Talk:Heshikiri Hasebe/@comment-222.124.67.229-20151002073054/@comment-31.33.217.53-20161004194911

Actually, Nobunaga was not really an atheist, not in the modern sense. He was more like challenging the gods, even though he did say to a missionary he didn't believed in any gods existence. It is also possible he wanted to become one.

Traditionaly, the Oda family was, it seems, protectors of Shintoism. And it is known that in Kyûshû especially where they were a lot of converts, missionaries ordered the population to burn down some shrines as pagans. That is one of the reasons he never converted to Shintoism.

Furthermore, it is true he burnt down Hiei-zan and it seems he also made a non-related Buddhist priest boil because he had helped one of his ennemies, however... Hiei-zan was heretical, Nobunaga's arguments about the monks their being depraved was correct. Their were a lot of women and children over their, and they had nothing to do in Hiei-zan or at the mountain's foot. They were, indeed, whores and the bastards they got by getting knocked up by the monks.

It is an old story... since Heian jidai, certain powerfull temples had messed with the Imperial Court. Their was an Emperor who ordered some of his samurai to ward Sôhei off, they came to protest for some shit with sacred palanquins and cie. So the samurai obeyed the Emperor, and shot them with arrows, and they fled like pussies. But after that, to calm down the temples who were making a fuss, the Emperor had to punish those samurai. They understood, of course, they wee dutiful men, stalwart warriors. But the samurai caste never really forgot that bitch slap from the Kansai temples.

In Sengoku age, some temples were messing up with the samurai in many ways. They caused a lot of troubles for Nobunaga and Ieyasu, among many lords. The Togashi clan got overthrowned too.

Oda Nobunaga-kô was the first to make a serious counter attack on the Temples.

As for that Buddhist Monk, well... Let's say his death was awesome, much like the Vietnamese Buddhist Monk who burned himself for protest and whose photo became world famous, moving all Murica's hearth. He entered the boiling water and said to his disciples something along the lines : "If yer mind is peaceful, even flames shalt feel like a refreshing wind in summer." And Japanese summers are so hot they make people their crazy (according to statistics, the greatest number of family stabbing cases happen in summer... no wonder people over their fought so much among each other before electric fans were invented), so wind is always welcome. The old sage monk didn't gave a fuck.

But even if Oda Nobunaga had an agressive stance toward Buddhists authorities, doesn't mean he was really against Buddhism itself, and wanted to abolished it (because main stream atheism is militant and expansionist, remember ?). It is known fact that Azuchi-jô had a pagoda inside it's walls, and that he stole some kind of giant serpent rock statue from the Iga ninja and put it somewhere in Azuchi-jô (what a dick...). Their is a theory sayng Oda Nobunaga had built this castle in order to welcome the Emperor and protect him from the nobles of Kyoto, separating them ; and that he came with so few guards to Honno-ji in order to show the Emperor is good will. Indeed, it is known that all castles were supposed to have some hall or appartments in order to welcome the Emperor in it, but few Daimyô actually did it (Date Masamune did it, and it seems that Azuchi-jô's splendor had such intent). It is also known that Japanese samurai houses had a special box inside them, to put their cut off heads inside it in case the Emperor sent an Imperial edict to this end. So, Nobunaga was acting like a real asshole toward the court nobility, Kuge (often speaking to them while showing his back instead of kneeling down...), but even he dared not being such an asshole with the Emperor. Because it was the pride of the Fujiwara clan, Taira clan and Minamoto clan to be at the Emperor's service since immemorial times or having been born from it's lineage. Even Oda Nobunaga didn't dared disgrace his noble ancestry by a dynasty change or some other ridiculous shit just because he was winning the civil war. On the other hand, disposing Monarchs and destroying dynasties is the trend among atheists revolutionary leaders.

And let's not even mention that an actual atheist with some intellectual honnesty wouldn't sleep in a temple or have it as a secondary residence.

Nor sing the extremely Buddhist themed Atsumori nogaku... all the time !

It is also known Nobunaga actually "prayed" at certain shrines. At least, that's what he did in Atsuta Jingû, just before going at Okehazama.

So yeah, my conclusion is that Nobunaga was not an actual atheist, he was just being a dick. Just like how he gave awful nicknames to other people, mostly his retainers and friends, like "bald rat" and "monkey" for Hideyoshi, or kinka-atama ("baldy", maybe "empty head" ?) for Mitsuhide.