“Well, actually I don’t know.” My friend looked puzzled when I replied to his question. We had been in the college library and he had stridden to me with some almanac in his hand. He had shown me a graph illustrating the mix of religious groups in Japan. More than one-third of the total population was shown to be Buddhists, followed by the Shintoists contributing approximately another one-third. The remaining small shares were Christians and “Others.” He just wondered my religion and asked me. My answer to his question was not something that he was well prepared for.
“What do you mean, ‘You don’t know’?”
“In my mother’s house,” I said. “There are compact shrines for both Shintoism and Buddhism. Our ancestors’ pictures are placed in the Buddhism one. My mother prays to it everyday to salute her ancestors. And the Shintoism one simply imitates the real Shintoism shrine. She prays to it to express her gratitude for being healthy and prosperous. What is my mother’s religion?”
“Wait a minute. What the heck is this Shintoism stuff in the first place?”
“It’s kind of animism, you know. Animism is a type of religion where people worship natural spirits that exist everywhere around us. Each of the spirits acts like human being and has a personal character. If you treat them bad, they will revenge you. If you treat them nice, they will do something good for you. Isn’t this kind of like native Americans’ religion in the movie, ‘Manitou’?”
He had not seen the movie. But he basically understood what Shintoism is. And he continued, “Okay. I’m getting your point, but just bit by bit. So your mother has two shrine stuffs. Is it common among the Japanese people?”
“Yes. Particularly among families led by people over their middle ages.”
“Hey, I don’t understand it. How come one person can have two religions? Sho, how about you?”
“In Christianity lessons, the God is the only almighty absolute God, right? But in the world of Shintoism, there appear hundreds of so-called ‘Gods.’ And the Shintoism is the oldest and most basic religion in Japan. Even the Buddhism to us is originally a foreign religion introduced from India through China. It seems like our ancestors liked Shintoism so much. They simply added Buddha and his colleagues into the collection of Gods in Shintoism, when it was introduced. If my understanding is right, or acceptable, there are almost no people who worship their Gods in Japan like the Christians do here. I do not have any particular religion, either. It’s great talking to you. Because I could decide that I would call myself atheist.”
“Sho, you’re saying that these statistics are not correct.”
“Believe me. You can pass on bunch of questionnaire sheets in the center of Tokyo asking what your religion is. I can bet anything on the result that is totally different from what the graph tells you. They are as atheist-like as I am.”
“Atheists! Sho, when I hear the word, what I imagine is not quite… Well, not quite respectable. Do you realize that?”
“Yeah. I can kind of understand it. But what do you call these people instead? For example, there was a new-born baby named ‘Sho’ in Japan. His parents visited a nearest Shintoism shrine to pray for the lucky year on every New Year’s Day. They took Sho to the Shintoism shrine when he became either age of three, five, and seven to pray for periodical good luck. But while doing so, a Buddhism priest from a nearest temple visited their house to pray to comfort their ancestors’ spirits every month. And every Christmas, while Sho is small and credulous, his father or a part-time employee of a toy store in a Santa Claus costume visited his home Christmas party to hand Christmas presents to him.”
“Hey, it’s getting ridiculous,” he said.
“But it is true. Listen. It’s not over.”
“Sho grew up. His grandmother died. She didn’t leave any will. She had never talked about her funeral. But all the family got together and held a funeral in Buddhism style with no concerns over the religious alternatives. Sho grew up again. He bought a car. The first place he would drive to was a major Shintoism shrine to get a flashy sticker to put on the bumper so that bad spirits causing car accidents would never come close. Then Sho grew up again. He decided to marry a woman. She said ‘it’s sort of popular to hold a wedding ceremony in a church.’ He agreed and held a wedding in a church. Time flies like an arrow. Sho and his wife grew old and died one by one. Their funerals were held in the Buddhism style. How’s that?”
“I got the idea. But it’s still confusing. Seems like they are all strange atheists. Sho, time is up. We’ve gotta run to the class.” He stood up. I followed him and left the library.