Faculty Mentor(s)
Dr. Tim Mercer
Project Type
Honors Program project
Scholarship Domain(s)
Scholarship of Discovery
Presentation Type
Presentation
Abstract
There has been growing interest in the religiously unaffiliated within America. This growing interest has caused a new name to come about, the Nones. The present discussion attempts to give context to the rise of the Nones and to compare the religious beliefs and habits of these American Nones with the Japanese Nationals who inhabit Japan. There are many similarities between these two groups with relations to ethics, interactions with people, and connection with nature. These comparisons show that there is a possible connection between people which explains spiritual experience, even outside that of normalized, institutional religions. This “intuition of the sacred” is vital in understanding human spiritual experience and, arguably, what it means to be human. This intuition may explain why some spiritual beliefs and experiences of the American Nones are similar to the Japanese Nationals. This “Japanese way in America” may show that although the Nones are new linguistically, the concern about the growing group is actually unnecessary.
Permission Type
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
The Japanese Way in America: A Comparison of the Religious Beliefs, Habits, and Ideas of the American Religious 'Nones' and Contemporary Japanese Nationals
Reed 330
There has been growing interest in the religiously unaffiliated within America. This growing interest has caused a new name to come about, the Nones. The present discussion attempts to give context to the rise of the Nones and to compare the religious beliefs and habits of these American Nones with the Japanese Nationals who inhabit Japan. There are many similarities between these two groups with relations to ethics, interactions with people, and connection with nature. These comparisons show that there is a possible connection between people which explains spiritual experience, even outside that of normalized, institutional religions. This “intuition of the sacred” is vital in understanding human spiritual experience and, arguably, what it means to be human. This intuition may explain why some spiritual beliefs and experiences of the American Nones are similar to the Japanese Nationals. This “Japanese way in America” may show that although the Nones are new linguistically, the concern about the growing group is actually unnecessary.