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icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


I thought the VN thread was banned forever

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icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


Kubla Khan posted:

I wonder why so many Japanese anime and games have such negative views about organized religion. When was the last time there was a priest who didn't turn out to be a crazed fanatic / pervert / villain of some kind? Is this a cultural thing? I get it that Christians et al are a vast minority there, but still.

Asia has a long history of extremist minority religious groups. You can see it Japan with stuff like Aum Shinryuko, but also historically with poo poo like the Taiping Rebellion in China where a dude declared he was Jesus' brother and got enough followers to launch a massive civil war. Christianity acts as one of those cults; for example most Christians in Korea are of an extremely zealous, true believer bent

Asia and Confucian-influenced societies seem to have this weird dichotomy where public life in general is aggressively secular and non-religious, but people are extremely superstitous in specific ways. I think religion gets suppressed so it builds up and explodes in bursts

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Dec 6, 2014

icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


I think it's more specifically a dislike of charismatic religious leaders and strong irrational belief. Shrine maidens and Japanese religion is almost more of a public functionary type deal, like "the gods exist and we have to recognize them but don't interact with them beyond that or else" A priest actively trying to preach to people is a cult leader from the Asian perspective, a shrine maiden is just performing a necessary chore

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