Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
Between the ancient Chinese religion with its abstract idea of Heaven and its personal term for God, and the more poetic and childlike system of the god-way, there seems to be as much difference as there is racially between the people of the Middle Kingdom and those of the Land Where the Day Begins.
A further proof of the transformation of the primitive god-way in the interest of practical politics, is shown by Professor Kumi in the fact that some of the festivals now directly connected with the Mikado's house, and even in his honor, were originally festivals with which he had nothing to do, except as leader of the worship, for the honor was paid to Heaven, and not to his ancestors.
The Ethics of the God-way. There are no codes of morals inculcated in the god-way, for even its modern revivalists and exponents consider that morals are the invention of wicked people like the Chinese; while the ancient Japanese were pure in thought and act.
Thus from the emperor to the humblest believer, the god-way is founded on ancestor worship, and has had grafted upon its ritual system nature worship, even to phallicism. In one sense it is a self-made religion of the Japanese. Its leading characteristics are seen in the traits of the normal Japanese character of to-day.
Did his love then spring from the God-will or the man-will? Must there not be some God-way of the thing, all right and nothing wrong? But he could not compass it, and the marvel to himself was that all the time he was able to go on preaching, and that with some sense of honesty and joy in his work.
It is probably correct to say that the arguments adduced by Professor Kumi, confirm our theory of the substitution in the simple god-way, of Mikadoism, the centre of the primitive worship being the sun and nature rather than Heaven.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking