However,
is that sure enough? I'm somewhat skeptical about the perspective. I assume
that they say like that because of unawareness of current Japanese religious
situation and different definitions of "religious belief" between
Japanese people's mind and others.
When
the word "believe" is mentioned in religious way, it implies
Christianity or other monotheism religion for Japanese. It is possible that
most Japanese people misconstrued the principle of religious belief for the
belief of monotheism especially when they talk to someone in English. If the
definition of religious belief is following doctrine, I'm pretty sure that most
Japanese don't have the belief because Shinto doesn't have specific doctrine,
but it's certain that the definition is not like that.
The
evidence is that Japanese people who say "I don't have any religion"
actually feel the existence of gods including other religions' gods, sprits, or
something supernatural power. You may be perplexed with the definition of
"no religion". Does "no religion" mean "no god"?
We, Japanese people are not concerned about it.
We
think ourselves as people who have no religion but we go to cemetery to pray
for our ancestors' sprits and visit shrines to wish for our success to gods'
supernatural power. When a Japanese person watches some news that someone was
murdered, he may fell the victim's soul will lose the way to heaven because of
grudge.
We normally think good behavior will be
rewarded and bad one will be punished by fate. That was one of the wisdom in
Buddhism but we no longer remember where it is from. I'm sure that things above
are not seen as religious feelings for most Japanese. We don't realize our
culture is based on religions.
Are they entitled to call people as people with no religion or agnostic?
As I mentioned, if having religion needs to follow a doctrine, then they are.
We may say, yes, they are, so I suppose "religious belief" means following some doctrine for Japanese.
Are they entitled to call people as people with no religion or agnostic?
As I mentioned, if having religion needs to follow a doctrine, then they are.
We may say, yes, they are, so I suppose "religious belief" means following some doctrine for Japanese.
Meanwhile,
religious practice of Japanese is certainly not active. That kind of practice
in each household is becoming extinct. In a sense, it is becoming expected that
we think and see ourselves that we are people with no religion.
As I see it, a suitable expression for
Japanese religious situation is thinking something slightly that supernatural
exist but our practice is not that active like other religion's people. We pray
for supernatural things in seasonal events but we don't realize these are
religious gestures. Compare to other group of religious people, we feel
ourselves that we usually do nothing so we often say we have no religion. It's
true but it is hard to explain.
(*The total of percentage will be over 100
but it is not an error. This matter is related to other aspect of Japan's
religions but it'll stray to the point so I didn't mention it in this essay.)
Thanks for Sheree's correction.
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