According to the statistics of Japanese government, Shintoists are 160 million, Buddhists are 96 million, Christians are 200 thousand, who believe other religions are 1,100 million in Japan. So, the total is 250 million and this number is much more than Japanese population. Even only the sum of Shintoists and Buddhists is more than 200 million, and this is because Japanese join plural religion's events. We cerebrate festivals or events at Shinto shrines, and hold funerals or Bon festival in Buddhist style. In other countries, they become to the religion's believer when they are baptized, however, in Japan, we are considered as the religion's believer when we pray to the god. So, who pray to a god and Buddha has two religions.
As my feeling, Japanese have no religion. We originally have the recognize that everything has own god and we respect each god (it is values of Shintoism)...like, the sun has sun's god, trees has trees' god...so, even the Buddha or Christ are one of these gods if they come to Japan. Maybe we accept this style and believe all the gods. I think that Japanese don't believe gods so eager too. Maybe especially young people...of course it depends on the person, however old people look much more pious than young people.
We also have Christian events like Christmas or St. Valentine's day. However, about Valentine's day, it is the day that girls give their boyfriend a chocolate in Japan, so, it is different from western countries :P And about events like them, we don't feel religious meaning. I guess, some people may not even know these events are from Christianity. Events like them are known as important events for love here.
Thus, Japanese don't strongly believe only one god. We believe every god that is around them and also don't believe any god. Or, we may just accept what is here. It may sound contradictory, however, it is what Japanese are I think.
6 comments:
Hey, what about the number of Agnostics and/or Atheists in Nihon? =P I'm sure there's quite a few of those, especially amongst the younger generation
in Nihon.
Gee, meanwhile, that's an interesting distribution. I didn't expect the gap between the amount of Shintoists and Buddhists to remain that high. I guess I expected the gap to decline after World War II since Shinto ceased to be Japan's state religion. However, Shinto is still considered the native religion of Japan, isn't it?
My two cents worth on religion - "To each his/her own".
Lol. I'm not sure how many people are Agnostics and/or Atheists. Yeah, but as you think, younger people tend to be like that. What you wrote this time is a little bit complicated to me :S You should explain it next time when we talk...maybe in March? lol.
that seems to be the trend these days.. at least here it is.. I get the impression more of the younger church-goers are just running through the motions than actual practitioners.. people here might be generally less religious these days, but I don't think they're any less spiritual though..
Hmmm...is the tendency common in the world...??? Younger people are not so pious :S By the way, are you going to the church every week? lol.
hah.. me in a church? I've set foot in one so few times I can actually count them.. but hey.. when I get to Japan, maybe we can visit some shrines together if you have the time.. ^^
Lol. Everywhere you want to go :P お供させていただきますよ（笑）
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