Japanese survey data look paradoxical from outside: roughly seventy percent report no religious belief or affiliation, while a similar proportion visit a shrine or temple at New Year, buy charms, hold a jichinsai before building, and have a Buddhist funeral. Reported figures for people affiliated with Shinto and Buddhism, when institutions self-report, together exceed the population of Japan. The resolution is that the Japanese word shūkyō, religion, is a Meiji-era translation coined largely with Christianity in view, and carries connotations of doctrinal commitment, exclusive membership and organised proselytising — which most Japanese people genuinely do not have, and which the Aum Shinrikyo attacks in 1995 made actively distasteful. Shinto never asked for assent to propositions; it asked for correct practice. So a person who visits the shrine, keeps the rites, and says they have no religion is not being inconsistent by the tradition's own standards, only by a definition of religion the tradition did not write. Whether this is a profound point about orthopraxy or a comfortable way of describing habit is exactly the argument, and Japanese scholars of religion conduct it vigorously.