RE: Japan deems religion as child abuse
December 27, 2022 at 8:54 pm
(This post was last modified: December 27, 2022 at 8:57 pm by Belacqua.)
Mr. Tetsuya Yamagami is no doubt very pleased by this bill. (He is the man who assassinated former Prime Minister Abe as a protest against the Unification Church's ties to the Liberal Democratic Party.) It appears that Yamagami has got everything he wanted.
Meanwhile, in the life of nearly every other Japanese person...
Children experience the Shinto religion as 七五三, the ceremonies at age three, five, and seven, in which they get to dress in wonderful kimono and go to the shrine to thank the gods for their happy life, and to ask for continued happiness for themselves and their families. At New Year's they go to the shrine and do 初詣, where people of all ages pray for a happy and prosperous new year.
No mention of hell is made at any of these events, which are the main ones children will experience.
Unfortunate children may have a death in the family, and this event will most likely be memorialized in Buddhist ceremonies. The priest from your family's temple will recite a sutra asking for protection for the dead person's soul. During the 49 days that the soul wanders before reincarnation, the deity Jizo-sama guides and protects the soul. In Buddhist theology it is possible for a person to be reborn into a hell-like world. But in all the funerals I've experienced here (too many, I'm afraid), not a single one has made this into a threat, or used it to scare anyone. (Such hells are also temporary, by the way.)
Last I heard about 2% of people in Japan are Christian. Those I have met have no interest at all in theology, but became Christian from seeing the charity work done after the war. The first pre-schools were set up by Christians, and they introduced other educational practices, particularly those which help girls. My wife went to a Christian pre-school and still remembers the prayer they said before they got their daily bottle of milk. She recites it completely as phonetics with no idea of what it means, which shows you how strict the nuns were about drilling the kids in fear tactics.
It's possible that some Christian families here threaten their children with hell, though I have never heard of it. As I say, Christians here tend to focus on the charitable side of the religion. Kawamura Hospital, for example, located at the exact point of Hiroshima's Ground Zero, began as a charity hospital and went on to make major contributions to the use of endoscopes in doing early cancer detection. I also knew a married couple who were both doctors -- he from Hiroshima and she from Nagasaki -- who helped to found International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which later won the Nobel Prize.
The church which prompted Abe's assassination is the Unification Church, which I think is just the Moonies. They prey on vulnerable people, especially widows, to get their money. They are evil and should be outlawed.
To say, however, that religion is typically a force for fear in Japan is just silly.
There is a kind of threat parents make to children, called お天道様. This means "The Honorable Mister Heaven's Path." This is what parents used to tell their kids when the kids went out to play by themselves and might do something naughty. The Honorable Mister Heaven's Path is watching you, so don't eat your neighbor's persimmons. It is not associated with any major religion, the punishment associated with disobeying him is never specified, and kids don't take it seriously anyway.
Meanwhile, in the life of nearly every other Japanese person...
Children experience the Shinto religion as 七五三, the ceremonies at age three, five, and seven, in which they get to dress in wonderful kimono and go to the shrine to thank the gods for their happy life, and to ask for continued happiness for themselves and their families. At New Year's they go to the shrine and do 初詣, where people of all ages pray for a happy and prosperous new year.
No mention of hell is made at any of these events, which are the main ones children will experience.
Unfortunate children may have a death in the family, and this event will most likely be memorialized in Buddhist ceremonies. The priest from your family's temple will recite a sutra asking for protection for the dead person's soul. During the 49 days that the soul wanders before reincarnation, the deity Jizo-sama guides and protects the soul. In Buddhist theology it is possible for a person to be reborn into a hell-like world. But in all the funerals I've experienced here (too many, I'm afraid), not a single one has made this into a threat, or used it to scare anyone. (Such hells are also temporary, by the way.)
Last I heard about 2% of people in Japan are Christian. Those I have met have no interest at all in theology, but became Christian from seeing the charity work done after the war. The first pre-schools were set up by Christians, and they introduced other educational practices, particularly those which help girls. My wife went to a Christian pre-school and still remembers the prayer they said before they got their daily bottle of milk. She recites it completely as phonetics with no idea of what it means, which shows you how strict the nuns were about drilling the kids in fear tactics.
It's possible that some Christian families here threaten their children with hell, though I have never heard of it. As I say, Christians here tend to focus on the charitable side of the religion. Kawamura Hospital, for example, located at the exact point of Hiroshima's Ground Zero, began as a charity hospital and went on to make major contributions to the use of endoscopes in doing early cancer detection. I also knew a married couple who were both doctors -- he from Hiroshima and she from Nagasaki -- who helped to found International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which later won the Nobel Prize.
The church which prompted Abe's assassination is the Unification Church, which I think is just the Moonies. They prey on vulnerable people, especially widows, to get their money. They are evil and should be outlawed.
To say, however, that religion is typically a force for fear in Japan is just silly.
There is a kind of threat parents make to children, called お天道様. This means "The Honorable Mister Heaven's Path." This is what parents used to tell their kids when the kids went out to play by themselves and might do something naughty. The Honorable Mister Heaven's Path is watching you, so don't eat your neighbor's persimmons. It is not associated with any major religion, the punishment associated with disobeying him is never specified, and kids don't take it seriously anyway.
