(December 28, 2022 at 1:01 am)Macoleco Wrote: I don’t know until what extent this can be regulated. I guess it is mainly aimed against the Unification Church and not other religions or customs
The way people in Japan approach religion contrasts sharply with the way people talk about it on this forum. The difference shows how the approach we generally take here is not the only, or even the most common way, to think about the whole thing.
Religion in Japan is almost entirely performative. People don't even think about whether they believe in it, whether there are sufficient logical arguments to persuade someone into accepting the tenets.
For example before a college entrance examination, a very large percentage of students will go to a shrine dedicated to that kind of thing and put up a small prayer on a wooden plaque. This applies to everyone, not just people who consider themselves religious devotees. At the Obon festival in August, people put paper lanterns on their ancestors' tombstones, because that's the time when the spirits of the dead return. I am very sure that if you asked directly, "Do you believe the spirits are really there and they are happy to see the paper lantern," most people would consider it a silly question. It's not something you believe, it's something you do.
I suspect this has been true of most people in history. We are in a small minority.
There's an old story about Neils Bohr, which may or may not be true. Apparently he had a lucky horseshoe tacked up over his workroom. When someone asked how he, a great physicist, could believe in such superstition, he said, "I've heard it works whether you believe in it or not."
The motivation for the new law is completely about bad religious groups demanding money. Nothing about how people do their ceremonies will change.
