What lessons does this hold for us in the West? Unfortunately, in this age of violent cultic antagonism, probably none. There would seem to be little hope that we can reshape Abrahamic monotheism to acknowledge that contradictory faiths are equally true and, crucially, equally worth practising. We are stuck with what we have, unless some future genius of syncretism, a Gurdjieff or a Bahá’u’lláh, succeeds in reconciling Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
Japan was lucky enough to start with the right religion, Shinto polytheism. (Poly-theists always have less trouble absorbing new credos. Witness Rome, which absorbed the cults of Cybele, Mithras, Dionysus and others, baulking at Christianity only because it refused to give the Roman deities and the emperor their due.) Then, around 550ad, Japan absorbed a missionary philosophical faith, Buddhism, which happened to be fine with polytheism. Then, finally, in the postwar period, Japan was able to reshape itself using Christian-derived individualist capitalism, Hollywood and Coca-Cola.
基本に多神教の神道があったから、仏教、キリスト教、なんでもござれ、になるわけだね。
