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Showing posts with label Shinto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shinto. Show all posts

Friday, August 20, 2010

Hah hah hah hah

Rush likens NYC Islamic center to building a Hindu temple next to Pearl Harbor
Of course, as oppositeofprogress points out:
Limbaugh sarcastically suggests that we build a Hindu Temple next to Pearl Harbor and a Mosque next to the Pentagon... without realizing that Shinto, not Hinduism, is the most common religion in Japan, and there is already a Mosque inside the Pentagon and a Shinto temple next to Pearl Harbor.
Okay, I don't think there is really a mosque inside the Pentagon, but they're dead right as to Shintoism, not Hinduism being Japan's main religion (and India did not bomb Pearl Harbour). [What there is in the Pentagon is a chapel, just like any other military installation, that is non-denominational.
"We have a wide variety of services," says Wright. "Protestant, Catholic Jewish, Hindu, Mormon, Episcopalian and Muslim. It is not unlike any other military chapel in any other military instillation around the world."]
The mosque-in-the-Pentagon thing was the result of comments made by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who represents the Ground Zero neighbourhood, on CNN. But still...Rush Limbaugh is a loud-mouth, hate-spewing idiot, in my humble opinion.

Monday, June 29, 2009

In the 'World of Darkness'

specifically in the game Werewolf: the Apocalypse by White Wolf, these would be the Glass Walkers:

Gadget Blessings: Shinto Priest Protects Electronics From Bad Mojo
Japan's Shinto religion holds that nearly every object in the world, animate or inanimate, has a spiritual essence. Therefore, anything can be blessed, from a newborn child to an automobile. Priests at the Kanda Shrine, which overlooks Akihabara—Tokyo's mecca for consumer electronics—offer prayers for the well-being of gadgets.


In the game I play, the Gifts of the Glass Walkers and other tribes from this system have been incorporated as a system of witchcraft among humans, not werewolves. In the Werewolf system, the spirits are seen to be in all things. Most tribes deal with spirits of the Wyld, that of nature. The Glass Walkers see the spirits of the Weaver--of which technology is a part--as being a part of creation and tend to interact with them, unlike their brethren, at least as I understand the game. One of the characters in our game has a cell phone that was given to her by the Glass Walkers whose inner spirit makes sure that calls are never dropped, service never falters, that it cannot be tracked, etc. The author in the article above has had tremendously bad luck with cell phones either going dead or disappearing, and has his blessed by the Shinto priests, who believe in a cell phone's spirit. After the blessing, he has gone several months without problems. Maybe there is some truth in fiction. Maybe the creators of Werewolf were incorporating principles of Shinto, I don't know. But I was struck by the similarities.