steissd, It has been my understanding that although the majority of Japanese in Japan believe in Buddhism or Shintoism, most practice a mixture with some that believe in Christianity. Many weddings in Japan now include western style 'church' weddings in Christian churches, and the bride wears both the traditional western wedding dress and Japanese kimono. c.i.
Quite interesting and new for me. I was sure that the pre-WWII Japanese Empire based its ideology on the Shinto religion that claimed an emperor being a successor of deity. If this is the basic religion, then it is logical to assume that majority of the Emperor's subjects confess it.
From britannica.encyclopædia:
" [...] Under the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867), Buddhism became an arm of the government. Temples were used for registering the populace; this was one way of preventing the spread of Christianity, which the feudal government regarded as a political menace. This association with the Tokugawa regime made Buddhism quite unpopular at the beginning of the Meiji period (1868-1912), at least among the elite. At that time, in order to set up Shintx as the new state religion, it was necessary for Japan's new ruling oligarchy to separate Shintx from Buddhism. This led to the confiscation of temple lands and the defrocking of many Buddhist priests.
During the period of ultranationalism (c. 1930-45), Buddhist thinkers called for uniting the East in one great "Buddhaland" under the tutelage of Japan. After the war, however, Buddhist groups, new and old alike, began to emphasize Buddhism as a religion of peace and brotherhood. During the postwar period the greatest visible activity among Buddhists has been among the "New Religions" such as Sxka-gakkai ("Value CreationSociety") and Risshx-Kxsei-kai ("Society for Establishing Righteousness and Friendly Relations"). During this period, Sxka-gakkai entered politics with the same vigour it had traditionally shown in the conversion of individuals. Because of its highly ambiguous but conservative ideology, the Sxka-gakkai-based political party (the Kxmeitx) is regarded with suspicion and fear by many Japanese."
OK, then, maybe you know, what was the real significance of the Shinto religion in the pre-war Japanese Empire?
PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT URGING CESSATION OF PUBLIC HYSTERIA IN THE FACE OF AMERICA'S CERTAIN ANNIHILATION BY NUKE POX
Statement by the President
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. I wanted to take a moment to address the citizens of the great and correctly-voting red states of America. Let me not to be mincing up words and be all plain like the way folks talk and just come out and say what needs saying, because ladies and gentlemen, it's High Noon, you know?
Now don't panic, but unless you've been blacked out at the bottom of a pony keg of Buckler, you know we're on HIGH ALERT - which basically means: we're flat-out fucked. And by we, I mean most of you - and not the denizens of the Team Bush Mega-Impenetrable Luxury Bunker.
Yes, any second now, your face is gonna start bubbling and dripping off your chattering skull - all because the French and the Democratic Party of Al Qaeda Gore turned this once-mighty nation into such a preening sissy, that all those 80's movies like Red Dawn and Invasion U.S.A. have already started happening in the real world.
That's right. This threat of war and terrorism and the nukyular anthrax mustard-bombing of your local Red Lobster (a CIA-confirmed A-list target) will not be over anytime soon. Especially not before November 2, 2004.
That said, in accordance with newly minted FEMA procedures, I want to reiterate the importance of assembling an EMERGENCY DISASTER KIT that includes three day's supply of water, food, batteries, a portable radio, duct tape, plastic sheets, aloe vera handi-wipes, a chemical shower, a home pharmacy of 5000mg Ciprol IV's, thyroid-protecting tinfoil turtlenecks, the complete books-on-tape version of the New Testament as read by Charlton Heston, a chainsaw, sawed-off shotgun, and if you can, a private island in the South Pacific.
For additional helpful information and great deals on disaster supplies, please patronize the official sponsors of the 2003 Terror Panic: HOME DEPOT and LOCKHEED MARTIN.
Going forward, it's important to remember that besides the Mohammedan savages and nuke-happy Orientals and those hell-bound atheist Soviets, America's one true threat still comes from the anti-war Democrats indigenous to coastal Sodom and Gomorrah-like enclaves, where they rut in filth, liberal multiculturalism, and vulgarity - clutching lewdly-shaped cannabis suppositories inside their fetid and bleeding rectums while hot-gluing copies of Catcher in the Rye into King James Bibles for deceitful sale to ignorant once-and-future Christian converts, all the while calling up Middle America-hating Arab madmen and promising them baby oil backrubs and a freebie shot at their daughter's hymens like the cowardly Nantucket Nectar-drinking, Cherry Garcia-eating hippy abortions they are.
These are the end times, my friends. But we will prevail. And if all goes to plan, these end times will, well, have no end! HAR! HAR! HAR!
Darn it, skunks and all, did I talk my think again?
This might be of some help on Shinto and Buddhist practices in Japan.
http://www2.imtc.gatech.edu/VRjapan/www/5/570/570i98/570i98.htm
c.i.
Alerts take toll on nation;s psyche
Terror warnings
could backfire,
say experts
in mental health
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 ; Buy duct tape and seal off a panic room. But don;t panic. Stockpile food and water. But just as a precaution. Be on the lookout for suspicious people. But don;t assume all Muslims are terrorists. Frequent but vague warnings of new terror attacks are making already anxious Americans even more nervous and psychologists say the government;s mixed messages have begun to take their toll on the nations psyche
This from FDR's first inaugural address,
So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
Mr Bush please note.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/875295.asp?0cv=HB10
OP-ED COLUMNIST
My Survival Kit
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
n the past few weeks I've started to have a heretical thought: Are we overreacting to 9/11? Are we going to drive ourselves crazy long before Osama bin Laden ever does?
Having argued that 9/11 was the start of World War III, I would never diminish its significance. And I do not have an ounce of criticism for the F.B.I., C.I.A. or Department of Homeland Security for issuing terrorism warnings at the hint of a threat. They are doing their job. But increasingly I wonder whether we're doing ours — which is learning to live with these dangers, instead of going to excesses that provide no additional security but a ton of additional anxiety.
This little voice first started creeping into my head as I watched the layers of airport security mount. It started with just pushing your bag through the X-ray machine and walking through the metal detector. Then it went to taking your computer out. Then it went to taking the tweezers out of your overnight kit. Then it went to taking off your shoes. Now it's your belt. Sometimes I look around me at airport security and I feel as if I'm at some weird adult pajama party. I now fear that a tongue-in-cheek column I wrote 14 months ago, called "Naked Air," about how we should all just fly naked and save the hassle, is going to come true in my lifetime.
Then there was Code Orange. Again, I have no problem with the warnings. But do CNN and MSNBC really have to add the terror alert status to the bottom right corner of their screens, just above the stock market reports: "Nasdaq down, terror up — have a nice day." What do these networks expect their viewers to do when they see those warnings — other than get worried? The Daily News in New York quoted a local radio executive as saying what a relief the recent East Coast blizzard was because it drove out all the terrorism stories: "It was . . . a Saddam-free day — just the break we needed."
When a colleague asked me what was my family's emergency exit plan — in case Washington was attacked — I told her I didn't have one. I later felt pangs of parental guilt. But then I thought: How is anyone going to get out of this town in a panic? The Beltway is gridlock on normal days.
Another friend asked me, half seriously, about a counterterrorism etiquette joke making the rounds. Say you're driving home and, on your way, there is a terror alert that someone has released poison into the air. Your wife is home and has sealed herself into your family's "safe room" with duct tape and plastic wrap. When you arrive home, does your wife unseal the room to let you in or not? Hmmmmm. I suggested he ask Miss Manners — or a marriage counselor.
But what finally put me over the top was the report that Turkey initially demanded $32 billion in return for U.S. troops' using Turkish bases in an Iraqi invasion. I want to help the Turks, but you could almost hear them laughing at us, saying, "These Americans are so obsessed with Saddam and Osama, let's shake them down a little."
And then there is the new layer of pseudo security, like when you go to Washington Wizards basketball games and they demand you open your purse or bag — as if any serious terrorist couldn't just hide his gun or bomb under a jacket. I wouldn't mind if this were actually making people feel more secure, but it's actually having the opposite effect — making people feel more insecure by making them feel as if they are living in a national security state.
In an open society, there are simply too many threats, too many openings and too many interactions that are built on trust. You can't even begin to secure them all without also choking that open society. Which is why the right response, after a point, is not to demand more and more security — but to learn to live with more and more anxiety.
Because the question is not whether there will be more attacks. There will be. The question is whether we can survive them and still maintain an open society. What good is it to have Osama trapped in a basement somewhere if, by just whispering a few threats on Al Jazeera TV, he can trap us in self-sealed rooms?
No good at all, which is why the only survival purchase I've made since Code Orange is a new set of Ben Hogan Apex irons, and why my all-American survival kit would include: a movie guide, a concert schedule, Rollerblades, a bicycle — plus a reminder to attend your local PTA meetings, Little League games, neighborhood block parties and your book club and to get plenty of tickets for your favorite sports team.
Leave the cave-dwelling to Osama.
