Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c223IR // #c223Synthesis

Without a code of morals, or an efficient ecclesiastical organisation, with little aid from the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture, and with a sacred literature scanty and feeble compared with those of its foreign rivals, Shinto is doomed to extinction.

— In our words · Source: Shinto: The Ancient Religion of Japan (William George Aston)

[Use when]

When an expert declares a living tradition dead, keep the receipt — Aston wrote the obituary in 1921 and the patient survived him.

[Why it matters]

Aston's 1921 closing verdict — delivered with total confidence, and worth keeping as a card precisely because history gets to grade it: the religion he buried is still alive.

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