Gods and Goddess's in Japanese Religions Options

http://www.scns.com/earthen/other/seanachaidh/godjapan.html

This is kind of a cool page listing a lot of the Various Gods and Goddess's in Japanese Religions.

Shinto (the Way of the Gods) was the original religion in Japan and had no written literature before the arrival of the Buddhists. All true Japanese mythology comes from this religion. Shinto teaches that every natural thing, human, animate or inanimate, has a spirit in various degrees of vitality and strength.

Shinto is also called the way of the Kami which means "Gods" in Japanese. I find this religion interesting because they had no writings so it makes you wonder Exactly where and from who it originated and how it was passed along through all the ancient villages. Sadly with out keeping literature and a time line I know I will never know the Answer.

Another question I have I know this might not be the correct place for it but none the less it does tie in a little I promise.
It seems the most accient religions in all regions began with more then one "god" or "Goddess" and they where all in some form of ranks depending on what they where the god/goddess of and who the originated from. It makes me wonder how a lot of people just decided one day that the accient Religions where not correct and that there was only one "god". This confuses me because surely the older the religion the closer to truth it must be. I suppose its a question no one really knows the answer to... But its still something to think about.

This confuses me because surely the older the religion the closer to truth it must be.

I don't understand this part why does being older somehow mean it is closer to the truth?
I'm not saying that it makes it farther from the truth or closer but how does age have anything to do with it's relation to truth? It appears the opposite for other areas of thought as far as astronomy, medicine, etc..
Just wondering because I always see the claim that earlier or "ancient" practices are somehow more "truthful" but this always seems to be opinion rather than anything tangible. It appears one could just as easily say they are farther from validity due to their age.

Why are multiple gods and ancient beliefs any less "wrong" than current ideas?

Notorious comprehension problems can result from using terms to reference more than one meaning.

The word God is a prime example.

Let me immediately point out another notorious comprehension problem that can result from how one specifically spells terms. The specific spelling technique that I am referencing here is what I call The Capitalization Game. According to this game, when the first letter of a word is capitalized, then it ostensibly indicates that it has a different meaning compared to the same word without the first letter capitalized. Again, the word God is a prime example, in supposed comparison to the word god. The Capitalization Game is a problem because it only works with writing. In a verbal conversation, the two terms obviously sound the same, because capitalizing the first letter does not cause any change in how the term is pronounced. Some people try to play this game during verbal conversation, by adding unwieldy explanatory phrases. To continue using the prime example, some people bumble around using fumbling phrases like “I mean Capital G, God –” or “I mean Big G, God –” or “I mean lower case g, god–” or “I mean little g, god,” etc… which just points out how klunky this linguistic conceit is, beyond writing.

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Seems to me that at least three basic possibilities exist:

Possibility #1: Only one God exists. God has different aspects. Each aspect of God is not a God.

Possibility #2: Multiple Gods exist. These multiple Gods are not aspects of one greater God.

Possibility #3: Multiple Gods exist. Each God is an aspect of one greater God. This possibility can also be written in the reverse: One Great God exists. Each aspect of this one Great God is a God.

Possibility #3 seems to be an attempt to combine and to reconcile Possibilities #1 and #2.

I am not fond of Possibility #3 – because that possibility requires using the term God for referencing two different meanings to make the explanation work. One meaning associated with the word is “the great God.” And the other meanings associated with the term is “an aspect of the great God.”

People who run with Possibility #3 tend to be those who play The Capitalization Game – where they will write: “Multiple gods exist. Each god is an aspect of one God –” such that the ‘one God’ there capitalized means “one greater God” compared to the multiple “gods.”

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There is yet another popular game that is played with regard to all of this.

This game is what I call The Trump Game – because people who play this game want to “trump” whatever others are talking about. It’s The Upmanship Game. The My X is bigger (and thus, ostensibly better) than the your X Game. To totally go kindergarten, one can add in the old sing-song schoolyard taunt “nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyaaaah!” on the end of it.

To hide the implicit kindergarten tactic, and thus make it supposedly seem more esoterically respectable, some often make their language a bit more rarefied with statements that basically like: My X is beyond - or My X transcends - your X.

But it is the same Trump, the same Upmanship, Game.

No one who plays this game wants to be on the losing, and/or lesser, end. No one wants to be playing in the “little leagues–” messing around with subordinates who answer to something Higher Up, while others are playing in the “big leagues,” dealing with the Big Boss that is oh, so beyond, so transcending, mere aspects. Such people want to get busy with the “big fish,” instead of wasting time farting around with proverbially frying the “little fish.” They remember that old schoolyard taunt, and do not want to have it either implicitly or explicitly sung to them. In fact, most often, they want to be the ones to sing it to others! Or, at the very least, be able loftily to sit back, cross their arms, smugly smile, and strike a pose that (like the lyrics of another similar taunt) communicates “Can’t touch (beat) this!”

If you consider this game with regard to the issue of God, you can see how people who run with Possibility #1, and even those who run with Possibility #3, are trying to win this game. They are trying to stop being trumped by trumping all others.

People who run with Possibility #2 face the challenge of figuring out some kind of order for how their Gods relate with each other – but, if they are not careful with making the order a situation involving balancing their Gods in relation to each other, they end up establishing yet another hierarchy where one of the Gods of their pantheons comes out “on top” – and thus sets them up for playing The Trump Game according to another way.


Are these games ridiculous? Yeah.
Are they played nonetheless? You betcha.


A quirk I often have noticed is that those who proclaim not to play them – and/or those who calmly laugh, sneer, and dismiss the games – often are those who most fervently play some variation of them, one way or another, with their theology, philosophy, etc…

To tie all this into the veracity of ostensibly ancient paradigms, I suspect that extolling lineages, and backdating inception points – never mind attributing pathways to having been given by various meta-human entities from elsewhere – is yet another attempt to establish unsurmountable authority, and thus yet another attempt to play The Trump Game.

In one case the standard of measurement for who wins that game is whose paradigm has been around the longest – is the oldest – the most elder – the most ancient, and thus supposedly better due to having been around and “stood the test of time.”

In the case of pathways that have been given from meta-human entities from elsewhere, the standard of measurement is that the paradigm ostensibly has come from far more than mere human musing and sophistry, and thus trumps whatever anyone else spits out.