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Imagine walking through the heart of Tokyo. You got neon lights, crowded streets, and just people everywhere. And then suddenly, it goes quiet. You see a red gate in front of you, trees closing in. You've probably seen this in pictures or postcards or on the Internet a million times. And just like that, you're in a different world. This is a world where spirits live in mountains and the ancient myths are still alive within the forest. And the sacred hides in everything that we do. Today we're diving into Shinto, the oldest spiritual tradition of Japan. A religion with no founder, no single holy, and no rigid doctrines. Yet it has shaped Japanese culture for thousands of years. And today, we'll cover its creation stories, explore what Kame really are, walk through the rituals that millions practice every year, and see how Shinto survived politics, war and modernization to become a quiet force in everyday Japanese life. This isn't just a history lesson. It's a journey into a worldview where nature is alive, purity is a practice, and the divine is woven into the places that we pass every day. This is the world of Shinto. So sit back, relax, and welcome to Religion Camp. Coca Cola for the big, for the small, the short and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers for the optimists, pessimists for long distance love. For introverts and extroverts, the thinkers and the doers for old friends and new Coca Cola for everyone. Pick up some Coca Cola at a store near you. Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh. They're so fast and bright. Breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts. What's up, people? And welcome back to Religion Camp. My name is Mark Yagnon, and thank you for joining me in my tent, where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from every religion from around the world, from all time, forever. Yes. This is my attempt to try to understand what everyone believes on this entire planet. We got billions of us and billions more that already died, and I want to know where they are. Okay? I was raised Catholic. I was not raised in any other faith. So this is my attempt to try to understand what the people around me are actually all about. And I don't think there's a better way to understand a people or a culture without understanding the God that they worship. And I also want to thank you, the viewer, for making this show possible. And I want to thank my good pal Christos Pacadapados. Christos, how are you, buddy? What's up? All right, look, guys, we don't have time to hear from Christos, the Greek freak, the Orthodox legend. We got to talk about Shintoism, AKA Shinto. Now, I've been to Japan, and many people note that Japan and Japanese culture is very distinct. These people behave and they operate in a different way than most of the world. They are obsessed with precision. They create the most beautiful things. I think of all the places on earth, the Japanese make things perfect. And I've actually heard from someone while I was over there, they said Shinto, one of the oldest religious and spiritual traditions in Japan, is one of the large contributors to why the Japanese are this way. So if you're interested in Japanese culture, why these people are, you know, operate culturally in such a way that's different than the rest of the world? I think we got to take a look at this philosophy. So what is Shinto? What is Shintoism? What are these temples and these gates people take photos in front of? What does it all mean? Well, Shintoism is interesting because there's no founder, there's no single holy book. There's no strict doctrine. It grew naturally from how people connected with nature and with their ancestors and with their immediate community. And many Japanese people follow its customs without even thinking of themselves as religious. That is how embedded Shinto is to the culture of Japan. The name Shinto means the way of kami, the spiritual presences found throughout the world. But more than anything, Shinto is about relationships between people, places, and nature. Now, I just want to make a little caveat before I go any further. I was not raised Shinto. I'm not Japanese. So if I miss anything in here or if I get anything incorrect, and you are Japanese, you are Shinto, please correct me. Drop a comment, let me know what I missed. I'm not a scholar. This is my attempt at a good faith understanding of what this philosophy is. It's really interesting because it actually blends really well with Buddhism. So for centuries, the two have lived basically simultaneously, kind of side by side. You have Shinto weddings and Buddhist funerals, like New Year's shrine visits and then temporal prayers for ancestors. In Japan, the mix just kind of feels normal. So to really understand Shinto we gotta go all the way back and see where it started and how the stories took form in Japan. So long before anything was written down, people on the Japanese islands looked at the world and felt that it was alive in a spiritual way. And this is pretty common of a lot of, you know, sort of, you know, indigenous kind of tribal philosophies. So mountains, rivers, old trees, storms, they're not just things that happen. They're not science. They are inhabited and aware, and they carry a presence that went beyond the physical into the spiritual realm. So back then, Japan was not a single unified country like it is today. It was a landscape of small feudal clans, and they would battle each other and each clan had its own protective kami. Now, a commie is not exactly like a God, as we would think about it in the Western sense. It's a little bit more broad and like more fluid, and it's more rooted in presence. So it's basically a spiritual force, not an entity or like a deity, specifically. So like a kame could be a force of nature, like rain, or like a natural feature, like a mountain, like Mount Fuji is a kami, or like a 1000 year old tree is a kami. And they are of the world, not outside of it. And they're not worshiped for salvation. And oftentimes they can appear when you know something is ancient or powerful. That is just how the Shinto see a kami. So for clarity, a kami isn't like the God who made the mountain. The mountain is the kami, and it is the home of the kami, the spiritual force that exists within these ancient or important things. So these local deities looked after the harvest. They guarded against storms or disasters, and they shaped the rhythm of everyday life. It wasn't like an organized religion in the way that we think about it in Christianity or in Islam. It's just an early form of animism that grew out of people living closely with the land. But then everything changed in the 8th century when the Imperial Corps decided to collect all of these old stories from all these different clans. And they commissioned two huge works. One is the Kojiki. This was in like 712, and then the Nihon Shoki, and this was in 720. Now, I just want to also point out I don't speak Japanese, so if my pronunciation on any of this stuff is off, my apologies and arigato if that's. I think that's how you use that anyway. Look, these aren't religious scriptures in the way that we think about the Bible. Or the Quran, okay, they are a part of, you know, history, but also mythology. And they're very much political. Their main job is basically link the imperial family directly to the gods, basically giving their authority a divine origin story. And this is pretty common throughout different cultures, right? You have, you know, Imanhotep back in ancient Egypt, it's like, hey, actually, I'm a God. I come from the line of gods you have, you know, Caligula in ancient Rome, that's like, actually, I come from a lineage of gods also, and I'm also God. So all the time you have the political going against the religious elite, and they're battling each other. And oftentimes rulers will just say, actually, I am the religious elite because I'm God, and I come to the lineage of God. So this is no different. According to the creation myth in the Kojiki, the world began as formless chaos. From that, gods emerged in generations, until two of them, Izanagi and Izanami, siblings and spouses, were given the task of basically shaping the earth. Standing on this floating bridge of heaven, they dipped a spear into this swirling ocean, and then drops fell from the tip and solidified into the first island. From there, they descended and then began to give birth to the rest of Japan's islands, along with the countless kami. Now things take a tragic turn. When Izanami gave birth to the fire God, she was burned and she died. Heartbroken, Izanagi went down to the land of the dead to bring her back. In the darkness of that world, he actually lit a torch and he saw her body rotting and surrounded by demons. And terrified, he turned away and he ran. And first the demons of the underworld chased him. But then Izanami herself, furious and humiliated, came after him. When Izanagi finally reached the boundary between the world of the dead and the world of the living, he rolled this massive boulder into place and sealed the entrance. Standing on opposite sides of the rock, they shouted curses at each other. Izanami swore that she would drag a thousand people to death every day. And Izanagi swore that he would cause 1500 to be born. That, according to the story, is how death entered into the world and why life still manages to outnumber it. After escaping, Izanagi felt spiritually polluted and corrupted. So he decided to purify himself in a river. And as he actually washed himself, new kami were born from different parts of him. The most important came from his face. Amaterasu, the sun goddess. From his left eye, Tsukeyomi, the moon God. From his right. And then the Susanoo, the storm God, came from his nose. Amaterasu became one of the most central figures in Shinto. The imperial family traces its lineage directly to her. Her stories show both strength and vulnerability. And in one famous story, Susanoo behaved so wildly that she hid inside of a cave, plunging the world into darkness. The other gods eventually tricked her. Curiosity got her to peek out and then pulled her back into the world, bringing light with her. These myths weren't just entertaining stories. They shaped the foundation of Shinto. They explained the divine beginnings of Japan and emphasized the importance of purity versus pollution, and even show that these spiritual beings could be flawed and actually introduced cycles of creation and destruction and renewal that still influence Shinto practice today. Let's now look at the core ideas that grew out of Shinto, especially, you know, the nature of kami and purity and actually the living world in general. So kami, as we've already defined, is this spiritual presence, right? It is, you know, a major deity like Amarasu, or it is Mount Fuji, and it could be an ancient tree waterfall. And it's basically what makes something a commie isn't a strict checklist. So scholars describe kami as anything extraordinary, anything that creates a sense of wonder or carries a power. It's not about, like, being morally perfect. It's about just being worth reverence. So you'll often hear the phrase 8 million commie. But that's not meant to be counted literally. It's just a poetic way of being like, it's countless, which is kind of funny because you could count to 8 million. But regardless, okay, the kami are everywhere and the world is full of them. And so because of this, Shinto treats nature with a deep respect. It's not this, you know, abstract, philosophical thing, but it's like a very direct, lived way that there is a spiritual presence that exists within all of these beautiful things in nature. So standing in front of a giant cedar tree that's been alive for centuries, it's like standing before something sacred. This thing has been here for far longer than I was and will exist far longer then I will. In Shinto, nature isn't separate from the spiritual world. Nature is the spiritual world made visible, which is why so many shrines sit in forests and near rivers and at the bases of mountains and places that make people feel like they're in that borderline between everyday life and the divine purity is at the core of maintaining a good relationship with the kami. So in Shinto, purity and pollution are spiritual states, not moral ones. So pollution, also called kegari, comes from things like blood and death and illness and conflict and just all the things you can imagine are, you know, generally bad. You know, these things aren't sins necessarily in the way we think about it in the Western sense. They're more like just spiritual dust that collects over time that needs to be purified. So death, for example, right? It's natural, and it's something that is going to happen. It needs to happen. But it does represent decay and the fading of life energy. So being close to death does create a temporary pollution. And the key idea is that pollution can always be removed. And that's why before entering a shrine, you wash your hands, you rinse your mouth. It's not just a hygiene ritual. It is symbolically cleansing your spirit, washing away all of the spiritual dirt of everyday life so you can actually approach the kami with a clear and respectful heart. What's up, people? We're going to take a break because we got new merch. That's right. It is the holiday season. And the good folks over at Camp R and D have been cooking up in the. We got the Christmas sweaters with the aliens. We got the Christmas sweaters with the conspiracy vibes you already know. I mean, this one might be my favorite one. A Christmas tree full of aliens, full Christmas sweater energy. And then, of course, if you just want something simple, you know, you bust out the camp logo tee with the little Christmas lights on it. Come on, bro, get cute for Christmas, okay? It is a holiday season, all right? We're celebrating the birth of the savior, okay? And what better way to do it than to cop a couple threads for the person in your life that you know that loves a campsite that loves hanging with us every single week. And right now we're running a promo through the holidays. That's right, use the promo code. Christmas camp for 15% off. I just made that up on the spot, but I think we can do it, right? I'll call some people. Christmas camp for 20, for 15% off. Sure, 16% off. Whatever you say, Mark. Should we give them more? One more. 17% off, people, we don't. I think this is gonna work. I'm not positive. We're gonna see if we can do it, but I'll. Yeah. Check it out, guys. We got all the camp stuff going until the end of the year. Check it out. Thank you guys so much for supporting the show. I love you all. God bless and merry Christmas. This message may be shocking to many millennials. If you are one, you Might want to sit down. Right now, loads of people are searching the following on Depop. Low rise jeans, halter top, velour tracksuit, hookah shell necklace, disc built. You likely placed these in the dark of your closet in 2004, never to be seen again. But if you can find it in yourself to dust them off, there are a lot of people who will give you money for them. Sell on Depop. Where taste recognizes taste. This episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold out arenas, there's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org, jack Daniels and Old no. 7 are registered trademarks. Tennessee Whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee. The ideal state in Shinto is bright, open minded, sort of, you know, heart, right? When you're pure, you're aligned with the natural order and you're in harmony with the kami. Pollution disrupts that connection. And so there's an ongoing cycle that you know life is good, but it also creates pollution. Purification cleanses it. And that purity lets you begin life again, and it just continues to go around and around. Offerings may actually help maintain that relationship too. So when you toss a coin or ring a bell, clap your hands, you bow, you say a prayer at a shrine, you're not like bribing the gods. You're acknowledging the presence of this divine spirit. And you show respect and you express gratitude. And it's an interaction with this being, not a transaction. And through all of this, what stands out about Shinto is how little dogma there is. You know, like, there's no ten Commandments. Like you have to do these things in order to be a good person. It doesn't tell you what to believe about the universe or the meaning of life. Instead, it gives you a general philosophy of how to live in good relationship with the sacred world around you. This is a world full of nature and ancestors and community and the countless kami that exist around us. So these ideas might sound a little abstract until you actually see how they play out in everyday life. You know, like if you visited a shrine or like went to a festival, the first thing you might notice when approaching a Shinto shrine is the Torii gate. Now, it's often painted bright red and it acts as basically like a doorway or like a threshold between the two worlds. Right on one side, you're in everyday life and you're living your life and you're getting the spiritual pollution. And on the other side, you're walking to a sacred space, some type of communion with the kami. So even if you're not religious, walking through a tori feels different and quiet and more intentional. And that's the point. So you pass the gates and the path leads towards the shrine building. Now, before you go any further, you have to stop at the purification fountain. This is a, you know, often a long handled ladle that, like, you rinse your left hand and then your right hand, and then you pour a little into your left palm and you rinse your mouth. And finally you let the remaining water wash over the handle. And that's it. It's a simple ritual, but it's meant to wash away the spiritual dust of the outside world. So when you're ready to pray, you step up to this offering box. You might toss in a coin. You ring the bell, if there is one. You bow deeply two times, you clap twice to let the kami know that you're there and that you're present. And you make your prayer in silence and then you bow again. The whole thing takes like 30 seconds. It's not about reciting some long prayer and showing, you know, like that you're so pious and you do everything good. It's just about being respectful and present to this spiritual entity. So people come to shrines for all sorts of reasons. You know, students will go before exams, couples will go before they get married. Sometimes people even go if they get like a new car and they want to, like, bless the car, you know, that's, you know, during New Year's is like one of the biggest times. Millions of people make their first shrine visits of the year on the new year, asking for good fortune. Shrines often will sell omamori. Now, these are small, like charm, amulet things. And, you know, they'll do things like, you know, give you good health or academic success or, you know, career success, safe driving, anything you can imagine. So after a year, you take them back to the shrine to then be respectfully burned. And again, this is a part of the life and death cycle that shows up in Shinto. Now, if you really want to feel Shinto come alive, you have to go to the Matsuri. Now, this is a festival, so picture like you're in a Japanese town. Maybe on, you know, maybe you're in Matsuyama, right? And you see the lanterns glowing and there's food in the air. You hear like some drum beats and people in, you know, these, like, Light summer robes gather around these food stalls and they're, you know, eating noodles and shaving ice and doing all the typical Japanese stuff. And then comes the mikoshi. Now this is actually a portable shrine and it's pretty heavy. And, you know, this ornate structure covered in like, often like gold leaf, and it sits at a sacred object. Symbolically, the kame enters the mikoshi during the duration of the festival. And dozens of people lift it onto their shoulders. And they don't just walk, they like bounce with it and they sway and they like, you know, they'll actually shout as they're going. Typically they'll shout was, ho, wash, ho. And it literally is a way of like bringing the kami into this festival. And that lively movement is believed to actually please this spiritual presence and spread blessings throughout the community. Now the atmosphere at these festivals is crazy. I really want to go to one. They look awesome. And people that are typically, you know, pretty reserved, you know, as you can imagine, the stereotypical sort of Japanese affect, people are just completely lit up. You know, spectators are cheering, kids are running around. The whole neighborhood is alive. And the festival honors the kamiyah. It marks the beginning of a season, and oftentimes it'll celebrate some type of local history. But the biggest role of the kame is to bring people together to unite a community. And Shinto shows up in a lot of really quiet moments too. The small household shrine where families will leave daily offerings, pausing to appreciate cherry blossoms, showing respect for sacred natural spots. It's so woven into everyday life that many people don't even think of what they're doing is like religious. It's just how you operate as someone that grew up in a Shinto culture, you know, you just walk around and you will mark meaningful moments and stay connected to, you know, these ancient beings or these ancient feelings. Like you go to a tree and you're like, wow, this is a beautiful tree. That is the practice of Shinto. So for most of Japanese history, Shinto and Buddhism kind of just work side by side with not a ton of tension. We've done episodes on Buddhism. You should check those out. But as you can imagine, both of these are sort of open minded philosophies. They don't have any type of strict dogma. There's no, you know, we're the only way. They oftentimes can work in unison. And they blended naturally for over a thousand years. And people didn't even think of them as competing religions until the 1860s. Everything changes. American warships show up and they Want to trade. And Japan's, you know, long streak of isolationism basically just ends immediately. The Shogunate actually collapses. Like the Shogun era is kind of different. And the meiji Restoration of 1868 sets Japan on a fast track to basically modernize. And part of that modernization was a complete reimagining of Shinto. The new government wanted a national identity centered around the Emperor. Okay, the Emperor is in charge. And not only is he the Emperor, he's also a living God descended from Amarasu. Now this is one of the most important commies in Shinto. So to do that, the, you know, they basically separated Shinto from Buddhism. Temples and shrines that had coexisted as almost, you know, these Shinto Buddhist monuments are now split apart immediately. Buddhist imagery is removed. Some temples are even destroyed. And out of this came state Shinto. This is a top down system with imperial shrines at the top and the Emperor is literally the object of worship. So now Shinto shifted from this local community based tradition into a political movement. So now school children are reciting imperial edicts and bowing to the Emperor's portrait every morning. And rituals that once focused on nature and the local kame of your town, maybe like an ancient tree, is now tied to patriotism and sacrifice. And this idea of Japanese superiority, and this actually peaked during World War II. Shrines dedicated to fallen soldiers became places of nationalistic worship. Young men were taught that dying in battle could actually turn you into a kami. Now the Emperor was portrayed as divine and unquestionable and the spiritual heart of this nation. Interestingly, the term kamikaze that you would actually hear in World War II about Japanese pilots on a suicide mission comes from this Shinto idea of kame, but not in the way that you think. Basically, like we said, kame means divine or spirit, and kaze actually means wind. So it means literally divine wind. Now what is a divine wind? Well, in 1274 and 1278, the Mongol Empire had tried to invade Japan. But then a massive typhoon like a hurricane actually stopped the Mongols coming onto the island. And the Japanese saw this and they were like, the winds of Kame protected us. The Kamikaze actually saved us from these invaders. So when it came time for World War II, the Japanese military and the government repurposed this term for these suicide pilots. And they framed them not as people, you know, crashing a plane on a suicide mission, but that they are the new divine wind to protect Japan against these imperial invading forces. Just an interesting insight. Moving on. Shinto is now used as a political religious movement. Within Japan, peaking at World War II, creating this fever pitch. Until 1945, Japan surrendered, and the Allied occupation dismantled the idea behind state Shinto. And on January 1, 1946, Emperor Hirohito issued a historic declaration in what became known as the humanity Declaration. He rejected the wartime ideology that portrayed him as divine and that the Japanese people were superior to everyone else in the world and that they were actually destined to be the only race and country to, you know, conquer the world. And instead emphasized that bonds between the emperor and the people rest on a mutual trust, if you will. So the Shinto directive ended State Shinto completely and removed government funding and turned Shinto back into the private practice that it always was. For a society that basically spent 80 years being told that the Emperor was God, this was fairly surprising. But everyday, Shinto continued to survive. Once the political layer was now taken away, people still visited their local shrines. They celebrated Matsuri, they prayed at New Year's and, you know, bought amulets for good luck. All the stuff that they've been doing for a thousand years. Shinto returned, but now it was much closer to its older form, rooted in the seasons and in nature and in community. And today, Shinto carries a complicated legacy. You know, most Japanese people participate in it culturally. They follow the rituals, enjoy the festivals, they visit the shrines without necessarily thinking of themselves as super religious. But again, the history, like with most religions, pretty messy. Shinto has been a source of beauty and connection and tradition for a lot of Japanese people, But it was also used as a tool for nationalism and war. What's up, people? We're gonna take a break really quick because I have amazing news. I'm coming on the road. That's right. My very first headlining tour. Where I'm going to every city that will possibly allow me to go there. Hoboken, New Jersey. I'm going to Salt Lake City. I'm going to Washington, D.C. and Charlotte, North Carolina, in February. Those tickets will be announced soon. And of course, I'm doing my monthly show at Mary Lou in New York City on December 16th. The best comics in the city will be coming out, and I'll be working out some new material. It is a grand old time. You can get all the tickets at Mark Yagnon live, and I'll see you guys there. Let's get back to the show. Hey, what's up, y'? All? Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. My favorite thing about the holidays, decking out my whole house. It's not a competition, but if it was, well, I'd win the season with Wayfair outdoor inflatable Santa. Got it on Wayfair Trees, lights and ornaments. Wayfair hosting must haves like dining sets, beds, sheets and towels. Wayfair for everything in your style delivered with fast and free shipping. Visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app to win the season. But again, it's not a competition. Wayfair every style, every home. Tis the season to cozy up with all your favorite holiday movies and shows. You coming where to the North Pole, of course. Like a very Jonas Christmas movie. And home alone Alone on Disney. Did I burn down the joy? I don't think so. Then snuggle up with the Polar Express and National Lampoon's Christmas vacation with Hulu on Disney. I think we're all in for a very big Christmas treat this season. There's something for everyone with Hulu on Disney Bundle subscription required terms apply. Visit disneyplus.comhulu for details. So to understand modern Shinto today, if you were to go to, like, a temple, you have to hold both sides of that story, right? The peaceful, nature centered tradition that people still practice and also the political version that once shaped a nation's destiny that many older Japanese people kind of grew up with. So that brings us to today. What does Shinto look like right now? If you were to go to Kabuya, right? What would you actually see? So if you were to walk through, you might notice something interesting. You know, between the glass towers and the crowded streets, there might be, like, a small shrine just out of nowhere. This tiny little pocket of ancient Japanese tradition tucked into the busyness and the chaos of modern life. Perhaps a red torii gate or a cluster of trees or something. And office workers might stop while they're on lunch or, you know, a salaryman might come over, put a coin in and pray. Some shrines even sit on the rooftops of department stores. Shinto hasn't disappeared. It's just learned how to live in the middle of one of the biggest metropolises in the world. And for most Japanese people, Shinto works as a kind of, like, practical religion. They might not think of themselves as religious in the way that a lot of Christians in America think of themselves. Like, I have to do all these things in order to be a good person. But they still take part in the rituals. You know, they go to these temples at important moments. They'll bring newborns for blessings and celebrate children as they grow up. They have Shinto traditions at weddings and they visit shrines on New Year's. And again, it's Not a strict belief that you have to do or you can't get to heaven. They're just cultural rhythms. They are moments that mark transition and keep the tradition of Japanese culture alive. New Year's is still the biggest Shinto event of the year. Still to this day, it's the first few days of January, typically where tens of millions of people will visit these shrines across Japan. And the biggest shrine, one of the biggest ones, is the Meiji Jingu, and It welcomes over 3 million visitors alone during this first week of January. Younger generations approach it a lot differently than their grandparents. They might care less about the spiritual meaning and more about just the cultural atmosphere, right? Like festivals are fun and famous shrines are beautiful. And as a result, people want to go and, you know, get some flicks off. But Shinto isn't without challenges, right? In rural areas, many of them might lose population, and small village shrines are struggling and they might just go completely derelict. And without local support, thousands are just falling apart or getting closed entirely. Shinto priests are getting older, and few young people actually want to become shrine priests. Many small shrines can't even afford any type of full time person there. So at the same time, environmental issues also give Shinto a new kind of relevance. It has a deep respect for nature that's always been present in the philosophy Shinto organizations now advocate for environmental protection. Sacred forests are preserved as natural sanctuaries. It's an area where Shinto traditional worldview aligns with a lot of modern concerns. And outside of Japan, Shinto only has a small presence and it's not actually that popular. But pop culture has carried its imagery across the world. So anime and manga and films from Japan have introduced global audiences to these torii gates and to kami and to the idea of nature as being an active spiritual presence. And tourism is also a major part of this. People from around the world visit Japan and they will go specifically to to these shrines or visit these festivals. And what ultimately makes Shinto matter today isn't the doctrine, right? It is the connection to people and to tradition and to nature. And in this globalized world, Shinto offers something that's really grounded and local, that a lot of people really find comforting. People find meaning in the quiet respect for the natural world and in the way that its festivals will just bring regular neighbors together in a small community. Shinto in the 21st century is quieter than it used to be back in the 1700s. It's no longer tied to this national identity. It's lived, you know, just, you know, mostly in Everyday life, New Year's visits, you know, a neighborhood, Matsuri, the Torii gates tucked between skyscrapers. Even people who say they're not religious will still feel that certain places, certain traditions carry this sense of the sacred. And that's what Shinto is now. It's not this rigid institution. It's not a super demanding belief system. It doesn't tell you exactly every rule of how you should live your life, but it just gives you a moment to acknowledge the steady presence of the divine in everything, in every movement and every piece of your life. Whether it's work or, you know, seeing your children grow up or school or marriage, there is a little piece of divinity that exists within all of these things, and that is the kami. So next time you're in Japan, you're thinking about visiting a gate and, you know, you see one of these beautiful, you know, the Torii gates are a temple. Think about it. This is not just something cool for Instagram, but it connects deeply to Japanese culture and means a ton to the people that learned about this from their grandparents or great grandparents. And in this moment, you know, are trying to honor that history and they try to stay connected to their communities. And for a brief moment, they can touch on something larger than themselves and try to have some relationship with the divine. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a brief synopsis of what Shinto is. Now, I've heard it said visiting Japan. This is part of the reason why the culture is so precise, that this idea of the kame, these spirits that exist within the extraordinary, makes everything that you do important. So if you are a sushi chef, you're not just making food for people. In that act, you are trying to connect with this divine kama. You are trying to do something extraordinary because there is a spiritual presence in nature and in the fish that you're cooking and in or not cooking, but in the fish that you're chopping and in the rice that you're cooking, in the food that you're making in all your acts. Which is why, in my opinion, the Japanese make, like, the best cars. They have, like, one of the most, you know, like, explosive economies of the 21st century. Like, they've absolutely come to the world stage in a way that's hard to really fathom. And part of that is because I think the cultural history of Shinto, I don't know. Did you learn anything? Yeah. David Christos, is there any takeaway that you have from this? I think it's just an incredibly beautiful quote unquote religion. I like how it's similar to Buddhism, where you're not really praising, like, a God. The way we think of it, it's more just like in the everyday things that you see and being connected to nature, I find it really beautiful. It's nice right now. On the other hand, I'm curious if there are Shinto practitioners or Japanese people watching this. Is there any downside? Like, I wonder if some of the issues that exist in Japan, whether it's like, like, how to live your life, like, how much should I work, like, how many kids should I have? Like, things like that that are affecting Japan, like birth rate and, you know, work life balance and stuff like that. I wonder if that comes out of, okay, well, there's God in everything that I do. So if I'm working really hard, there's still a divine presence there. And, you know, as long as I'm, like, stopping to acknowledge nature, like, a couple times a day, like, I'm doing good. And you might miss some of the other stuff. I'm curious if there's any. You're asking if there's a correlation between the decline of Shinto practices and the declining birth rate. Maybe. Or like, maybe does that cultural history cause people to not have a defined, rigid example of how to live their life? You know what I mean? Like, Christianity is like, go forth and be fruitful. It's in Genesis. And so a lot of Christians are like, well, I should go forth and be fruitful. In Catholicism, you cannot use birth control. And so it's like, well, I'm gonna have a bunch of kids. And I wonder if the fact that Japan hasn't been Christianized, like most of the Western world, if that actually affects how the cultural operates, even though people aren't dogmatically religious in the way that we are, you know? Yeah, it's an interesting question. It's also interesting. Another deviation from most, like, Abrahamic Western religions is like, there's no strict centralized dogma, but, like, there's no real, like, afterlife. Like, they have a creation story, but there's not like, you know, they have this idea of, like, Yomi, the land of the dead, which is like, just kind of like the shadowy underworld, kind of like Hades. It's just kind of like, oh, that's where people go and they die. It just. People just kind of exist there. Kind of like a faded state. Yeah. And it's sort of like dark and far away and, like, kind of, you know, sort of unpleasant. But, you know, not everyone goes there forever. But it just kind of is like, you know, death is impure, and it kind of belongs in, like, a different realm. Isn't it kind of like an afterlife, though? If the warriors thought that they would become deities if they died in battle. Yeah, Exist. Yeah, I guess maybe it's almost like a reincarnation type vibe. Like you can exist as like a spiritual presence and be a comet, but I don't know if that's like traditional Shinto practice or if that's like a thing that was done in state Shinto to kind of get people fired up for war. Got it. It's also an interesting thread that you can get people so wrapped up in a religious belief to achieve a political agenda. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like everyone kind of does this. Like every country, they're like, hey, it's a part of our religion that we have to go conquer America. It's a part of our religion that we got to go fight the Crusades. Like, it's like you can get people emboldened with a military doctrine, wrap it into your religion, even if it's something that's as like, you know, peaceful and, like, serene is Shenta. Yeah. Interesting. So just keep that in mind if people are like, hey, Jesus wants you to go die for trying to get oil in the Middle East. Probably not. All right. Learn from the Japanese, but it depends how cheap the oil is we got to see. Anyway, thank you all for tuning in to another episode of Religion Camp. I appreciate it deeply. If you enjoyed this convo, I have great news. We also have Camp Gagnon. You can check out long form interviews there with very interesting, fascinating people. Oftentimes professors on Roman history or me diving deep into an occult rabbit hole or learning about some crazy conspiracy theory. It's all very fun. And then of course, there is History Camp, and that is the place where I discuss everything that's ever happened in history. And of course, you can see me on the road. Mark Ag on live. I'm coming to a city near you with my stand up comedy tour and I cannot wait to see you and grab a pick after the show. And of course, this is Religion Camp, so please drop a subscribe. I appreciate you all deeply and I'll see you next time. 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