Faith in Buddhism worship and other devotional routines as corruptions of an ideal, rational form of Buddhism, while assimilating Victorian and other modern values and designating them as traditional Buddhist, often without awareness of their roots. In Japan, from the Meiji period onward, the Japanese heavily attacked Buddhism as a foreign and superstitious belief system. In response to this, Buddhist schools such as Zen developed a movement called "New Buddhism" ("Japanese: shin bukkyo"), emphasizing rationalism, modernism and warrior ideals. Still in Japanese Buddhism, in the twentieth century, a critical response to traditional Buddhism arose, led by the two academics Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto
Religion in Japan Religion in Japan Religion in Japan is dominated by Shinto (the ethnic religion of the Japanese people) and by Buddhism. According to surveys carried out in 2006 and 2008, less than 40% of the population of Japan identifies with an organized religion: around 35% are Buddhists, 3% to 4% are members of Shinto sects and derived religions, and from fewer than 1% to 2.3% are Christians. Most of the Japanese (50% to 80% considering degrees of syncretism with Buddhism, "shinbutsu-shūgō") pray and worship ancestors and gods (神 "kami", "shin" or, archaically, "jin") at Shinto shrines or at private altars, while