Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Apple on March 15, 2011 at 1:58pm

I think this has to do more with Japanese culture than it does with religion.  Generally speaking, people in Japan are simply more disciplined than Americans are.  There is also a lot of stress on doing what is good for the group over individual needs.  It is a very safe place to live (as far as people go, not natural disasters), but there are of course negatives.  It also tends to be a country with very long school and work hours which can result in high stress.  This is perhaps part of why it has the highest suicide rate of any country.  In any case, there is a lot of good in Japanese society that can be clearly seen in times like these.  Hopefully we can learn something from their example.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mike Robinson on March 15, 2011 at 2:38pm

I'm sure you can't necessarily correlate peace in Japan with their lack of religion in this one case, but there is some evidence that godless societies tend to be more moral than theistic societies. For example there is some good information about secular morality here: http://iamgoodwithoutgod.com/

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Violet Chartreuse on March 15, 2011 at 2:44pm

Just notice this myself.

A beauty of their cultulre, to be sure.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Loop Johnny on March 15, 2011 at 5:13pm

In a crisis you pull togheter.

 

Also, I heard reports that scams have gone up in Japan. People have profited of the fragile state that people are in and drained money from them.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Becca on March 15, 2011 at 10:15pm

The lack of looting and taking advantage of people is a result of the Japanese culture and probably has little if anything to do with the high number of non-religious people in Japan.

- Japan has historically and culturally been isolated from the rest of the outside world. This has resulted in the Japanese being very proud and protective of their culture. One who is not born to Japanese parents with Japanese citizenship cannot gain citizenship in Japan except under very rare circumstances. Japan does not welcome foreigners it keeps them at bay. Some have even referred to the Japanese as xenophobic and racist.

- Japanese culture prefers social harmony and consensus versus conflict. Students in Japan are not encouraged to share or discuss their own ideas about historical or even current issues in school or at home. A friend of mine who lives in Japan while in a Japanese high school noticed a complete lack of class discussion in the classrooms especially in social science classrooms ... in the US and Europe and I'm sure in many other places in social science classes discussion is typically encouraged and often a part of the students grades.

- Japanese culture prefers collectivism over individualism. In western cultures a large distinction is made between an individual and the group. In Japan there is more fluidity between the idea of the individual verses the idea of the group.

- Japanese culture prefers loyalty and respect toward authority figures (parents, teachers, government) versus dissent. This loyalty has in the recent past been extreme (think WWII suicide pilots). Teachers in much of Japan are still allowed to use more physical forms of punishment ... A friend of mine who lives in Japan has a funny story about a teacher that she worked with who stuck a pencil up a student's nose after the student poked his teacher's butt with the pencil as some sort of weird joke. In the US you'd have a lawsuit against that teacher, in Japan that would be laughable.

- Japanese Culture maintains the idea of family honor. You will be shunned or shamed if you do not live up to your families expectations of you.

• ▶ Reply