian story that Hindu gods are Buddhist they just have super long life spans but they will eventually die and by re-incarnated.
Given that its not a big deal. The only real problems are that in Shintoism when you die you go to Yomi, a depressing underworld similar to the Greek Hades. But in Buddhsim you get re-incarnated, or in the case of Pureland, you go to a Heaven or Hell. Most Japanese have Buddhist funerals because it sounds more appealing than going to Yomi.

This is why we need the eastern religion general already

it's shit

Why do so many of the older religions only say you can go to hell I wonder...

Not hell. But a shitty underworld.
Probably because when they dug up bodies they are all rotted. And underground seems dark and depressing. Most ancient afterlives were underground, where you put the body because that's where the body physically is.

Its kind of an interesting way of looking at things though. Cherish the time you have now, because after it, its going to suck. Kind of better than the don't worry things will be great after you die, approach.

Can confirm after studying religion in Kansai.

What do Japanese people think of Christianity?

asian christians are fucking annoying apparently, stand on trains and street corners screaming people are going to hell

>Religious or spiritual

LOL, no.

And yet the live the way they do.

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I know a Catholic Jap.

actually zen is what became when daoism and buddhism married in china.

Is it true that the Japanese empress is a catholic and only converted to Shinto out of tradition?

And he her son and heir to the throne is a crypto catholic?

As most asians, they are not exactly religious but rather superstitious. They will throw money in the shrine believing it will bring them luck during exams / a raise at their job, but that's as far as their spirituality goes.

When I was at Thailand I found it amazing that they leave coca cola bottles and candy at buddhist shrines on the road, believing that spirits like sweet food

Well did they accept it?

It was for the hungry ghost
Basically if you dont have reddit post likes irl you are destined to become an eternally hungry ghost until your time for another reincarnation come

>if you dont have reddit post likes irl

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Its pretty minor. There's a handful of Catholics, and various other protestants. Like .2% of the population. And that figure includes Japanese-Koreans who are more likely to be Christian.

There's Christian universities and schools in Japan, but the vast majority of students in them aren't Christian. You sometimes see mission groups, Jehovah Witnesses are always outside of Shinjuku station and you sometimes see white Mormons in ties with bibles in their pockets. But yeah, its minor. Christianity for the most part is seen as a western religion by the mostly irreligious Japanese. Christmas is a big thing there but not for any religious reason.

Strangely in northern Kyukshu there's still secret Christians. Who were the Christian converts of the 16th century assumed to have died out. Even now most secret Christians don't tell anyone.

The current empress's family is Catholic, she's also a commoner, both a first for the Imperial Family. The Japanese Imperial Household agency has so much control over the everyday lives of the Imperial Family I seriously doubt that crown prince Naruhito is a Catholic.

Before the Meiji Restoration, Japanese emperors, while being the head of Shintoism in a way, were also Buddhist, with many retiring as Buddhist monks later in life.

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Basically this, though their weddings tend to be Christian because well I guess the woman likes wearing the gown and all.

By basically just paying lip service to all of them.

>Basically if you dont have reddit post likes irl you are destined to become an eternally hungry ghost until your time for another reincarnation come
This is one of the shitiest analogies I've ever seen, what possessed you to write this

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>There's an Indian story that Hindu gods are Buddhist they just have super long life spans but they will eventually die and by re-incarnated.

Actually this is true, let me explain as best I can from what an Indian friend told me.

Had to be a separate post to make it fit

Reality is that which is eternal and unreality, or illusion, is that which is temporary. Note that illusion does exist, but it is unreal in the sense that it's not eternal. Someone may object - if I smash my head into a wall, the pain I feel is very real. How can it not be real? But if seen in the light of eternity it is not real. Illusion exists, but the reason it is not considered real is because it is not eternal. It's like a dream. A dream happens, but when we wake up, we understand it was not real. Life in a material body is like that - dream-like. We'll realize that, if not before, then at the time of death.

So reality and illusion is defined by time. One is eternal the other is temporary. And if you think about it, it makes sense. Anything seen in the light of eternity will be manifested for such a short time, that it is as if it didn't really happen.

Brahma, the god of creation, is said to live as long as the universe lasts - which is calculated to be 311 trillion solar years. So if you live for such an unfathomable length of time, then imagine what a person's life-span on earth of, say, 80 years must look like. I don't even live for a second from Brahma's point of view. How real would a person be to you if he existed for only a second? Think about it.

If you take 80 years out of 311 trillion years it is such a miniscule portion of time, that for all practical purposes it might as well not have happened. But then, if you take Brahma's lifespan and compare it to eternal time, it is just as little. However long time is taken out of eternal time, it will still amount to nothing. The duration of the universe will make a lifespan on earth completely insignificant, and the cosmic time of millions, billions, and trillions of years seem totally inconsequential and insignificant from the point of view of eternal time. So from the point of view of eternity, anything that is not eternal is but an illusory glimpse.

There used to be a lot more but we kinda nuked them

>Before the Meiji Restoration, Japanese emperors, while being the head of Shintoism in a way, were also Buddhist, with many retiring as Buddhist monks later in life.

Emperors also generally didn't last long. Prior to Emperor Meiji, most of them had a reign of about 10 years, and there's a reason for that. There is so much pomp and ceremony behind being essentially the pope of your religion that after a decade the majority of them got sick of it, picked up their kid and sat him on the throne and said, "I'm done, you handle this shit now!"

Japan had a Christian Prime Minister soon after the war

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsu_Katayama

PM is not the same thing as an emperor. Also
>christian
>socialist
He's either a terrible christian or a terrible socialist because these two can't coexist.

Most of Japanese culture perished in August of 1945, along with the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

What you see today is a mixture of shards (the little surviving pieces, kept alive in monasteries, among people who keep steadfastly to tradition etc.) and a giant infestation of industrial modernity.

(this describes New Jersey as well as it describes Japan)

Modernism is a cancer. Europe and America were its first victims.

Build more faster, cheeper, buy more, sell more, bigger, taller, comfier, less pain, less pain, avoid suffering at all costs, invade small nations and drill two mile holes into their crust to suck all the money out of the hills, civilians are collateral damage, the blood of "third worlders" is oil on the machine, go shopping at the Mall and eat at Denny's while Miguel works 80 hours a week to send his daughter to school and Li Hao cuts off another finger sewing your gap genes together but it's okay because we're on the internet and we're comfy and look at the funny video tee hee and lol trump's hair, but we can't really be that bad because then we'd be that bad right? I mean we're redeeming it's not all horrible we have medical progress (HIV? the collapse of antibiotic treatments? the rise of cancers as a result of bizarre economic chemicals? obesity epidemic?) I mean hey at least we get to live longer and we don't live in huts right? that makes it all worth it right guys? We don't have to change right? right?

Christian socialism is a thing, it's rooted in Jesus saying that being rich is idolatrous and sinful.

>this describes New Jersey as well

I mean that's true, but you don't ahve to say it about us.

>1948
Japan wasn't even considered an independent nation postwar until 1951, MacArthur ran the country as Supreme Allied Commander. So anyone elected Prime Minister in that time was basically just a puppet of Doug.

t. American

embarrassing post

I am used to falling on deaf ears. Carry on with your stupid life.

Not the guy you responded to, but this is an even more embarrassing post.

Neat!

no one is shocked by your "edgy" opinion, they are cringing

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>trying to trick mr skeletal

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I was hoping to provoke a response. I should have expected that it would come in the form it has, but I didn't.

It takes quite a bit of courage to face up to the fact that the way you were raised to live, the way your parents live, the way your school friends live, is terribly wrong. Most people don't have the fortitude to face up to it and would prefer to carry on living in a dream.

The American lifestyle is one of coddling comfort, a pleasure palace that sits upon a mountain of human suffering.

>a pleasure palace that sits upon a mountain of human suffering.
How is that again a bad thing if it is human suffering of people I don't care about?

I care about them and I care about you too. I'm not a cynic and I think all human life is valuable, meaningful and sacred.

Your post concerns me but does not surprise me. One of the affects of living in the pleasure-palace is that it warps and twists your soul up into a knot. The lack of human engagement, the lack of community, the lack of love all make us ruthless self-serving creatures. It also makes us completely miserable.

Your reaction to reading this will instinctively be to attack me, to out-maneuver me and to satisfy yourself that you've successfully squashed whatever opposition I might pose to your way of life.

Shintoism is genuinely a meme. Most if not all the Shinto rituals and major shrines were created during the Meiji Reformation due to the birth of Japanese nationalism. Prior to the elevation of Shintoism in the late 19th century, most Japanese were devout Buddhists.

its more a nationalism religion like Roman paganism

Asia is the last continent Christianity is expanding into

>things are wrong
That's your revelation?

Normies do care about saving the rainforest and childhood obesity and shit, their only flaw is being flawed humans and not doing a good enough job. Something you should be scolding yourself for more than anything. I see 2 major errors in your posts which reveal your cognitive difficulties.

1: You are not very conscious of how others view you.

2: You said "the rise of cancers as a result of bizarre economic chemicals" when researchers test the fuck out of chemicals like sodium nitrite and while more people are getting older and thus more people are dying of cancer, the chances of getting cancer in a given year are actual decreasing because of the decline in smoking and other things.

You probably think fluoride causes cancer or something. You can't think properly so wouldn't do a much better job than the normies if you had control over society.

The irony is society would be better off if we were all meganormies who got up at 6 am, were always positive and patient, did their homework and studied on time, didn't beat their wives, didn't drink or smoke meth, tread the narrow path, because that is how you get shit done in the real world. A lowlife scumbag might want to make the world a better place but they are too useless to accomplish much, they are in fact in a worse position than a "corporate drone" in terms of making a difference, in large part because they easily believe in bullshit like you do.

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/thread/

t. Weeaboo "Takahashi" Smith, virgin-aspie extraordinaire

The Japanese have been salivating over western industry and economy since the Meiji restoration. The only thing that changed after the war is that they don't have to die for the emperor anymore.

My point is not "things are wrong." My point is more, "the way you are living, and the way the vast majority of Americans are living, is deeply, disturbingly wrong."

I am not surprised that you disagree, but I would ask you why you feel the need to argue with me rather than just read what I wrote and move on.

I believe it is because your life contains, like most modern people, an element of hypocrisy which you are vaguely aware of and vaguely afraid of.

Look it in the eyes. Stop talking to me.

>Goes to an anonymous imageboard
>Stop talking to me
You're pathetic

no u

There is a minority of religious people in Japan. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many Shinto sects, New Religions, and cults.

And 1% of the population are Christian.

Never been to Europe, I see.

What a truly abhorrent post.

This, shintoism was more or less dead as a religion at the time.

The cults are something else entirely. The Japanese are just really vulnerable to falling for cults.

Not really, its just that Shintoism wasn't seen as a separate religion, it was just a part of Buddhism. Its not like the rituals were created out of whole cloth like neo-paganism.

The Japanese emperor during the Shogunate periods was still there and still doing Shinto ceremonies, Japanese were still celebrating Shinto festivals. Shrines were still in operation.

It just wasn't seen as conflicting with Buddhism since the Soga–Mononobe conflict. The Meiji restoration formally separated the two. But as you see today Japanese still practice both at the same time.

According to this, East Asian countries are all non-religious but maintain high moral standards.

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2008 Prime Minister Taro Aso was also a Christian. Japanese people just don't give a fuck whatever religion their PM believes in so long as it's not a cult. Or rather, in Japan people never care for God or religion seriously. They are all atheist in a way.

This. It's called 本地垂迹説. They believed Buddhist deities chose to appear in Japan as native gods to more easily convert and save the Japanese. Buddhism and Shintoism were not separated before.

>his country isn't grey

>North Korea more religious than South Korea

What part of Africa are you from?

>>Its not like the rituals were created out of whole cloth like neo-paganism.
Greco-Roman neo-paganism doesn't do this as much as other sorts because we have actual written sources for their rituals. Just putting that out there.

If you took an average Japanese person and really grilled them, they would probably say that the Shinto gods probably don't exist but that they still like the tradition. And it's fun to go to a shrine during the new year, toss a few yen in the collection box, and make a prayer for your family. And you never know, maybe it will help out in some small way. It's like how few Americans would say that they believe in luck, but most will avoid the number 13 if they can. You can find more serious Buddhists though.

Interestingly, although Christianity is a small minority religion, it has a lot of adherents among the Japanese elite. There have been 8 Christian prime ministers, for example.

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>nationalism in ancient times
>Roman paganism incorporating several non Roman cults

But for the benefit of the state. The were trying harness those gods' power for Rome. And in fact the state itself was a god.
user is partly correct, I mean I can understand his point. It's just autists sperg out when you use nationalism for anything pre-18th century.

He's not wrong you know. It may sound edgy but it's the truth.

Maintaining the harmony of their homogeneous society.

>North Korea more religious than South Korea
Worshipping the Supreme Leader is TECHNICALLY a religion

Very few Japanese are what we would call devoutly religious. Shintoism is more of a collection of folk beliefs and rituals with some animism thrown in than an organized religion. Besides that I'd say that Buddhism is pretty popular down there, and there's a lot of syncretism between the two.

I heard a saying about the Japanese once: they are shinto when they are born, christian when they marry and buddhist when they die.

>I heard a saying about the Japanese once: they are shinto when they are born, christian when they marry and buddhist when they die.
It's more or less true in terms of ceremonies

I mean the Day of the Dead is kinda similar, people leaving sweets and foods that their dead relatives liked at memorials.

The more I read about Hindu religion the more insane it sounds. What the fuck were the ancient Indians smoking when they came up with this shit?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_(drink)

That's not the reason Christianity hasn't been adopted by Japan

I mean, when explained that way to me, I get it. Our perception of time, no matter how long it lasts, really is basically a speck when compared to infinity.

I didn't say that, just saying why there's less of them than previously.

Hiroshima was the biggest Christian city in Japan.

>he thinks I'm african or a muzzie

Some sort of Slav?

Perhaps?

Pole?

Pretty sure it was Nagasaki

Japan took isolation policy due to Christianity.

So Hinduism is CHIM irl

Shintoism for life and Buddhism for afterlife

So true.
Like all asians they have a hive mind ant mentality.
They all look the same, think the same, behave the same, react the same, talk the same, laugh the same, walk the same, dress the same, eat the same things.
I second that /thread.