Discussion of Japan from Religions Are Dangerous Thread

[_Moniker]

As far as your bitterness and forgiveness of me, those are your issues not mine. I don't need to forgive you.

Absolutely, they are. I forgave you and I felt better. Of course I did it for me.

However on a final note, you do sound rather tired, and I'm sure after a good night's sleep, you will be energized and ready to fight again.

Nah, I have no desire to fight you, marg. Looks like you went into a lot of effort to supply quotes, do some research, etc... on the Japanese and Shinto. It's always interesting, for me, to find out about world religions, customs, etc.... I hope you enjoyed learning new aspects about Shintoism that you hadn't known before our conversation. I hope it was as great a conversation for you, as it was for me. Perhaps, we can have another stimulating conversation some day. Until then.

Bon-no mu jin sei gan dan.

[_Yoda]

I came across a well written article discussing Japanese culture, which I thought had some relevance to this thread. The writer is AA Gill.

http://www.travelintelligence.com/travel-writing/1001179/Asia/Japan/Kanto/Tokyo/Mad-in-Japan.html

Religion is one of the reasons Japan is so socially crippled. In the beginning they had Shinto. Now, if religions were cars, Shinto would be a wheelbarrow. It’s your basic animism: ancestor worship, goblins and ghosts, tree and rock spirits. It lacks the most rudimentary theology. It made the emperor into a god descended from the sun. Onto that was grafted Buddhism – the wrong sort. Not the happy Dalai Lama stuff, but Zen Buddhism via China. Zen is so desiccatedly aesthetic that nobody knows what it means. On top of all that, the Japanese chose to add Confucianism. Now, it has been said there’s no such thing as bad philosophy at all. Confucianism is the exception that proves the rule. It’s unpleasant and low-brow. Confucius and Taoism were the excuse-all, get-out-of-work-and-responsibility for the samurai.

Modern Japanese people get born Shinto, married Christian, buried Buddhist and work Mazda. Consequently they believe everything and nothing. There is no solace in Japanese religion, no salvation or redemption, hope, encouragement, and most importantly, no concept of individuality, which is why you always see them mob-handed. A Japanese man on his own doesn’t think he exists. It’s just a static, miserable round of corporate responsibility and filial duty. I’ve never come across a place whose spiritual options were so barren. The pick-and-mix theology has stunted Japan like a tonsured, root-bound pine tree.

Moderator Note-

This is the actual article that Marg posted, which is where most of the discussion on the thread stems from.