Kami is not translatable as god: it covers deities, ancestors, remarkable natural features, and the quality of awe itself — a waterfall, an old tree, a mountain, a striking person can be kami. The traditional phrase is eight million of them, meaning uncountable. Nothing about the concept implies moral perfection or omnipotence; kami can be capricious and need appeasing. This is why Shinto has almost no theology in the Western sense and enormous ritual precision: the relationship is maintained by conduct, not belief.