Portal:Religion/Selected article/11
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shinto(神道) is the native religion of Japan and was once its state religion. It involves the worship of kami (神), gods. Some kami are local and can be regarded as the spiritual being/spirit or genius of a particular place, but others represent major natural objects and processes: for example, Amaterasu, the Sun goddess, or Mount Fuji. Shinto is an animistic belief system. The word "Shinto" was created by combining two kanji: "神" (shin), meaning gods or spirits (when read alone, it is pronounced "kami"), and "道" (tō), meaning a philosophical way or path (the same character is used for the Chinese word Tao). As such, Shinto is commonly translated as "the Way of the Gods".
After World War II, Shinto lost its status as the state religion of Japan; some Shinto practices and teachings, once given a great deal of prominence during the war, are no longer taught or practiced today, and others exist today as commonplace activities such as omikuji (a form of fortune-telling) and Japanese New Year that few give religious connotations.
