Lesson video

Hello there, my young philosophers, theologians, and social scientists.

My name is Ms. Marks, and I'm going to be your religious education teacher today.

Today, we're going to look at a case study of a country which is sometimes called the most religious, non-religious country, and that is Japan, where many people in surveys say that they are not religious, but however, there are many different religious practices that take part in people's lives, and it's very significant for people there.

So we're gonna unpack this a little bit today, and we're going to use those dimensions from Ninian Smart, to see whether we think these actions are religious or not.

And really think about whether belief or actions are the most important thing when we're thinking about religion and belief.

So when you're ready, let's go.

So by the end of this lesson,' you'll be able to analyze whether the idea of religion makes sense when examining Japanese worldviews.

So let's start with our key terms.

Dimensions, for smart, these are different aspects or parts that make up a religion.

Kami, spirit or superior in Japanese and refers to all spiritual entities worshiped in the Shinto religion.

Mushukyo, in Japan, this refers to non-belief, describing people who don't affiliate with organized religions.

And Shinto literally means the way of the gods and is seen as an indigenous religion of Japan.

So look out for those in today's lesson.

So our lesson today will have three sections.

Religion and Japan, Born Shinto, marry Christian, die Buddhist, and applying the dimensions to religion in Japan.

So let's start with our first section, religion and Japan.

Is a religion something someone believes or something someone does?

Alex and Izzy are thinking about this question.

What do you think?

Pause the video and have a think you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

While Izzy says, "I think religion is about people's beliefs connected to God and the afterlife.

" So maybe the beliefs are the most important part for Izzy.

Alex says, "I think religion is about rituals, ceremonies, and practices that people do together.

" So it's more about those actions rather than the beliefs.

And whether you think one or the other is more important will influence what you think about religion in Japan today.

We will consider this question more as we look at religion in Japan.

So many international surveys show us that Japanese people are not religious.

Sometimes it's called an atheist country because of how many people say they're not religious in these surveys.

But is this true or what could be more to the picture that we could find out?

Looking at data will help us answer this.

So this is a piece of data from Pew Research where they've surveyed people across East Asia, but we're looking at the particular answers from people in Japan.

And the data asked 1,700 Japanese people \about the role of religion in their lives.

So we've got here that only 6% consider religion to be very important in their life, but 19, so almost 20% of people do pray every single day, so one in five people almost pray every single day, although their religion isn't important in their life.

And 56 people identify with the religion, even if they think it's not important.

70%, so like quite a large majority here, made offerings to ancestors in the last year, so they're doing certain actions we may call religious.

And 64% of people believe in God or unseen things.

So even if we say it's to do with belief, we've still got a majority of people there who do believe in something, but this kind of very small percentage that actually say religion is important in their life.

Do you notice something here that is surprising?

Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, let's delve into the data a little bit more, and here's some more stats from that Pew research.

The data also asks Japanese people more about their beliefs to sort of really try and unpick this.

And we can see that 36% of people had been visited by the spirit of an ancestor.

So it's a minority but it's quite a large minority isn't it, of people who have been visited by their ancestor's spirits?

30% have practiced meditation and 16% think karma exists, which we could say as a kind of religious belief couldn't we?

So we can see from this different ideas about the place of religion in Japan.

So whilst many international surveys, people might say they're not religious, what could we infer about the place of religion in Japan from these two sets of data?

Pause a video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Or maybe there's something about people not saying religion's important in their life, but different practices and beliefs are.

Now we're gonna look at some more statistics which are also from Japan.

These are from the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs, showing the millions of people who are affiliated with that group.

So it's a little bit different to the Pew research data where people were asked themselves about what they do and don't believe and what they do and don't practice, and it's a bit different to the census saying England and Wales where people say what religion they belong to.

These pieces of data have been taken from those different religious groups who have fed back to the Japanese authority, how many people belong to their groups or come to their services or come to the funerals or take part in things with them.

So they are sort of self-feeding back to the government about the number of people affiliated to them.

And we've got here, this is millions of people.

89 million people are seen as affiliated to Shinto, 88 million people to Buddhism, 1.

9 to Christianity, and 8.

7 to other religions and other different religious groups.

So the total number of people affiliated to a religion\ is 187 million people.

I wonder if you know how many people actually live in Japan.

Do you think that number's gonna be bigger or lower?

Pause the video and have a think and see what you come up with.

The total population of Japan is around 127 million people, so we've got 60 million extra people here.

60 million more than we've got the number of people who live in Japan.

Why is that?

Can you figure it out?

Pause the video and have a think.

You could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Why could there be more people affiliated With the groups than there are people in the country?

Well, because many people have been counted as both Shinto and Buddhist because of how those different organizations have self-reported their numbers.

Remember I said people have reported that it's not that someone has ticked which religion they are like on a census like we have in the census for England and Wales.

This is where the groups are themselves reporting how many people come and take part or part of their different practices or their religion.

So they've self-reported that.

So what does that mean?

That means that one person might have been reported as both Shinto and Buddhist, and that's 60 million people that that's happened for at least.

So out of the country, we've got all these millions of people who've been reported as at least one or maybe two or possibly three different religions here.

But however, we said the international surveys, many Japanese people self-report as non-religious, and there's a term that's used from Japanese to express this.

So despite the fact that more people are affiliated to a religion than there are people in the country in Japan, the majority of Japanese people say they are mushukyo.

Which is a Japanese term that is sometimes translated as not religious.

Let's unpack it together.

So mu meaning without or none.

Shu meaning religion, sect or denomination, and in kyo, meaning teaching, doctrine, or religion.

So this is often translated as not religious.

Whilst this is often translated as not religious, it doesn't necessarily mean that a person who describes themselves as this is not part of any religion at all ever.

Often it can also mean they're not bound to one particular religion, so they're not religious in the sense that they are a Christian or a Buddhist, but rather that they can dip in and use different things from different religions and when they want to, or perhaps they have different customs for different times in their life.

Let's do a quick check before we move on.

What is the Japanese term mushukyo often translated as?

Anti-religious, extremely religious, non-religious, or multi-religious.

Which of those is the correct answer?

Pause the video and have a go.

We'll see you've done in a moment.

While done, it's non-religious.

So looking into the history of Japan, can help us to better understand the place of religion in Japan today.

So the place of religion in Japan has developed over time through thousands of years of adaptation and coexistence between different worldviews.

Shinto is often seen as Japan's indigenous religion, and it has many ancient practices connected to nature, ancestors, and communities.

Some scholars and many Japanese people argue it's not a religion, but a collection of customs and practices.

A central element of Shinto is the reverence of Kami, and people make offerings to them at shrines or seek blessings.

Shinto was treated differently to other religions in Japan's history, and in the early of 20th century, was tied to the idea of the state, not as a religion, but as Japanese customs and way of life.

This meant that the state could instruct people to follow the customs without infringing on their religious freedom.

People had their religious freedom to choose what religion they wanted to follow, but they didn't have a choice as to whether they had to follow Shinto customs or not.

So it's no longer got that special status.

There is sort of true or complete religious freedom in Japan today, but that part of the history of Shintoism can still be seen in some of the discussions about whether Shinto is a religion or a cultural custom.

It's still sort of hanging there a little bit, that idea.

But Buddhism arrived in Japan in the 6th century and was promoted to provide funeral rituals and care for the dead and cemetery sites.

Buddhist temples still have that role for many Japanese communities today.

Over time, Buddhism in Japan incorporated many elements of Shinto practices and beliefs, and the two became very closely linked.

One example is that Kami are sometimes interpreted as manifestations of the Buddha, and today, many sites have both a shrine and a temple in them, sometimes even in the same building.

For some periods of Japan's history, other religions were banned or restricted for political reasons, but modern Japan allows full religious freedom, and one example is there's an established Christian minority and other new religious movements.

During Japanese history, the relationship between religion and history meant that religion was sometimes used to cause great changes and disharmony in Japan.

With harmony in coexistence being very important values in Japanese culture, this means that extreme versions of religion are not seen as supporting those values today.

Many people in Japan describe themselves as mushukyo which is translated as non-religious, but it can mean they're not committed to particular religion or follow it in an exclusive way, but rather take part and accept elements of different religions and customs.

This can allow them to take part in a wide range of rituals and activities rather than being bound to just one religious identity.

So here's another term that can really help us understand the place of religion in Japan, the word syncretism, and it comes from ancient Greek, and we might say something is syncretic, and it comes from syn meaning together, and cretism comes from crisis, meaning a mixture to blend or to mix, so mixing together.

Buddhist and Shinto practices are often described as syncretic as they've been adapted and blended together.

This means many Japanese people don't see a conflict between taking part in both practices and traditions from Shinto and Buddhist worldviews.

They don't necessarily see them as, like, you've got to choose between them, but there's kind of almost like that blending and that mixture, and they can both be part of the same thing.

Like we just heard that the Kamis within Shinto and the Shinto worldview could be seen as manifestations of the Buddha from the Buddhist worldview.

So an example of synchronism in Japan is the Nachi Falls.

Here is a sacred Shinto site, a living Kami.

So the Kami isn't only just like deceased people or ancestors or different forces in the universe.

Also, elements of nature can be Kami.

And the waterfall here, which is actually like the biggest waterfall in Japan, it's a beautiful natural site is seen as a Kami.

It's a living Kami.

So the falls are a sacred Shinto site where there are Shinto praise working, people go there to make offerings, add the shrine and perform rituals.

But it's also the site of a Buddhist temple with monks working there, and people might go there to reflect on the compassion of the Buddha.

So literally at the same spot, you have got Shinto and Buddhist activities happening that people might go to go and do both and not necessarily see a conflict between the two of them.

Kenzo is Japanese and takes part in rituals from different traditions, and he says, "I would describe myself as mushukyo as I don't belong to any one religion.

I don't see religion as something you belong to or have as part of your identity.

For me, religion is something I do, not something I am.

I like to visit shrines and make offerings, and I also find peace and harmony when I reflect on the teachings of the Buddha.

" Why might harmony be important to Kenzo?

Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, we heard earlier that harmony and peaceful coexistence are really key important values within Japanese culture, so that might be why it's so important to Kenzo and why that idea of the religions not having to conflict with each other, being able to kind of pick and choose which bits work and have a harmony would suit somebody like Kenzo.

And even though he describes himself as what we might call non-religious, he's actually taking part in quite a lot of different religious activities.

Let's do a quick check before we move on.

What term means when two religions have been blended together?

Secularism, schism, Shintoism, or syncretism?

Which word?

Pause the video and have a go.

We'll see what you come up with.

Well done.

It was D, syncretism.

Well done.

Let's do a quick practice test before we move on.

Izzy and Alex are preparing a report on religion in Japan, and they're going to use this data in their report.

What would each statistics show about religion in Japan?

186.

7 million people are affiliated with religion in Japan.

6% of Japanese people consider religion to be an important part of their lives, very important part of their lives.

70% of Japanese people have made offerings to ancestors in the last year, 64% of Japanese people believe in God or unseen things.

What could that show us about religion in Japan?

You could work together with somebody else on this or work alone, pause the video and have a go and we'll see you come up within a moment.

Well done.

Well, here's what those different statistics could show us about religion in Japan, that there's a greater number of people affiliated to religion than the population showing that people are affiliated to more than one.

The many people are affiliated with religion, but it's not considered as very important in their lives and might have different roles.

That many Japanese people are involved with some Shinto practices, and also the majority of Japanese people hold some beliefs that could be seen as religious.

Well done.

So onto our second section then, born Shinto, married Christian, die Buddhist.

So people interact with religious practices in different ways in Japan.

They might visit shrines at important times.

They might ask for blessings.

They might celebrate different festivals throughout the year.

They might remember those who've died.

They might take part in national remembrance events, and they might have prayers said in the enthronement of the emperor.

So there's different ways that even in this country where the majority of people might say they're not religious, actually take part in different religious practices.

Now, this section of the lesson is called born Shinto, marry Christian and die Buddhist.

And this is a phrase that's often used to do as religion in Japan because people might do different things at different points of their life.

So these different practices here, they might go to different religious traditions for those different practices at different points in their life.

And that's a pattern that's been so noticed that it's become a well-known phrase, born Shinto, married Christian, die Buddhist.

Many Japanese people take part in Shinto ceremonies and seek blessings and good fortune from their Kamis at important times in their lives.

And one rite of passage that shows this is Shichi Go San, and here we have a family taking part in this festival, this rite of passage.

This is for when boys turn three and five years old and when girls turn three and seven years old.

These ages are important because they represent different transitions in the lives of children.

So you could think of it a bit like, you know, when a child goes from infant school to junior school, we might see that as an important transition, and offerings are made to ask for happy, healthy lives for the children as they grow.

Can you think of other rites of passage linked to children's ages that you know of from different worldviews?

Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Let's do a quick check.

Which religious tradition has the Shichi Go San ceremony for children?

Was it Buddhism, Christianity, or Shintoism?

Pause the video and have we'll see what you got in a moment.

We're done, it was Shintoism.

So whilst there are around 100,000 Shinto shrines in Japan, and we've seen that Japanese families will take part in ceremonies for children, for example, Shinto ceremonies, there are also 80,000 Buddhist temples.

And the teachings of the Buddha can help people find comfort and harmony when they're suffering.

Remember harmony was a very important Japanese value.

Every area of Japan has a Buddhist temple that can support with death and burial rites as well as cemeteries for the deceased.

Why might there be so many Buddhists as well as Shinto temples then?

Pause the video and have the think, and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Buddhism has been in Japan since about the sixth century, and it's had that syncretism and real acceptance into Japanese culture as well.

Let's look at a case study of Japanese Buddhist funerals.

Around 90% of funerals in Japan are Buddhist ceremonies, although there's been a recent rise in the number of non-Buddhist funerals being requested.

In a Japanese Buddhist funeral, a Buddhist priest will typically chant sutras and give the deceased a new name.

This is so the name they had when they were living isn't said by the living, as this might prevent them from moving on from the earthly sphere.

Then the body is cremated and the ashes put with a grave in a Buddhist ceremony.

Okunoin is one of these cemeteries.

The annual festival of Obon honors the spirits of ancestors and is a chance for families to tend to those graves.

It's believed the spirits of ancestors also visit those graves and altars on that day.

How could Obon display syncretism between Buddhism and Shinto then?

Pause the video and have a think and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Let's do a quick check before we move on.

Which image shows a Buddhist Japanese cemetery?

Is it A, B, or C?

Pause video and have a go.

We'll see what you've got in a moment.

Well done, it was C.

So yes, we saw that Shinto and Buddhist are kind of the two biggest traditions that people are affiliated with within Japan, but there's also a sizable religious minority who are Christian.

And actually larger than that, you've got many Japanese people choosing to have Christian weddings, even if they don't necessarily affiliate as Christian.

Only around 1.

5% of the population of Japan is affiliated with Christianity, but a large proportion of Japanese people choose to have a Christian wedding.

This has been a feature of urban areas, but it's also happening more in rural ones.

One statistic shows that 60 to 70% of people in Tokyo and the surrounding area had a Christian wedding.

Japanese people choosing to have a Christian wedding don't see it as a secular or Western style wedding only, but that it does have a spiritual significance.

Many Japanese people believe it will bring blessings to the couple for a happy and prosperous life together.

The demand for these weddings is so great that some people are even employed to be marriage ministers in Japan.

Why might a Japanese couple hire a marriage minister specifically for their wedding then?

Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, let's see what Yuki says.

Yuki, decided to have a Christian wedding, although she doesn't identify as Christian, and Yuki says, "I wanted to have a Christian wedding because I think it's a good way to start a new life with someone.

I didn't want a wedding without prayers and blessings being said, as I want a good fortune for my life with my husband.

The Christian weddings have prayers said by the priest and the community, which I think is a wonderful way to ensure you have a happy marriage.

" Are there any aspects of the Shinto worldview that you could see here in Yuki's answer?

Pause the video and have a think and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Yeah, I think the aspect in here about prayers and blessings being said, bringing good fortune to the couple kind of matches with what we saw with the right passage for children and asking for a good fortune in their life and the reasons why people might go to a Shinto temple to make these offerings.

So if we think about the title of our learning cycle, born Shinto, marry Christian, die Buddhist.

How could we see this through the lifetime of someone who's a typical Japanese person from the examples we've just looked at?

How might different life events be marked by different religious activities?

Which religions or traditions might they be from?

I would like you to include five ideas, and in that, you're going to include Shinto, Buddhist, and Christian activities.

What might be happening for this imaginary Japanese person?

Pause the video and have a go.

We'll see what you come up with in a moment.

Well done.

Your ideas might be Something like this.

How might different life events be marked by religious activities for a Japanese person?

Somebody might be born, remember we said born Shinto, marry Christian and die Buddhist.

So the first thing I've got here is Shichi Go San rite, a passage within Shintoism.

Of the children going to the temple to ask for blessings at those young ages.

And then someone's a child, maybe they are having their exams and they want to find some calm and peace building up to their exam period so they're gonna find a way of meditating and that might be influenced by Buddhism.

Then perhaps they fall in love and they want to get married, and so we know Bor Shinto, marry Christian, die Buddhist, they might employ a Christian marriage minister to marry them.

Then we might have praying for the new year as a Shinto, and then finally, we might have the funeral rights when they pass away as Buddhist.

Well done.

So onto our third and final section, applying the dimensions to religion in Japan.

Ninian Smart was an important scholar of religion who put together seven different dimensions of religion.

They are ritual, doctrinal, mythological, ethical, social, experiential, and material.

But what's important, according to Ninian Smart, is that they're not a checklist of what makes something a religion or not, but you could usually expect a religion to have an aspect of all of them, even if it's not to the same extent as one another.

And Ninian Smart wasn't trying to define if something is or isn't a religion.

He was just interested in the different aspects that religions or worldviews might show us of these dimensions.

So let's apply this to Shinto.

I think that's gonna be a really interesting worldview or tradition for us to try and apply this to.

Does Shinto show us these different dimensions?

What do you think?

Pause the video and have a look at the dimensions at the top and what we've already covered about Shinto and see what you think.

You can talk To the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, let's explore it together now.

It could be argued that some of the dimensions are emphasized more than others within Shinto.

Here are four dimensions which we could say are like really clearly shown within Shinto.

We've got ritual.

So we've got people ritually washing their hands before they visit a shrine.

When somebody visits a shrine in Shintoism, they have claps and bows at certain time in offering money or food or drink.

And remember, the ritual is about something beyond just an ordinary action.

It's connecting to something bigger.

We've got material, so the Tori or Gateway, which is kind of quite a famous symbol, which will often be there at the entrance to the shrine.

Statues at the shrine, for example foxes are often there as messages of the gods.

We've got social, so celebrating Matsuri, or different festivals together.

So we've got mythological.

We've got stories about the creators of Japan and other gods.

So maybe those aspects of the dimensions are emphasized more, but there are other aspects which are emphasized less, here are four that have less emphasis within Shinto.

Doctrinal, there's not really set beliefs that you have to hold to be Shinto.

So generally, people might believe there's something beyond the physical world to have a belief in the Kamis.

Remember we saw that waterfall earlier to believe it's more than just a waterfall.

So there may be some beliefs, but there's not really kind of strict rules about what you must and mustn't believe.

And if you remember, it's more about what people do than what they believe.

Ethical, so there's no sort of set ethics or codes of behavior.

People should avoid causing disharmony and disturbing the Kamis, but it's not like kind of prescribed actions for people in their kind of daily life and the way they interact with one another.

And experiential, yes, the senses are activated when offerings are made, but there's no sort of like personal encounter or experience with a Kami, and that's not the focus of why people are taking part in these rituals.

Let's do a quick check before we move on.

To be a religion, Ninian Smart believe something had to have an equal amount of all the seven dimensions.

Is that true or false?

Pause the video and have a go.

We'll see what you come up with in aa moment.

Well done, that's false, isn't it?

But why?

Because Smart argued that religion would probably have a bit of each of the dimensions, but this may vary in its extent depending on the religion or the worldview.

So let's see, is Shintoism a religion then?

Well, Smart said the seven dimensions weren't there to define a religion anyway.

We've also seen that Shintoism has got some aspect of all of the dimensions in there, but maybe not to the same degree as each other.

People within Japan may not classify themselves as religious if they're Shinto.

For a time that wasn't classified as a religion, just a custom or way of life.

What do we think?

So how are we gonna decide if it's a religion or not?

Well, one way we could do it is by looking at the census data of 2021 of England and Wales.

It was recognized as another religion within that census data.

So other ones with a similar number of people who ticked that they were part of that religion, Deist, Shintoism, Scientology, Druid, Taoist, and Zoroastrian.

So we have got these other religions or religious minorities within the census.

So it was an option and it's recorded within our census in England and Wales as a religion.

Shintoism is also recognized as a religion by different government agencies in Japan, but not all Japanese people would say that it's a religion.

So how do we decide?

Well, Kenzo and Yuki are gonna help us here by saying whether they think Shintoism is a religion or not.

Kenzo says, "I think Shinto practices are traditions and rituals that many Japanese people take part in, but it's too different to other 'religions' to be in the same category.

" And Yuki says, "I don't agree.

Shintoism has myths and stories associated with it that influence the lives and actions of Shintos, so I think it is a religion.

" Which view do you find the most convincing and why?

Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

It might really depend on how you define religion as to whether you think Shintoism is a religion or not.

So we've seen that Shintoism can be considered as a religion.

So let's together give one reason why it can be considered a religion.

Because there's rituals and special actions that people take part in.

So over to you then.

Give one reason why Shintoism may not be considered as a religion.

Pause the video and have a go and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

Well done, I've got here, there's no central doctrine or core beliefs that must be held.

This really comes back to what we said at the start of the lesson.

Is religion about what people believe or about what people do?

So let's do a final practice task then.

Izzy and Alex are not sure if Smart's dimensions of religion can help us decide if Shintoism is a religion or not.

So here we've got the seven dimensions, and using what we've learned in the lesson so far, create a mind map showing if and how Shintoism displays these dimensions, and then write a sentence saying if you think if this shows Shintoism is a religion or not, and why.

So you could do this together with somebody else, you could do some more research around Shintoism to help with this too Pause the video and have a go, and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

While done, some great thinking.

Here's a mind map that you might have created, how Shintoism displays the seven dimensions: ritual, praying and offering at shrines.

Myths, stories of the Kamis and gods.

Doctrines, the belief there's more than just this physical world.

Ethical, behaving in a harmonious way.

Experiential, the senses at the shrines.

Social, taking part in festivals together.

And material, artifacts at shrines.

Okay, so does this show us that Shintoism is a religion or not.

What do you think?

You might have said, I think Smarts dimensions of religion show Shintoism is a religion, even if it's not like the other religions in the dimensions that it emphasizes, it still has aspects of all the dimensions.

Or you might have said, I think Smarts seven dimensions of religion show that Shintoism is not a religion because as the idea of religion includes being committed to a certain doctrine and certain ethical codes which are not clear within Shintoism.

So again, it's going to come down to what you define religion as, as to whether you think Shintoism is a religion, which is found in Japan, which is sometimes called the most religious atheist country.

So let's summarize everything we've learned today, the place of religion in Japan.

Three main religious traditions in Japan, Shinto, Buddhist, and Christian.

The majority of people in Japan identify as mushukyo, but it may not be accurate to translate that directly as non-religious.

Many people in Japan hold beliefs that could be seen as religious about God's karma in the unseen.

There's a blending of Shinto and Japanese elements in Japanese religious practices.

We can apply Smart'S dimensions to Shintoism to analyze it, but scholars are undecided on the question of if Shintoism is a religion or not.

And I wonder which way you landed in that debate.

Thanks for your hard work today, and I'll see you again soon.

Bye-bye.