REL 1000 Chapter : REL 1000 Shinto
Document Summary
S h i n t o , p a g e | 1. Oldest indigenous religion in japan: no founder, no institutional hierarchy. Has priests and priestess but no structural like the roman catholic church. Practiced by person to person, community to community: no canon. No religious authority: deeply entangled with japanese culture. Religion is not seen as a separate entity from culture. Praying to a shrine is not seen as religious practice, just another part of everyday culture: the term/idea, shin + do, emerges around 550 ce. The way of the divine beings always associated with some aspect of nature. Kami: divine beings , the natural world, amatsukami. Heavenly kami (sun, thunder, cloud gods: kunitsukami. Destructive kami (earthquakes, tsunami, hurricanes) they are neither good nor evil, just destructive. When humans live in harmony with the kami, magat-sui- no-kami don"t appear. Traditional warning that you"re about to enter a spiritual place, should purify oneself before entering.
