Although a pure sense of worship for religion was not realized, an environment of present-day Japanese spirit and culture was formed based on the Shinto religion from the ancient times while adding mixtures of various kinds of foreign religions including Buddhism, Esoteric Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, or 'Christianity' (also including a Christian culture in old times).
純粋な宗教的価値観の具現化でないとしても、古来からの神道が礎となってその上に仏教・密教や儒教や道教、あるいは「キリスト教」（古くはキリシタン文化）をも含め、さまざまな外来の宗教を混在させながら、今日ある日本の精神や文化の土壌は形成された。