Shinto shrine

The top.

TIME, 1120 A.M. STONE HUTS, SHINTO SHRINE WITH TORII, ICY WELL CALLED THE SPRING OF GOLD, STONE TABLET BEARING A CHINESE POEM IN THE DESIGN OF A TIGER, ROUGH WALLS OF LAVA BLOCKS ROUND THESE THINGS, POSSIBLY FOR PROTECTION AGAINST THE WIND, THEN THE HUGE DEAD CRATER, PROBABLY BETWEEN A QUARTER OF A MILE AND HALF A MILE WIDE, but shallowed up to within three or four hundred feet of the verge by volcanic detritus, a cavity horrible even in the tones of its yellow crumbling walls, streaked and stained with every hue of scorching.

i perceive that the trail of straw sandals ends in the crater some hideous overhanging cusps of black lava like the broken edges of a monstrous cicatrix project on two sides several hundred feet above the opening but i certainly shall not take the trouble to climb them yet these seen through the haze of a hundred miles through the soft illusion of blue spring weather appear as the opening snowy petals of the bud of the sacred lotus no spot in this world can be more horrible more atrociously dismal than the cindered tip of the lotus as you stand upon it but the view the view for a hundred leagues and the light of the far faint dreamy world and the fairy vapors of morning and the marvelous wreathings of cloud all this and only this consoles me for the labor and the pain other pilgrims earlier climbers poised upon the highest crag with faces turned to the tremendous east are clapping their hands in shinto prayer saluting the mighty day the immense poetry of the moment enters into me with a thrill I know that the colossal vision before me has already become a memory ineffaceable, a memory of which no luminous detail can fade till the hour when thought itself must fade, and the dust of these eyes be mingled with the dust of the myriad million eyes that also have looked, in ages forgotten before my birth, from the summit supreme of Fuji to the rising of the sun.

End of chapter 1

There's so many sounds of this.

A Shinto shrine is called a Jinja.

And those red gates that we were talking about is the Torii gate.

and the Torii gates mark an entrance to a sacred space.

Let's start with the easiest question.

Who says Shinto is an indigenous religion? Well, the Association of Shinto Shrines, or Jinja Honcho, does.

On their website, they define Shinto as the indigenous faith of the Japanese people.

Shinto is more than a religion and encompasses the ideas, attitudes, and ways of doing things that have become an integral part of the Japanese people for the better part of 2,000 years.

They denounced violence and assured people that Shinto was originally a cultural or ethnic way of life, which promotes peaceful coexistence and harmony with nature.

In this light, reclaiming Shinto's indigenous identity could provide a spiritual resource for rebuilding post-war Japan and mending international relations.

The claim that Shinto is the sum total of the Japanese way of life also has the added benefit of positioning most Shinto shrines and effectively all Japanese people under Jinja Honcho's authority.

The organization claims to have 110 million Shinto parishioners.

So for example, looking at this handy Wikipedia page of the least religious countries, Japan is really high on this list.

Some studies show that 72% don't follow any religion, and there are high rates of atheism.

But well over half of Japan's population regularly attends Shinto shrines, and most of these people don't identify as Shinto.

So I'd say Japan is still religious in a sense, but not in the sense of exclusive membership to a particular religious identity or belief in a specific orthodoxy.

So now that I've spent several minutes for my this is more complicated than you think disclaimer, let's dive in.