Can someone explain the Shinto religion to me?
Shinto is the indigenous animistic religion of Japan. It believes that there are spirits in everything, people, animals, mountains, roads, trees, rivers, etc. It stresses balance in all things. It’s actually very similar to Native American religion. Now that is just the basics. There are even today dozens of sects. Some show special devotion to a particular place. Some are devoted to the worship of a particular thing (trees for example). Some are even devoted to a certain activity (a principal of a school my wife worked at was a monk in a sect that was devoted to the worship of sports). Your question is actually vey complicated and even most modern Japanese people probably coudn’t answer it. In a practical sense most Japanese people have only a very vague idea of the difference between Shinto and Buddism. Most will just be able to tell you that they go to the Buddist Temple for weddings and funerals and the Shinto Shrine for everything else. As for the huge presence of Christians and A
