# Shinto Is Not Really A Religion

Treating Shinto like an actual "religion" is a serious error. In
both ways. Shinto is not really a religion. A religion is not really
like Shinto. Shinto is more like folklore than a religion.

Visiting a shrine is just like visting a local deity to greet.
While some local people actually worship the deity, one usually
goes to a shrine or a shrine festival simply to belong to the local
terrain and participate in the local community.

For example if you go to travel to somewhere, you usually go to a
local shrine and pray to the deity.

Do you actually worship the deity? No. Although there are deities
who are widely worshipped like Inari-sama, Tenjin-sama, &c., you
don't even know who the deity is before the visit. There are
uncountably many deities in Shinto. It's just a ceremony to greet
the local deity as you visited the region.

Well though there are some cases like that students visit Tenjin-sama.
Because he is a deity of scholarship. Or conservatives visit Ise
Jingu to greet Amaterasu Oomikami. Because she is the ancestor of
the royal family according to ancient texts like Nihon Shoki or
Kojiki.