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Understanding Japan's complex religious landscape

Phys · · 781 words · By Doshisha University
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What to know about Understanding Japan's complex religious landscape

The article discusses a study by researchers from Doshisha University and Hokkaido University regarding the complexities of religious identity and practice in Japan. It explains how traditional Western frameworks for measuring religiosity often fail to capture the nuanced, culturally embedded nature of Japanese spiritual life.

Propaganda risk 0%
Claims checked 10
Techniques found 0
Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center83%
Right17%

6 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Understanding Japan's complex religious landscape Sadie Harley Scientific Editor Robert Egan Associate Editor On New Year's Day, millions of people in Japan visit Shinto shrines to pray for good fortune.

Why it matters

In summer, many return to their hometowns to honor ancestors in Buddhist rituals.

Common ground

Families often maintain household altars, and seasonal festivals remain a central part of community life.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

The article discusses a study by researchers from Doshisha University and Hokkaido University regarding the complexities of religious identity and practice in Japan. It explains how traditional Western frameworks for measuring religiosity often fail to capture the nuanced, culturally embedded nature of Japanese spiritual life.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-05-japan-complex-religious-landscape.html

analyticsAnalysis

0%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 100%
Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 10 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 4
verified Verified By Reference 2
info Single Source 2
help Insufficient Evidence 1
verified Verified 1
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Claim 1: “Koki Shimizu et al, Ambiguous Boundaries of Religious Belief, Behavior, and Belonging in Japan: A Descriptive Analysis of Plural and Cultural Religiosity, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (2026). DOI: 10.1111/jssr.70065”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was found in the provided search results to verify the specific paper title, the 2026 date (which is in the future), or the DOI 10.1111/jssr.70065.
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Claim 2: “The project is part of the broader Global East Survey of Religion and Spirituality, an international project led by Professor Fenggang Yang of Purdue University, U.S.”
CORROBORATED
Confirmed by EurekAlert! and the Center on Religion and the Global East, stating the project is led by Professor Fenggang Yang of Purdue University.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Adherents of Islam constitute the world's second largest and fastest growing major religious grouping, maintaining suggested 2017 projections in 2022. As of 2020, Pew Research Center (PEW) projections…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The world's principal religions and spiritual traditions may be classified into a small number of major groups, though this is not a uniform practice. This theory began in the 18th century with the go…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Religion in Italy has been historically characterised by the dominance of the Catholic Church, the largest branch of Christianity, since the East–West Schism. This is in part due to the importance of …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Italy
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 3: “a research team comprising Assistant Professor Koki Shimizu from the Department of Sociology, Doshisha University, and Professor Yoshihide Sakurai from Hokkaido University, Japan, set out to address this gap”
CORROBORATED
Two independent news/research summaries (Mirage News and a research news site) explicitly name Assistant Professor Koki Shimizu of Doshisha University and Professor Yoshihide Sakurai of Hokkaido University as the research team addressing this gap.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Japan competed at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China. The event was scheduled to be held in September 2022 but due to COVID-19 pandemic cases rising in China the event was postponed and reschedul…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_at_the_2022_Asian_Games
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; January 31, 1543 – June 1, 1616) was a Japanese samurai, daimyo and the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 u…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokugawa_Ieyasu
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web search NEUTRAL — To shed light on this paradox, a research team led by Koki Shimizu, Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Social Studies at Doshisha University, analyzed data from a nationally representative survey, …
https://www.doshisha.ac.jp/en/news/detail/001-t20WUt.html
+ 2 more evidence sources
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Claim 4: “millions of people in Japan visit Shinto shrines to pray for good fortune on New Year's Day”
CORROBORATED
Multiple independent web sources confirm that millions of Japanese people visit Shinto shrines on New Year's Day for prayers and good fortune.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Religion in Japan is manifested primarily in Shinto and in Buddhism, the two main faiths, which Japanese people often practice simultaneously. Syncretic combinations of both, known generally as shinb…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Japan
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Sect Shinto (教派神道, Kyōha Shintō; or 宗派神道, Shūha Shintō) refers to independently organized Shinto groups that were excluded from the Imperial Japanese government-sponsored State Shinto in 1882. In cont…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sect_Shinto
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Shinto is a religion native to Japan with a centuries'-long history tied to various influences in origin. Although historians debate the point at which it is suitable to begin referring to Shinto as a…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Shinto
+ 3 more evidence sources
verified
Claim 5: “Over 40% of respondents described themselves as nonreligious or atheist”
VERIFIED
Phys.org explicitly states that 'Over 40% of respondents described themselves as nonreligious or atheist' in the context of the study on Japan's religious landscape.
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web search NEUTRAL — In a 2017 study, it was shown that compared to religious individuals, atheists have higher reasoning capacities and this difference seemed to be unrelated to sociodemographic factors such as age, educ…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
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web search NEUTRAL — 2. Trend evidence: conversion, secular politics and longitudinal studies. Multiple researchers have documented a secular shift over decades: a viral 2020 poll captured claims that 47% of respondents h…
https://factually.co/fact-checks/society/evidence-rising-sec…
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web search NEUTRAL — People with many different nonreligious identities participated in the U.S. Secular Survey, including atheists, agnostics, humanists, skeptics, freethinkers, and people who simply identified as secula…
https://www.secularsurvey.org/executive-summary
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Claim 6: “a large portion of these individuals reported participating in rituals, such as shrine visits or ancestral rites”
CORROBORATED
Both Phys.org and a critique of CEOWORLD rankings confirm that a large portion of nonreligious/atheist individuals in Japan still participate in rituals like shrine visits and ancestral rites.
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web search NEUTRAL — Self-reported atheism may not mean the same thing everywhere In Japan and other parts of East Asia, people may describe themselves as non-religious even while participating in ancestor veneration, shr…
https://x.com/finalvent/status/2035523355164717433
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web search NEUTRAL — A new report on "nones" — one of the largest ever conducted on this fast-growing demographic — attempts to drill down into what these Americans believe, their feelings towards organized religion and p…
https://religionunplugged.com/news/2024/1/24/nones-less-like…
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web search NEUTRAL — Over 40% of respondents described themselves as nonreligious or atheist. At the same time, a large portion of these individuals reported participating in rituals, such as shrine visits or ...
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-japan-complex-religious-landsc…
verified
Claim 7: “many return to their hometowns to honor ancestors in Buddhist rituals in summer”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
While Wikipedia confirms the importance of Buddhist temples in Japan, the specific claim about returning to hometowns for summer ancestral rituals was not explicitly confirmed by the provided evidence snippets (which mostly provided dictionary definitions of 'many' or general Buddhist history).
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Buddhism played an important role in the development of Japanese art between the 6th and the 16th centuries. Buddhist art and Buddhist religious thought came to Japan from China through Korea. Buddhis…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_art_in_Japan
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Buddhist temples or monasteries are (along with Shinto shrines) the most numerous, famous, and important religious buildings in Japan. The shogunates or leaders of Japan have made it a priority to upd…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_temples_in_Japan
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Buddhists, also known as Bauddha, are people who adhere to Buddhism, an Indian religious and philosophical tradition founded by the Buddha in the 6th or 5th century BCE in the Indian subcontinent. Bud…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhists
+ 3 more evidence sources
info
Claim 8: “Their study, published online in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, carefully analyzes data from a nationally representative survey conducted in Japan in 2024”
SINGLE SOURCE
The provided evidence mentions the 'Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion' and other studies in Japan, but does not provide a specific corroborating source for the 2024 survey publication details other than the claim itself. The search results for the journal are general and not specific to this paper.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm (né Josephson) is an American academic, philosopher, social scientist, and author. He is currently Professor in the Department of Religion and chair in Science and Technol…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Josephson_Storm
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Scientific Reports is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific mega journal published by Nature Portfolio, covering all areas of the natural sciences. The journal was established in 2011. The journal st…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Reports
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Japanese whaling, in terms of active hunting of whales, is estimated by the Japan Whaling Association to have begun around the 12th century. However, Japanese whaling on an industrial scale began arou…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Japan
+ 3 more evidence sources
info
Claim 9: “The researchers analyzed responses from more than 4,000 participants”
SINGLE SOURCE
The web search results for '4,000 participants' refer to a Framingham Heart Study on liquid sugar, not the study on Japanese religion. No other source confirms the participant count for the specific religious study.
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web search NEUTRAL — The analysis used data from over 4,000 participants in the Framingham Heart Study, focusing on adults without diagnosed dementia at the time of evaluation. Researchers combined dietary intake informat…
https://en.clickpetroleoegas.com.br/liquid-sugar-enters-alzh…
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web search NEUTRAL — Sensitivity analyses were conducted to investigate the stability of the results by excluding one study at a time from the meta-analysis to test whether the results were determined or driven by one ver…
https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/early/2026/05/04/bmjnph-20…
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web search NEUTRAL — Objective: To explore short-term thermal and cardiovascular responses in women using an infrared sauna as compared to moderate-intensity exercise. Study design: Randomized controlled crossover trial w…
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34954348/
verified
Claim 10: “people commonly identify with more than one tradition, such as both Buddhism and Shinto”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia's entry on 'Religion in Japan' confirms that Japanese people often practice Shinto and Buddhism simultaneously (shinbutsu-shūgō).
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.