Take a look at Canada, its culture, people and everything that makes our nation what it is. If you were to think of how diverse Canada is, you'd be smack on the money. It's true, Canada is a multi-cultural nation, with many different people who practice many different religions. There would be a rebellion if the Canadian government declared that Canada was a Christian state. We have such a multi religious base that it would be a problem to find a religion that everyone is happy with. That's not the case with our friends across the Pacific. Japan does not have the same multi-cultural base that we do. Shinto is the religion of Japan, more than 84 percent of the population practice it. Shinto is Japan, and Japan is Shinto.
Shinto, which derives its name from Shin toa, which means "way of the gods." The religion is loosely composed of several cults and other small religions which were once mixed with three other religions, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, all which were brought to Japan when the Chinese invaded long ago. As these Chinese religions began to mix together with Shinto, the Japanese formed an attempt around 1840 to revive their religion and separate it from the other three. As time went on Shinto became the dominant religion amongst Japanese, now more than 84 percent of Japanese practice Shinto, even landed immigrants around the world.
Shinto developed roughly around 500 BC. It first started out as a clan religion that worshiped the ''Kami''. Kami means divine, but we must not mistake this for meaning one god, as Shinto is a polytheistic religion. The early Japanese found their divine in nature, animals and their ancestors. Each Japanese clan had their own Kami, when two clans would clash in battle, the succeeding clan would impose their Kami on the other clan.
All religions have values and morals. These values are incredibly important in their daily lives, they must be followed and if not, disgrace will come upon them. We thought it might be hard to understand how strongly the Japanese hold these values, so think about this:
Take something that you will value until the day you die, if that was taken away from you and everyone else, is it important enough that you would die in order to help bring it back? If our freedom was taken away, would you die to bring freedom back to everyone else?
This is what the kamikazes did, they valued their religion and way of life that they would die for it. By volunteering for the Special Attack Corp they were standing up for their way of life. In the Shinto religion and in the value system honor is one of the highest regarded traits you can ever have. Dying for a cause is very honorable, which is a part of the reason why the Japanese would do this type of attack. Shinto stresses honor and how important it is. The kamikaze attacks took place because it is honorable to die for an important cause, and when that honor you achieve is witnessed by everyone around you, honor comes upon your family. The Shinto religion is very important to the issue of the kamikazes. Shinto puts forth the values that the Japanese live by, and those values are what prompted many young Japanese to give their lives for the nation.