SHINTO-principle beliefs concerning origins of universe?

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the ancient Jami's created/are the world. i cant remember the entire story. heresy the parts i remember:

one Jami crying and his tears making up the oceans. one Jami was cut into 4 pieces making the 4 islands of japan.

the sun god Amaterasu was angered by another Jami because he threw a pony into her temple. she recluses herself in a cave rolling a big bolder in front of the entrance. (solar eclipse) the rain god lured her out by dancing on an upturned drum. interested in what the racket was ametherasu opened the cave just a little to see. a mirror flashed her light back at her, dazzled her, and the kami's used this to overpower her and get her out.

The origin of Shinto is shrouded in mythology. ?In the beginning,? says legend, the god Izanagi and the goddess Izanami had sexual relations. This gave birth not only to the trees, mountains, and land but also to some eight million other gods and goddesses! Jimmu Tenn?, the first emperor of Japan, is thought to be a direct descendant of one of these goddesses?Amaterasu ? Mikami, the sun-goddess. Respect for and veneration of these gods is the basis of Shinto, which means ?way of the gods.?

But where has the ?way of the gods? led Japan? Has it proved adequate to the spiritual needs of the people there?

The Path of Superstition and Fear

Shintoism has no precise definition of what happens at death. (There is no equivalent of Christendom?s ?heaven? and ?hell.?) Although death is considered ?a curse, a tragedy, a mishap,? the prevailing thought is that the dead one becomes a spirit that can bestow blessings on a family. A Shinto book says: ?The men of this world continue to live after death, and continue to receive the blessings of the gods, that is, the spirits of heaven and earth. We also, with our incorporeal souls, live together this life of man.?

What effect has belief in departed spirits had upon the Japanese? Rather than filling them with hope, it has given birth to numerous superstitious practices. For example, if there is a misfortune in a family of Shinto believers, they may believe that they are not giving sufficient attention to some deceased ancestors. If a new home or car is purchased, exorcism rituals are often performed to clean out ?wicked spirits.? Before construction work is begun, a Shinto priest will come with a portable altar to invoke the protection of ancestral gods.

So rather than enlighten its adherents, Shinto has simply led its believers down the path of superstition and fear, the same path blazed by the religions of ancient Babylon. In his book The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, Morris Jastrow showed that to the ancient Babylonians ?death was a passage to another kind of life.? Too, Shintoism gives prominence to the relationship between the sun-goddess and her male human offspring. There are rituals in which the emperor goes to Ise where the sun-goddess is enshrined and makes ?reports? to her. This is reminiscent of the relationship between Nimrod and his mother, the so-called Semiramis. And whereas Semiramis was supposedly the daughter of the fish goddess, Atargatis, the mother of Emperor Jimmu was the daughter of the ?Sea King.

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