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I think Shinto shrines are pretty neat

Comfy aesthetic but the ideology is disturbing

I don't know much about shinto, sadly. I've wanted to read about it but I haven't found any book that looks quite like what I am looking for.
I do lean towards animism in my own philosophy, though, it would be really nice to know more about it.

I've visited a few shrines on vacations to Japan, but don't know much about the core tenants of the religion itself other than venerating the kami that reside in all things.

>>19511
What do you find disturbing about it? To me it seems like one of the more chill religions out there.

>>19523
Shinto has a bit of a dark history. In its modern form it was created by the Japanese state by centralizing all local shrines and forcing an ideology on them designed to brainwash people into being blindly pro-government. Local priestly lineages were wiped out and replaced by government appointees. There was also a campaign against Buddhism where Buddhist temples were attacked, books burned, priests kicked out of temples or excrement smeared on them to create a pure nationalist Shintoism. After the war, the National Association of Shrines (defacto Shinto ruling body) was dominated by ethnonationalists who kept many of the features of government State Shinto although some people pushed back against it. Thankfully, that's not all there is to Shinto but that's the dark side.

I have other theological disagreements with Shinto but that's a seperate issue. The aesthetics are really comfy though. Their shrines are so quiet and serene.

>>19525
That is like saying Hinduism is dark because of Hindutvaism. It’s the abuse of the religion that’s the problem not the religion itself. And what religion doesn’t have skeletons in its closet?

united-with-nature paganism feels very different from the abstract truth of the abrahamic monotheism
i am not particularly religious and neither am i knowledgeable about them but i feel like the notion of the god(s) being immanent and kinda with you (perhaps in you) is different and more appealing to me than the idea of the transcendent god
though from the looks of it, the mass-oriented religion just wins as the strong uniting power which knows no bounds really

>>19549
eliminating local priest lineages is kinda a big deal (i didn't know that) imo
basically one could say that today's shinto isn't real shinto to some extent, and there has been a real disruption in the tradition
politically, it also means that local religious practices have likely been replaced or hijacked, depriving people of their cultural autonomy to an extent

overall i think it's kinda a good and a bad thing. on one hand, it is some nasty imperialism (japan is an empire officially btw) and a lot of peoples within japan have likely suffered a bit of an identity loss to the tokyo's dominance. on the other hand, japan is united and whatever they have done seems to work well or at least decent - probably beats warring feudal states each protecting their own gods in any case

>>19596
Shinto is often depicted as an ancient nature religion but this concern for nature and the environment is actually a recent theological trend, only maybe a few decades old. One of the appealing features of Abrahamic monotheism was that it wasn't abstract. The Jewish or Christian God is someone you could have a personal relationship with, who loves you, is your friend, will help you unconditionally etc. ancient Middle Eastern 'pagan' religions didn't work like that. The gods were lords and kings and humanity was created to serve them as slaves.

>basically one could say that today's shinto isn't real shinto to some extent, and there has been a real disruption in the tradition
Traditions change all the time. That doesn't make them fake or not real. They've just changed and they will continue to evolve. Its not inherently a bad thing. But Japanese religion changed massively during the Meiji era.

>>19549
The main problem I have with Shinto is the way its framed. Its depicted as an authentically unique expression of Japaneseness. Its nativist. But Japan's culture of folk gods shares a lot with China's and some of their gods even come from as far away as India. Japan has always been a diverse and cosmopolitan place and not a hermit monolith. But the way Shinto is framed as the essence of Japaneseness becomes nationalistic cultural narcissism and that has negative effects.

That's not a philosophical or theological issue with Shinto beliefs. I have other disagreements there. I'm not saying Shinto is bad or worse than other religions. Its just not as rosy as people make it out to be.

>>19606
>Shinto is often depicted as an ancient nature religion but this concern for nature and the environment is actually a recent theological trend, only maybe a few decades old
are you speaking about only shinto or about other religions as well?
regardless, how do we know this even? i wanna educate myself
also i was thinking more about the immanence of the divine, like kami and youkai, essentially nature spirits, living together with humans and us affecting each other, that kind of "united-with-nature". or are you saying that kind of worship is also a new thing? like all the countless nameless (or not so nameless) shrines spread throughout japan?
>One of the appealing features of Abrahamic monotheism was that it wasn't abstract
i think i meant abstract something more like the forbidding of depictions of god, of idolatry and essentially representing it as the SOLE divine power behind everything - as opposed to more concrete forces of nature or other human capabilities
>The Jewish or Christian God is someone you could have a personal relationship with, who loves you, is your friend, will help you unconditionally etc
i respectfully doubt that. arent christians for example refer to the god as "the lord" and essentially their relationship with him is to submit to him? there is a clear hierarchy here, and the god is pretty patronizing. dunno what kind of personal relationship you are talking about, maybe you are referring to some heretics
>The gods were lords and kings and humanity was created to serve them as slaves
on a vaguely related note, what do we even know about pre-islamic arabian gods? isnt it a bit too fast to claim universal relationships (slavery) with all of them?
>Traditions change all the time. That doesn't make them fake or not real
i dunno about that
like i'm kinda split about the notion of evolution when it comes to religion
the point of any religion at all is to worship some divine truth i suppose, and some religions, like christianity for example, have extremely elaborate myths which are also *written down* and you can claim with a great degree of certainty that we see some "unchanged truths" from the millenia ago, crystallized by generations of worshippers. heck, even oral traditions could be incredibly persistent
so, overall i doubt the notion of changes in tradition being that common - more like some disaster like conquest or assimilation swept them away. not that those are uncommon either of course, but i doubt the evolutionary perspective here

>>19606
yea, i agree, japanese seem to have been immense cultural appropriators for millenia
while at the same time they also have their island isolationism i suppose, like, since there was virtually no communication (in some aspects still isnt) with the cultures who supplied them, their own brand of those gods essentially became something of its own, something completely new - kinda a part of the japanese charm for me
>Its just not as rosy as people make it out to be
what do you have in mind?

>>19611
The idea of communicating and interacting with various kami and yokai which are mostly invisible but inhabit the world around us isn't new. But the romantic idea of being in-tune with nature, that the kami are nature spirits, and the interest in environmental issues is new. Its fair to say, most Japanese didn't associate kami with nature, at least not more than any other belief system, even if they did associate some kami with natural events. The whole Shinto as a folksy eco-religion is more popular with foreigners and the Shinto shrine establishment is more or less conservative and nationalist.

>meant abstract something more like the forbidding of depictions of god, of idolatry and essentially representing it as the SOLE divine power behind everything - as opposed to more concrete forces of nature or other human capabilities
I see where your coming from. Its like Abrahamic traditions are more vertical and top down while modern Shinto seems more horizontal and you relate to kami because they are just there not towering above you. This misses some nuances though. Christianity is very vertical, but Judaism and Islam less so with more immanant traditions, and there were Shinto cults that were really vertical where the kami looks a lot like an Old Testament god that demands fear and obedience with the threat of punishment.

>arent christians for example refer to the god as "the lord" and essentially their relationship with him is to submit to him?
Yeah, but Christians also see God as a father figure who's embodied by Jesus. God is depcited as a loving, merciful, and kind deity. There's the whole idea of agape love, that God unconditionally loves everyone. That's not there in older Near Eastern 'pagan' religions for the most part.

>what do we even know about pre-islamic arabian gods? isnt it a bit too fast to claim universal relationships (slavery) with all of them?
In the Near East, there were a wide variety of gods and religious cults. The most dominant ones were pretty brutal. In the Caananite or Assyrian worldview, the gods were absolutely transcendent. You couldn't "work with" a god as modern neopagans put it. Rather, you were created to serve, and the gods were more like magistrates or kings you petition when you need something and they extract taxes from the community. The Phonecians and Carthaginians practiced child sacrifice to appease the god Baal. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam offered a very different relationship with the divine. A vision of God that was humane, you could pray to any time, forbade human sacrifice etc. But they weren't the only ones. Harranian Sabeans, Manichaeanism, Mithraism, and Zoroastrianism were all popular for simmilar reasons. Why Islam and Christianity came out on top is pretty complicated.

As for religions changing, I mean all things change. But like many cultures, religious people identify with their roots. There's nothing wrong with embracing new ideas, cultural practices, or sharing traditions with other people. This is just inevitable anyway. Obviously, making sure its in line with your values is important, but the emphasis on purity and going back to a pristine form of the faith which you see in a lot of modern religious cultures can have bad consequences e.g. the Critical Buddhism trend in Japan attacked ideas like Zazen and Buddha-nature as false innovations that weren't in the Buddha's original teaching, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The Buddha didn't invent comp sci, does this mean computational ideas are innovations and Buddhists should have nothing to do with it? A religion should remain connected to its original spirit but not closed off to new ideas or obessesed with purity.

>what do you have in mind?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haibutsu_kishaku

Pardon me for barging in…
>>19614
>Old Testament god that demands fear and obedience with the threat of punishment.
>God is depcited as a loving, merciful, and kind deity
Do I sense a contradiction here?
True, the figure of Jesus came to represent this kind of personal, communing figure of a god with whom you could have a direct communication, whereas the old testament god is one that only ever showed his "mercy" _after_ asserting his dominance, as in the story of Abraham I think? whom he spared his son _after_ demanding that he kill him.
Again, Jesus came to represent this kind of intimate god, unfortunately, after Diocletian and Constantine, Jesus was again elevated to the position of a judging god with whom this sort of personal communion had to be mediated through an institution.

It's interesting to see the parallel evolution of hindu gods, where the old Indra, a god-king far away and demanding would yield to the figure of Krishna who would embody the god who lives in the heart, right next to one's own soul, who is a little child with whom a personal relation can be cultivated in the form of bhakti.

It's great to see a culture's religion managing to be preserved. Plus, the aesthetics are great.

>>19616
Well, even in Judaism you can have a personal relationship with God. The OT highlights God's compassion and mercy along with his wrath. The story of Abraham and Isaac underlines that point, the Jewish God liberates people from the burden of blood taxes in the form of child sacrifice common in other Caananite religions. I just meant that the wrathful punishing deity was also a thing in Japanese religion too.

>It's interesting to see the parallel evolution of hindu gods
This is the theory of the Axial Age. There was a global move away from idol worship of absolutely transcendent deities to more sophisticated, spiritual, and humanistic traditions and the abandonment of human sacrifice, child sacrifice, restrictions on slavery, protections for women, ethical philosophy etc.

>>19611
>island isolationism i suppose, like, since there was virtually no communication (in some aspects still isnt) with the cultures who supplied them
Just wanna add, this is a myth actually. Japan was never a sealed off isolated place. Both Westerners and Japanese nationalists have more or less promoted this false idea for their own reasons. Its another myth used in harmful ways.

>>19614
>But the romantic idea of being in-tune with nature, that the kami are nature spirits, and the interest in environmental issues is new
hmm, interesting
i would like to check it myself sometime in the future, dunno
i feel like the idea of balance with nature is in tune with the china-esque philosophy
>Shinto shrine establishment is more or less conservative and nationalist
these dont contradict the ecological orientation though
>Christianity is very vertical, but Judaism and Islam less so with more immanant traditions
i dont know about judaism, but i think islam is even more vertical? christians seem to be more tolerant towards paganism for example
>there were Shinto cults that were really vertical where the kami looks a lot like an Old Testament god that demands fear and obedience with the threat of punishment.
interesting, thanks
>Yeah, but Christians also see God as a father figure who's embodied by Jesus. God is depcited as a loving, merciful, and kind deity. There's the whole idea of agape love, that God unconditionally loves everyone.
yea, i agree but i have my reservations about it
jesus seems more like some "softening" factor that was brought into the jewish religion later, but the core of it is pretty rigid and oppressive i think
also im not sure how "personal" you could get with jesus, pretty sure at some point you could become a heretic
>In the Near East, there were a wide variety of gods and religious cults.
thanks, it's pretty interesting
>A religion should remain connected to its original spirit but not closed off to new ideas or obessesed with purity.
not sure to be honest
the very point of religious practice is to preserve ideas, for better or for worse, it's not science, the change and adaptation literally do not matter
i suppose at some point holding some views could get unaffordable but for the most part humans are pretty same-y, so following the same religion for millenia just makes sense to me
>haibutsu kishaku
thanks, i also knew they persecuted christians
honestly pretty amazing that christianity wanted to reach there in the first place, jeez
>It is difficult to estimate how many temples were closed during the turmoil, because it seems likely that many disappeared simply because Buddhist authorities, taking advantage of the fall of the Tokugawa, were trying to streamline the system and eliminate redundancies.[10] Under the shogunate, obtaining the permission to open or close a temple had not been easy.
tho i suppose reading something like that (and other moments in the article) makes me think it wasnt that simple and that buddhist werent victims exactly
also isnt having riches against the somewhat ascetic core of buddhism?
i just have more respect for ascetic religions haha, in my book if you aren't mainly spiritual, you are stealing from the people

>>19632
>Just wanna add, this is a myth actually
not sure about it
firstly, i think the modern standard of "openness" beats whatever existed back then, like the genetic makeup of the japanese people havent changed for like 12000 years (or rather, i read the last big migration from the mainland was 12000 years ago) which isnt as true for eurasia
tho this is purely genetic and is explained by natural lack of easy ways of transportation, being autochtonous was natural back then
secondly, yea, i suppose they werent really culturally isolated during heyan era and most of others, but they were isolated during the tokugawa shogunate, and that matters a lot in modernity since it is pretty recent on a historical scale
also their language isnt related to any others and doesnt belong to wider language families, like indo-european or other languages
and my impression of the uniqueness of their culture (being distinct from the chinese too) is, eh, kinda real in a sense that mainland cultures, especially european ones, permeate each other a lot, while japanese seem to be kinda doing their own thing even when appropriating

but i dont mean to stifle the discussion, please elaborate your point if you feel like it

>>19614
>But the romantic idea of being in-tune with nature, that the kami are nature spirits, and the interest in environmental issues is new.
This sounds more like a western conceit.
The very notions of "being in-tune with nature" and "environmental issues" are very modern ones, especially the latter.
Abrahamic religions looked down upon the world as a "fallen" place to turn away from. They separated the "kingdom of god" from the world we live in in a way that mirrored the separation of the state/church structure and the world outside of it.
Most other cultures had varying degrees of respect for nature, some treating certain natural sites as sacred, especially in nomadic tribes, others keeping mores and taboos that preserved parts of the non-human world, which later were discarded as superstition, allowing for the wholesale destruction of every natural site possible.
The indians, too, had a notion of the material world of being one of illusion and suffering, and yet they treated many natural elements as sacred, such as the cow and the banian tree, and they ultimately had a tradition of hermitage that meant living in nature away from society.
The chinese, too, despite being an agricultural and very state-centered culture, a strong literary tradition, and a confucian tradition that framed all of this, they also had a few traditions that emphasized a close connection to nature. Waigong and Neigong ultimately implied an intimate understanding of the yin and yang forces as expressed in every aspect of nature, there were many mountain-dwelling hermits, and of course, you had the Zhuangzi which explicitly talked about an attunement to the world and it's beings.
The idea of "nature" as separate from human affairs is also, as I mentioned, an european idea, so if Zhuangzi or any other tradition never singled it out, it is because of this and not because they were unconcerned with it.

>>19647
What I mean is that visions of Shinto as a folksy nature religion wasn't there in the Meiji or Taisho periods, and the whole environmental ethic is embraced more by foreigners and intellectuals rather than actual Shinto priests and shrine officials. Often, its used as a buzzword to wow foreigners or promote Japan and doesn't result in an actual commitment to the environment.

>i dont know about judaism, but i think islam is even more vertical? christians seem to be more tolerant towards paganism for example
Depends on the sect. The dominant theology within the Islamic world until modern times was more or less pantheistic or panentheistic. And as for tolerance of pagans, remember that "pagan" is a slur (much like the n word) that late antique Christians used for non-Christians. Worshippers of the old gods didn't call themselves pagans and there wasn't a single "paganism" as the word itself was an insult. But if you mean 'polytheistic' religions more generally, I mean Muslim empires and kings ruled over most of India for centuries and the population remaind mostly Hindu. They even built and patronized local temples, translated works from Sanskrit etc. while the Portugese imposed the Goa Inquisition.

>the very point of religious practice is to preserve ideas, for better or for worse, it's not science, the change and adaptation literally do not matter
Religions tend to have core ideas which their believers interpret and these interpretations change over time. They also develop and add new ideas too it. I don't think that's an issue. Its normal for things to develop and become more complex and add new features, so long as thoe features don't override the basic values. Otherwise, religions would be ossified and immune to change and it would be impossible for a Buddhist to live an ordinary modern life.

Japan wasn't isolated during the Tokugawa era. Japanese bought and imitated Ottoman guns, exported silk and porcelin, adored classical Chinese culture and studied with Dutch traders. It isn't ethnically homogenous either. Many daimyos and prominant families could trace their lineages to China or Korea. Japan has always been a pretty cosmopolitan place. Both Westerners and Japanese nationalists push this myth of genetic homogeneity and national isolation but it was never true. The Tokugawa Shoguns did issue edicts restricting trade, but there were good reasons for this (such as to avoid paying tribute to the Chinese emperor) not because they were extreme isolationists.

>>19525 Is there some way to practice a pre-centralization version of shinto? Any resources that survived, even if they're untranslated.

I've been here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsubaki_Grand_Shrine_of_America

I don't know much about shinto but it was a gorgeous place to just walk around, and it was interesting reading about the history of it and the gods enshrined there. I guess it's closed to the public as of 2023 so I'm glad I went when I did.

>>19663
Shinto is a modern invention. So asking about pre-centralized Shinto is a bit pointless because it didn't exist prior to that process. Shrine visitation, kami verneration etc. were obviously there before but not a unifying idea of "Shinto" as a distinct tradition. Often, kami verneration was an extension of Buddhism, comparable to how folk spirit verneration and Buddhism are bound to the hip in a place like Thailand. Shinto is what postmodernists call a metanarrative that was imposed by the government on a messy religious landscape. But its not as if State Shinto completely replaced what came before either.

Ask yourself, why do you want to practice Shinto? Its more helpful to see shrines as kinda like stores that offer services to whoever walks in. Aside from the obvious, it isn't that different to Catholics vernerating folks saints or the Chinese and their local city gods (which is where the kanji for kami comes from btw). That type of, "going to the shrine to get help/protection/healing" or having some spiritual patron is probably present in a religion you are more familiar with. If a farmer from Edo Japan was uprooted to modern day Mexico, he might turn to Santa Muerte because that just happens to be the most popular (and therefore presuambly effective) 'kami' in the area. For the farmer, what matters isn't aesthetics or theology but what's effective in solving his real or spiritual problems. He might find it weird that a Mexican would turn to his hometown's kami when there's Santa Muerte. You don't really convert to Shinto and for most Japanese (and most of the shrine establishment) its still just an nationalist expression of Japaneseism.

>Any resources
I'd recommend Picken's Sourcebook in Shinto (I tried to attach a pdf copy but I keep getting errors)

saw this weird vid

I heard that many japanese engage in shinto practices and ritual, even though they don't strictly believe in it. The way I heard it it was compared to throwing a coin into a wishing well. People do it, but if you actually asked them why they do it and if they are a true believer in wishing-wellism, they would probably say no, it's just a cultural practice. Same when Japanese throw a 5 yen coin into the offering box at a jinja, or go for the first shrine visit of the new year. If you want to "authentically" practice shinto as the majority of people actually do, it's just a series of rituals which people perform because they're culturally normal. To wit, it doesn't make sense to practice shinto if you're not within that culture.

>>20028
On the other hand, the idea of religion and culture as separate and the idea that you have to "believe in" a practice for it to be religiously valid is a very western, even Abrahamic notion. Most historical religions are shockingly transactional when it comes to the sort of small scale rituals and offerings you're talking about. The wishing well is a pretty good example. You don't need to believe in the wishing well. It doesn't care whether or not you believe in it. It just works. Most "genuine" religious knowledge consists of stuff people simply know is true, like how people in Asia "just know" that if you sneeze it means someone's talking shit about you behind your back. I mean, that's how it has to be. Religion is still talking about the world as a whole, and people understand the world through knowledge. Imperfect knowledge is still knowledge.

>>19648
Medieval Europeans mostly didn't assume people were separate from nature, if anything they mostly assumed that humans were distinct but very much part of nature (since they could hardly be anything else). What they did tend to assume is that nature was massively powerful and full of things they could not actually control or even understand without divine help.

The idea that nature is something to be protected is extremely modern and would be utterly absurd in earlier times. That would be like saying we need to protect the sun, or protect the electromagnetic force. You don't have the right to speak of protecting nature, you don't qualify to do so. When most ancient types spoke of being in tune with nature they mostly considered it as "being in tune with how you were supposed to be to begin with", because most of them didn't assume that humans were actually not part of nature in the first place. Respecting nature and thinking it needed to be protected are completely different concepts.

Honestly even in the modern world it's pretty weird how "people" and "nature" are separated, or "natural" and "supernatural", or "science" and "magic/superstition". Historically all of these pairs were the same thing. It's really only Enlightenment era windbags who felt the need to prove they were smarter than everyone who came before that started making hard separations to this effect.

>>20028
The idea that religiousity is measured by the amount of conviction people have in dogmas is really a Protestant idea. I doubt that idea of belief ever really mattered to the vast majority of ordinary Japanese. But you are right that most Japanese are about as 'religious' as Europeans due to a bunch of factors from political meddling to Westernization. State Shinto didn't see itself as a religion and the modern Japanese worldview is materialist. Its more like how Europeans celebrate Christmas but aren't religious and don't see themselves as believers. But still belief in Kami is still around in society and surfaces from time to time, just like Christianity does in secular Western countries. Its indirectly influenced everything from robotics to otaku culture.

>>20029
>>20030
I think you guys have read too deeply into my post. My apologies for phrasing myself poorly. I didn't mean to imply that shinto practices are somehow not genuine or are inferior to western religious practices, I was just noting an observation. In particular I wanted to comment on the idea of converting to shinto, and how that may not make sense if you don't live in Japan. Basically I wanted to say that it seems to me shinto is not a private or personal religious practice, rather it's a set of cultural rituals which lose their meaning when separated from that culture.

>>20032
I wasn't accusing you of saying it's inferior to western ideas, just noting that unless you're specifically going for the Abrahamic concept of orthodoxy (as opposed to orthopraxy) what you're saying doesn't really hold up. Culture is a set of beliefs that people know are true. They began as answers (mostly found via trial-and-error) to questions that were asked so long ago people forgot they were asked in the first place. Religion being something separate from culture only really exists in highly organized religions that have organizational capacity (and therefore military and economic power) separate from their "home culture". But that doesn't stop other cultures from borrowing bits they think is neat, because at the end of the day it's just a bunch of answers that work. The Romans pretty famously borrowed other cultures' gods and rituals, and not always by assimilating them into their own gods. They did it because they mostly assumed that since the gods had worked for this other culture for so many hundreds or even thousands of years, there's no reason it couldn't work for them too.

all religion is for hateful people or smoothbrain people or both.

I think Shinto would destroy the religious scene in the West if they unleashed its full potential. The loss of interest in traditional religion plus widespread Japanophilia and weebism means it would spread like a wildfire just like Buddhism did once. There just aren’t Shinto priests, temples, and experts to meet potential demand and the Japanese aren’t interested in spreading it.

A lot of people seem to like animism or folksy quasi paganism even if it isn’t that sensible intellectually or theologically. Doctrine is less important to them than having a personal relationship with a deity. Ironically, that was what brought people to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam initially.

>>20046
The US has 11 Shinto shrines spanning 4 states. Most are bunrei but Daijingū Temple of Hawaii in Honolulu is an unusual case where they have George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, King Kamehameha, and King Kalakaua as enshrined kami. I also recall during covid-19 pandemic some ceremonies were done on livestream from some shrines in Japan and Im sure some foreigners were watching.