Many people consider Buddhism and Shinto as cultural practices rather than religious

This is for grade 8 social studies on Japan, so a few sentences would be great! Thank you!!!!!!!

Here's a good article on religion in Japan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Japan#Religious_practice

People in Japan will often have a Shinto "new baby ceremony," a Christian wedding, and a Buddhist funeral.

And I've been to Christmas Eve Catholic Masses in Japan that were packed with people who were mostly non-Christians. For many Japanese, going to a church -- any church -- on Christmas Eve is the "thing to do" even if they're not Christian.

.

You should be doing your own homework. If you have others do it for you how will you learn?

I think it's more a question of orthopedics over orthodoxy.
Look up those words and you'll be pointed in the right direction.

Religion is a much misunderstood, and often misused word.

Most older cultural practices, that we now call religions, would to them simply be what their culture believed (usually as a whole).

Many older cultures did not even have a name for these beliefs, it was simply "the way of my people".

Now we live in a world where you can take almost any given demographic, and list a large number of spiritual practices.

We are no longer unified as a culture by spiritual perspective.

Religion is nothing more than people of shared spiritual meta physic coming together to share their spiritual practice.

In short, religion is a social event.....plain and simple.

I think a "cultural practice" would be only for the purposes of group or national solidarity. A religious practice would be done to change oneself or to attain something beyond this life.

Although any religion can be used for social purposes, that is definitely not what Buddhism is for, and I doubt that it is what Shinto is for.