Why is AUM Hated?
In early September of 1999, the anchorman of a nationwide news telecast on the TV-Asahi network surprised himself, as well as his listeners, with the following statistic: the Jinja Honcho is the largest formal religion in Japan, with a total of seventy million followers. If this statistic is accurate, it follows that most adults in Japan must be adherents of the Jinja Honcho. In fact, the Jinja Honcho is the same religion as Shintoism and controls 79,184 Shinto shrines throughout the country. There are also a number of different sects and schools in Shintoism, including some independent shrines such as the Yasukuni Shrine. According to The 1998 Religious Almanac of Japan, the statistics on religion in Japan are as follows: 104,553,179 Shintoist 95,117,730 Buddhist 1,761,835 Christian 11,214,331 other religions 212,647,075 Total. Since there are only 120 million people in Japan, these statistics seem to indicate that most Japanese adults believe in both Shintoism and Buddhism. Despite t
