フリーページ　English Article　2

Japanese High Technology and Low Concept of God

I am born Japanese. It is my privilege to be Japanese. I am very thankful to live in Japan. We, Japanese, are grateful for diligence and effort of our ancestors, because we can have benefit of high technology as an advanced country and we can live in a very convenient environment. I feel this fact by visiting underdevelopment countries. As Japanese scientists receive Nobel Prize one after another in the area of physics and chemistry, Japanese forefront knowledge is well known in the world. On the other hand, I often regret the Japanese low concept of God. The God of Christianity which has the largest believers and the God of Islam which has the second largest believers in the world are monotheism. Especially, this God of monotheism in Christianity is creator of the universe, savior of sinners, and advocate. Human beings are creature created by this creator of universe. Therefore, human beings as creature thank, praise, worship and pray to the Lord God of creator. In the meantime, to what god do Japanese thank, praise, worship and pray? Of course, although each person’s god is different from other, Japanese as a whole, visit shrine on the first day of each new year and so it can be said that Japanese god is god of shrine. It was reported that 93,730 thousand people visited shrine or temple in the whole country in the new year of 2006. This is 73% of the total population of Japan. In 2011 Meiji Shrine in Tokyo had 3,200 thousand worshipers. Then, what is the god of shrine? Besides a common god, there is a specific god of each shrine. This specific god is an unreal person appeared in the Japanese myth, a real famous man in the Japanese history, and even an animal. Thus, living human beings make a dead person or an animal their god. If we think it calmly, isn’t it really unreasonable for Japanese who are front runners of renewal of technology in the world to make a dead person or an animal as their god?
　 In 1 Corinthian 10:14, Paul advises us, “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.” (NKJV)