Religion | Origin of All Things | Nature of God | View of Human Nature | View of Good and Evil | View of “Salvation” | View of After Life | Practices and Rituals | Celebrations and Festivals | Week 5Shinto | Shinto is an overarching label applied to ways of honoring the spirits in nature, ancestor veneration, “folk” religious practices such as divination and taboos, local rites and festivals, imperial myths, nationalism, and universalistic teachings. | There is no single founder, no orthodox canon of sacred literature, and no explicit code of ethical requirements | When people respond to the silent and provocative beauty of the natural order, they are aware of kannagara. When they respond in life in a similar way, by following ways “according to the kami,” they are expressing kannagara in their lives. They are living according to the natural flow of the universe and will benefit and develop by so doing. 7 | They live according to the natural flow of the universe and believe that they will benefit and develop by so doing. | In contrast to repentance required by religions that emphasize the idea of human sinfulness, tsumi requires purification. The body and mind must be purified so that the person can be connected with kami that are clean, bright, right, and straight. One way of removing tsumi is paying attention to problems as they arise: | Unspecified, but there is the heavenly kami, the earthly kami | There is purification and shrine worship. | There is shrine worship, the people may make daily offerings to the kami in their home. There are festivals held throughout the year and throughout a person’s life. They begin four months before the birth of a baby, then 32 or 33 days after the infant’s birth, its parents take it to the family’s shrine for initia-tion by the deity with more in the teens and later adult years. There are also seasonal festivals. |