I don’t believe that Jimmu really was the child of the gods anymore than I believe that the Earth is only about 8000 years old according to some stories.

When I study the origins of the Shinto belief system and any other belief system I look at what the stories say about it’s people and how those stories affect their culture and society.

Yes, many of the Mikados where controlled by their court ministers, but look at the reason why the ruling class of old Japanese society would want the common people to believe in the divinity/divine descent of the Mikados. Just think how easy it would be to get the people to follow a leader if they were told the leader was divine, the people would be much less likely to challenge a leader if they thought the leader was divine.

After the so-called Meiji “Restoration”, it appeared on the surface that the Nikado had been “restored”, but that is a *COMPLETE ILLUSION*!!

He presided over a large web of beurocrats, with little or no power to veto policies executed under “his” name…

The Meiji officials often took his stamp, & (without his knowledge, much less say-so), used it to seal “his” edicts to make them look like “the Emperor’s orders”…

You know what they say, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably IS!!”

Sort of the same principle…

& I think it’s more likely that the ancient myths about the semi-divinity of the Mikados are in some ways *TRUE*!!

Maybe if the theory about the Sun-queen being the prototype of Amaterasu is believed, then she might have been not only the PROTOTYPE OF HER, she could have been the PRIESTESS/INCARNATION OF HER…

Not to mention that the story of Amaterasu is influenced by Korean mythology anyways…

I mean, most of the Mikados were/are peace-lovers, & only 2 of them that my research has uncovered were in any sense warlike, (Jimmu & Chuai), & even Jimmu ruled with peace for most of his life…

http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp1209.html

THEY SIDED WTIH AMERICAN EVANGELICALS!!

If the right-wing bigoted form of Christianity hadn’t interfered in Japan in the first place, State Shinto probably wouldn’t even have existed, & the original Shinto’s philosophy was a sort of “do what thou wilt…”

[QUOTE=Authentic Shinto]Follow the rhythm of your heart…[/QUOTE]

Is that not a *DEMOCRATIC IDEA?!*

It seems clear to me that the Jesuits were responsible for the creation of State Shinto, & that’s *NOT* saying *ALL* Catholics are bad, just the deeds…

I actually happen to *LIKE* some elements of Catholocism…

“In the Meiji Constitution of 1889, the emperor was sovereign and was the focus of the state’s legitimacy. The preamble stated, “The rights of sovereignty of the State, We have inherited from Our Ancestors, and We shall bequeath them to Our descendants.” In the postwar constitution, the emperor’s role in the political system was drastically redefined. A prior and important step in this process was Emperor Hirohito’s 1946 New Year’s speech, made at the prompting of General Douglas MacArthur, renouncing his status as a divine ruler, without however repudiating that he was a descendant of Amaterasu as arahitogami [1]. Hirohito declared that relations between the ruler and his people cannot be based on “the false conception that the emperor is divinity in human form (akitsumikami) or that the Japanese people are superior to other races.”"

Link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_regarding_the_role_of_the_Emperor_of_Japan

“The Emperor did not renounce his divinity until he was forced to by the allies at the end of WWII.”

ABSOLUTELY UNTRUE, (SHAMEFUL), RUMOR…

I’m not sure anyone else here who has posted knows about this but, here’s a quote from the good old wiki…

“However, the meaning of the exact contents — delivered in stilted, archaic court Japanese — has been the subject of much debate. In particular, instead of the common word arahitogami for “living god”, the more unusual phrase akitsumikami (現御神?) was used instead.

While usually glossed as “divinity” in English, some commentators, such as John W. Dower and Herbert P. Bix, have argued that this means “manifest kami” (or more loosely “incarnation of a god”), and the Emperor could still be an arahitogami even if he is not an akitsumikami.”

As if this weren’t enough to RETCON that awful RUMOR that he “renounced” his semi-divine authority, well…

“It should, however, be noted that immediately after this explicit repudiation of divinity, he implicitly reaffirmed it by asking the occupation authorities for permission to worship an ancestress and then worshipping the Sun Goddess; this reaffirmation would have been comprehensible to all Japanese though not necessarily by the occupation authorities.”

This comes from a Bambooweb article on Hirohito, & backs up the Wikipedia article quite nicely…

& there is absolutely *NO PROOF* that the Mikado, which is a Japanese term for the “Emperor” (which, is a very misleading title, which was actually CHOSEN BY THE PEOPLE WHO MANIPULATED THE EMPEROR DURING THE SO-CALLED MEIJI “RESTORATION”), to concretely prove that he ISN’T A SEMI-DIVINE BEING OF SOME SORT…

& no, I am *NOT* sympathetic to Japanese Ultra-Nationalism, but the misunderstanding role of the Mikado after his so-called “Restoration-to-Power” is ABSURD…

Just in case, here are the links, if they are able to be posted…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanity_Declaration#Interpretation,

…&…

http://www.bambooweb.com/articles/h/i/Hirohito.html

Thank you, & have a nice day…

best,

Kako Ueda