Tag: monotheistic

The Japanese Shinto Faith

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The Japanese Shinto religion translates to mean “way of the gods” in Japanese and primarily focuses upon ancestors and nature, with practitioners believing that every aspect of the universe has a deity (e.g. rivers have a god, mountains have a god, soil has a god etc.) with ancestors believed to have created the world for the current generation living within it. Japanese architecture is an excellent example of Shintoism as Shinto shrines are left in a minimalist state of color and simplicity, unlike contemporary Chinese architecture which is highly colorful and decorative. Shinto shrines never depict imagery of deities as the wood of the architecture itself is representative of nature, and from that simplicity and minimalism. This is also because it is believed that so many gods exist within nature that it would be foolish to only highlight a few in particular. Practitioners of Shinto observe festivals and holidays but no particular day of prayer, unlike monotheistic religions (e.g. Sunday for Christianity, Friday for Islam and Judaism etc.). There is no mainstay scripture of morality or ethical system attached to Shintoism. In Shintoism, old shrines are dismantled and moved for new shrines to be erected every 20 years. The 3 main elements of Shintoism are the mirror, precious stones, and wood

Zoroastrianism and its Relation to Noah’s Ark

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Zoroastrianism is one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions, founded by the prophet Zoroaster in ancient Iraq, approximately 3500 years ago. The central god of the religion is a deity named Ahura Mazda, who is often depicted as sitting inside a winged disc. According to the Zoroastrian text referred to as the “Vendidad”, it was foretold to the prince Yima that a future cataclysm was on the horizon which included a long serpent making it’s way to the Earth ushering in a winter unlike any seen before, perhaps interpreted in the modern day as an asteroid strike. Yima was provided detailed instructions to build an underground asylum referred to as a “vara”. Yima was also instructed to collect a vast seed bank repertoire and to collect a male and female of every animal used for livestock. It is hypothesized by some scholars that this story was mistaken and transcribed wrong which led to the advent of the story of Noah’s ark within the Christian Bible