Religion

When I think about Japan, two things quickly come to mind: technology and tradition. Now, I suppose Nintendo, Sony, Toshiba, and other electronics that are created in Japan have had an impact on that particular thought process. However, the emphasis in this entry is on the ‘religion’ of Japan. “What exactly is ‘relgion’,” is one of the first questions I find myself asking. According to my Mac, there are three definitions for ‘religion’:

*The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. *A particular system of faith and worship. *A pursuit or interest in which someone ascribes extreme importance.

I don’t honestly feel that the first definition can even really apply. Whenever I have talked with Japanese people about ‘religion’ they have always pushed it off as something that is not really all that important. As for ‘superhuman controlling power’, I don’t feel as though that plays into anything I have seen or heard from my experiences thus far. You can pray to the god or what not, but the ultimate control lies in your action. However, I think this is an opportune time to reaffirm that I am only speaking from experience. ‘A particular system of faith and worship’ is somewhat of a definition that I find more applicable. There is definitely a system in place. During my time in Kyoto, I was able to see a lot more of that system. The interesting thing is that, while one group of individuals would be praying, another group of individuals around roughly the same age would be taking pictures for their memory books. It was really interesting to see the co-existence.

The third definition is the one in which I find really interesting. ‘Extreme importance’ is definitely not something that I have seen a whole lot of when I think of religion in Japan. However, I have seen an extreme importance for paying homage to one’s ancestors. So, is paying homage to one’s ancestors a form of religion or a form of respect? The answer that I have managed to come to is, yes. Religion is, as every ideology, relative to the location that it is created. The concept of ‘religion’ in Western thinking is far different from that in the East. For example, the Japanese will build huge beautiful churches for the sake of holding weddings, and weddings alone. Marriage is not necessarily viewed in the same religious context as we view it, but at the same time there is a large emphasis on the bond formed between the two individuals in the act. Does that make it any less religious? It clearly puts an ‘extreme importance’ on a ‘pursuit or interest.’

At the end of the day I find it extremely hard to remove the western religious bias from my mind. I think that we all have an idea of what religion is and is not, but I feel that something so deep in a culture is not easily understood. Sure we have things like Christianity, Buddhism, and Shinto, but at the end of the day, the actual religion becomes imbedded in the culture in a way that is much more relative than the large umbrella term that it might fall under during categorization.