The human condition in the shinto religion states that we are good, and evil stems from one's contact with external things that disrupt an individual's spirituality. The interesting concept of shinto is the belief in Kami's, another word for spirit. Kami's live in everything and Kami's gave birth to all that is being, including humans. The concept of human sin is replaced with the concept of pollution. The idea is that pollution to the soul can occur through contact with things that threaten life such as blood or disease. One must wash away pollution through act of purification to keep pure and natural. Pollution is accepted as an unavoidable thing but this suffering is not come about for a reason like many other religions believe. Suffering is not a punishment of human behavior but a natural element that is part of the human experience (Hamilton 1990). .
Shinto focuses on life, it focuses on the present the here and now. It does not want us to fixate on our death because its believed that this constant focus and fear can become such an attachment one will not be able to make the most of their present life. Because each individual is derived from Kami, birth and death can be visualized like this; birth is the appearance from the invisible world to the visible world and death is the disappearance of the visible world into the invisible world. Shinto accepts the human condition and its nature because we are all kamis, kamis coexist and express their will (Nimmi). They believe in life and the present as a positive reality, that your destiny is now, not when. There actually is no precise definition of what happens at death besides the theory of disappearing from the visible world and that your kami eventually becomes part of a collective ancestral spirit. The goal is to maintain purity through acts of purification and to achieve immortality among ancestral beings, the kami. There is no set rule book for shinto followers but more of a sort of shinto lifestyle therefore avoiding people and objects that cause pollution to the soul may be necessary (Nimmi).
