And this:
[quote name='Bharatvarsh2' date='29 January 2014 - 10:02 PM' timestamp='1391012695' post='117025']
Oh & do u have details on which gora subversionists are behind this blog?
http://www.greenshinto.com/wp/2014/01/03...hauvinism/
[color="#0000FF"]reminds me of when they lecture on Hindu stuff to Hindus.[/color]
[/quote]
[color="#0000FF"]Sorry I don't know anything about them.
I looked at it and your assessment sounds right to me. There are a lot of alien sites on Shinto and they all sound like this. [Most of the native (=actual) Shinto sites tend to be in JP, btw.][/color]
Aliens always do this to heathens. They are such
stalkers, like vampires going after the blood of the living, the aliens are similarly unable to control themselves from going after
Others' Heathenisms and try and suck the life out of that as well. It's not enough for aliens that their direct christian ancestors murdered the last inconvertible heathens of their own ancestral religion and hence murdered their ancestral religion.
[color="#0000FF"]From my experience alien Shinto sites are all into one or other (or perhaps both) of the following things:
1. Dabbling/right to convert syndrome.[/color] Derives from aliens - who are used only to missionary religions, which are all universalist (want/accept converts) - thinking that 'therefore' ethnic religions are similarly universal and that aliens thus have the right to "convert" to ethnic religions. In this way, they eventually come to regard themselves as experts, and hence set up blogs/write books/start lecturing to other aliens on the native religion. [Often they even try to lecture the native (sole) heathens of that religion themselves.] Happens a lot to Daoists, Shintos - not just to Hindus. But it happens more commonly to Hindus, courtesy of the number of religion salesmen selling Hindu religion overseas and thus inviting aliens to Please Come Dabble and forcing aliens on the rest of Hindoo society which never sought nor wanted converts.
[color="#0000FF"]2. Infiltrators. Monitoring and subversion purposes. These are the ones that have political opinions[/color] on what Japan's govt should or should not do, or whether it is or isn't Shinto. Pretending they're converts is not enough, they have to pretend that - as "converts" - their opinion as as valid as that of native Shintos.
[color="#0000FF"]Infiltrators may act as English language gateway to perceptions on Shinto and Shintoists for all English readers.[/color] I.e. they end up hogging what views on Shinto are available to those who know only English and not Japanese.
The whole attempt to spook people with "State Shinto [or Abe's Shinto] isn't real Shintoism" or "Shintos shouldn't be nationalist" - to spook foreigners into fear of Shinto-tva and perhaps brainwash any natives that may listen into thinking that actual native Shintos like Abe know less about Shinto religion than the alien lecturer - was also seen over a decade ago at AskWhy, before Shinzo Abe ever came to power. AskWhy was an alien (IIRC British) site exposing christianism, but it was created by a bunch of neopagans who presented
all of the Meiji era's Shinto-ism as "subverted" and "not true Shinto". Meiji era Shinto state was in some pursuits more nationalist than Shinto, but this ignores the fact that many in the government and especially the laity were still Shinto.
Not everything Abe politically does will be for the "purpose of Shinto" of course. But being a Shinto-ist himself, he will nevertheless be guided in his principles and approach by this. And that is as it should be.
Alien dabblers are useless
at best. They often tend to think that heathen religions are new-ageisms: some fad to dabble in during spare time. They don't realise that heathenisms are the everday life and lifeblood of the actual, native heathens and that therefore it permeates all aspects of native heathens' life, and consequently that heathens require a heathen government/state that represents them and follows their way of life (i.e. the heathen religio).
Unlike alien converts whose hobby is to treat other people's ancestral religions as an outlet for their new age tendencies whenever they feel like it, heathens have their survival at stake:
we don't get to escape from what threatens us, we can't drop who we actually are and choose to adopt someone else's life and identity/stalk someone else for a while. (Not that heathens would.)
Japan's source of strength is its Shinto/their Kamis. They *should* let their Shinto identity guide their nation.
And not that today's Hindus would do the following, but personally I think all heathens need to distance themselves from alien "converts", stop making them feel welcome, and let them know they're not accepted. While it won't stop aliens from threatening to dabble, it de-legitimizes anything they may have to say/do on behalf of the native heathenism or native heathens. (Ignore them constantly and consistently - stop sending mixed signals - and they may go away eventually. At the end of the day, heathens have no one else to look out for them but themselves. Aliens are NOT an asset. They are almost always a liability, though some are smaller ones than others. And many are an outright threat.)
IMO, should do what the L/N/Dakota North American native Americans did in their declaration of war on both alien "converts" and those traitors who sold native American spirituality to aliens. But then, the native Americans were always centuries ahead of Hindus. Including - tragically - in what happened to them.
Found at that site.
One thing of note is that the Hellenes are not the only ones drawing a willing comparison with Shinto:
greenshinto.com/wp/2014/01/28/hellenismos-pt-2/
greenshinto.com/wp/2014/01/27/hellenismos-pt-1/
Back in the early 2000s, the Roman Reconstructionists at beliefnet discussed among themselves that the religion closest to them was .... Shinto. "Shintos have a <pooja area> too!" the Roman Reconstructionists declared, and more such generic comparisons. (Except most of the features listed then - and I think all those listed at the links above - are also present in Hindoo religion and Daoism. Meanwhile, I also note that traditional Shintos - i.e. not alien "converts" - have
repeatedly drawn comparisons with Hindoo-ism as the
closest religion to their own in terms of views. :cheering: Indeed, as an extreme case, that
Japanese professor even went so far as to declare an
Identity relation between Shintoism and Hindoos' religion.)
But it is nice to see Europeans bypassing PIE-ism and seeking a natural/heathen (and not an enforced genetic/IE) affinity with non-IE religion. It is a victory of sorts for heathenism.
greenshinto.com/wp/2014/01/28/hellenismos-pt-2/
admits:
Quote:Home worship
The Japanese kamidana (literally, spirit shelf) sits high up on the wall so that one looks up to the kami (kami also means 'above' or 'upper')
In both traditions the home is a central locus of worship, although there is at least one difference that may indicate an underlying divergence in approach or emphasis. In the Greek household, or oikos, the hearth was where the family gathered and was the sacred center of the home, where offerings were made. In contrast, the Shinto home has a kamidana that is placed high up on a wall in the main room, so that it is elevated above the people.
The most common act of Hellenic worship was the ââ¬Åfirst fruitsââ¬Â offering to Hestia at the start of each meal, a small portion of the meal set aside for the goddess; again, a sacrifice (however token), performed as many times a day as the family ate meals. This offering was thrown into the hearth-fire, where the family were gathered, and consumed by the flames and thus by the goddess herself. Modern Hellenists have varied approaches to these basic meal offerings, often dictated by their personal circumstances (since most homes no longer have an actual hearth fire); but the importance of sincerely making the offering is widely acknowledged as one of the most basic expressions of eusebia (piety).
In the basic Shinto home worship scenario, a family member will present the first-fruits offering of clean rice (cooked or not), water and salt, together with acknowledgement of the presence of the kami. At the end of the day, the offerings are removed from the kamidana and frequently eaten with the evening meal, in order to internalize the blessings of the kami. In both cases, it seems to me, there is a common core of relationship and reciprocity ââ¬â we receive blessings from the gods or kami, and give them offerings and prayer in return (or sometimes vice versa), and thus we stay in right relationship.
greenshinto.com/wp/2014/01/27/hellenismos-pt-1/
Quote:According to Yamakage Motohisa, Shinto priest and author:
ââ¬ÅWhen the physical body is made clean by water, our heart and mind are purified at the same time. The act of washing our hands before worshiping at a shrine is about more than the magical cleansing power of water. We also make a distinction within ourselves between the secular and the sacred by that act, and thus we change our attitude and our mindset. In so doing, we wash away uncleanness. We purify our heart and mind so that we may connect with the spirit of Kami with a heart and mind that is clean, bright, right and straight. This is the most important goal of misogi.ââ¬Â6
At the bottom is a picture of Shintos gathering in the water to cleanse themselves and offer prayers to the Kamis, captioned "Mass misogi on the summer solstice near Ise".
Compare with what Hindus do in rivers.
[Sidenote: Stupid PIE-ists will next declare that this "must have been" PIE-influence on Japanese religion - or indeed that it is "proof" of how PIE-ism must have been at the root of constructing Shinto, the way they're working on declaring that everything Daoist is originally owing to PIE influence. But Shinto Kamis are real, whereas PIE-ist gods are merely reconstructed=invented and
no one - not even the hardcore PIE-ists - has ever seen a re-constructed PIE god.]
Hindoos will recognise that Shintos are a lot like Hindoos. (As Shintos have observed too, upon noticing Hindoos.) And Shintos are a lot like Daoists, who are a lot like Hindoos. Daoists also do "first-fruits" offering of food - especially of fruits - to their Gods in their often-huge pooja room. And these are then likewise eaten as prasaadam.
Daoists are a lot like Hellenes - as noticed by many people (including me, but not often by Daoists themselves, who
have however noticed they are a lot like Hindoos). And the above shows that Hellenes (like the Beliefnet Roman Reconstructionists) have noticed the Shintos are a lot like Hellenes.
I will admit that Daoism [and Shinto] are a lot
more like Hindoo-ism in certain detailed respects than they are like Hellenismos. E.g. as based on the comparison drawn by Daoists between Daoism and Hindooism of festivities, their dates and observances during those festivities. Also, Certain Rituals - which shall not be named - and the views concerning them are slightly more similar between Daoists and Hindoos than between Hellenes and Daoists and Hellenes and Hindoos.
Also, even modern Daoists and Shintos seem to like Hindoo Gods and imagery of Hindoo Gods, and apparently feel a natural inclination - not instilled by Hindus, btw - towards recognising these images as being those of Gods (albeit not always Gods they have heard of or seen images of before, which underscores it is a natural inclination). It goes without saying that traditional Hindoos would feel the same for moorties of Daoist Gods and for the Saaligraamam and Ayudhas and Sacred Items etc. of Shinto Gods. And like Hindus, Daoists for instance insist that their temple moorties are actual embodiments of their Gods.
Heathenisms are simply like this. The "We're the only one, We're the only one" attitude that Hindus adopt
has to change. And the "We're the last of the 'pagans'" self-delusion also has to change. For one thing it is downright offensive: it betrays not only that claimants are utterly ignorant of what exists in sufficiently large numbers to our east but also that claimants discount these heathen populations and their heathenisms altogether. Yet often when certain modern 'Hindus' discover any similarities with ancient heathen religion X in the world (say the Mayans), they embark on that
lame enterprise of declaring that it "must" be Hinduism (Uh, how? Any proof? And similarity is not proof of transfer, right? Much rather it's because - again - "heathenisms are simply like this".)