Shinto roots of Japan’s World War II atrocities unearthed on FFRF TV show
Publisher: In-Sight Publishing
Publisher Founding: September 1, 2014
Publisher Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada
Publication: Freethought Newswire
Original Link: https://ffrf.org/news/releases/shinto-roots-of-japans-world-war-ii-atrocities-unearthed-on-ffrf-tv-show/
Publication Date: September 13, 2024
Organization: Freedom From Religion Foundation
Organization Description: The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 40,000 members and several chapters all over the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
An author explains on the latest episode of the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s TV show how Japan’s appalling conduct during World War II was in large part due to Shinto nationalism.
Under Emperor Hirohito, who was considered a god, Shinto nationalism created some of the most horrific atrocities in history in the cause of a righteous and racist holy war, Bryan Mark Rigg points out. Rigg has worked as a professor of history at American Military University, Southern Methodist University and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He’s the distinguished author of several highly regarded books on World War II history. Rigg’s newest book, recently published by Knox Press, is called “Japan’s Holocaust: A History of Imperial Japan’s Mass Murder and Rape during World War II.”
“Hirohito was revered as a living God as a Shinto belief until 1945, when he renounced his Godhead,” Rigg reveals to “Freethought Matters” co-hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Every emperor for the last 2,500 years was revered as a god in Japan. So he wasn’t only a dictator and a military leader, but he was a god in human form.”
“Freethought Matters” now airs in:
- Chicago, WPWR-CW (Ch. 50), Sundays at 9 a.m.
- Los Angeles, KCOP-MY (Ch. 13), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- Madison, Wis., WISC-TV (Ch. 3), Sundays at 11 p.m.
- New York City, WPIX-IND (Ch. 11), Sundays at 10 a.m.
- San Francisco, KTVU/KICU-IND (on broadcast Ch. 36 and Cable 6), Sundays at 10 a.m.
- Washington, D.C., WDCW-CW (Ch. 50 or Ch. 23 or Ch. 3), Sundays at 8 a.m.
(To view details on channel variations depending on your provider, click here.)
If you don’t live in any of the marquee towns where the show broadcasts on Sunday, you can already catch the interview on FFRF’s YouTube channel. New shows go up every Thursday.
Upcoming guests include an expert on the Comstock Act, an author of a new book on the Scopes Trial and another author writing on the dangers of vouchers to aid religious schools. You can catch interviews from previous seasons here, including with Gloria Steinem, Ron Reagan, author John Irving, actor John “Q” de Lancie and award-winning columnist Katha Pollitt.
Please tune in to “Freethought Matters” . . . because freethought matters.
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