>>513448284
>There are a lot of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples all over Japan, and Japanese people like to pray there. However, many of them say themselves as non-religious.
Because they don't actually believe in anything and are just continuing to go there to pray and do other rituals and practices out of tradition and social/cultural momentum. They want to believe in something, and want their prayers to matter, but most of them don't even realize how empty and pointless it is for them to go to a temple and pretend to pray and believe.
Same thing was true in pretty much every pagan nation and empire before mass conversion to Christianity. That's what the pagan Romans and Greeks were like before becoming Christian. That's what the Germanic pagans were like before becoming Christian.
The difference is that Christians do believe. When a Christian prays, his prayers are real and meaningful because he is praying to a real God who actually exists.
Shintos and Buddhists will go to a temple and pray, but would they be willing to die for their beliefs or their gods?
Of course not, because they have nothing.
But Christians do not fear martyrdom or death because our God is the only real One.