ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses forms of meaning-making, identity, and destiny; the ‘evil' of negative constraints that frustrate them; and ‘salvation' as a means of overcoming such negativities. It approaches worldview religious studies through a classification of worldviews that seeks to encompass the enormity of groups, movements, and processes, whether primarily religious, secular, or mixed, that flood the history of the world. Shinto embraces a worldview that frames much ritual activity in Japan key to which is the sense that ‘nature' as a domain is not some kind of passive realm but owns its own kami or spirit-like forces. Ritual practice involves sacred sites at national, local, and domestic levels where, respectively, the Emperor, priests, and family members make offerings and honour the forces of life and place. Ideological worldviews embrace perspectives driven by specific theoretical sets of ideas posited on explicitly rational bases, and sometimes focused on a single issue.
