No Religions Accept Fatal Viruses
It is 1,000 years ago that the Japanese Buddhism entered into a new era setting a frame work leading to today's Japanese spiritual paradigm.
Genshin (942 – July 6, 1017), also known as Eshin Sōzu , was the most influential of a number of scholar-monks of the Buddhist Tendai sect active during the tenth and eleventh centuries in Japan. Genshin, who was trained in both esoteric and exoteric teachings, wrote a number of treatises pertaining to the increasingly popular Pure Land Buddhism from a Tendai viewpoint, but his magnum opus, the Ōjōyōshū ("Essentials of Birth in the Pure Land") had considerable influence on later Pure Land teachers such as Honen and Shinran. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genshin)
It was the pre-Crusader era in Europe when the Caliphate of Córdoba, an Islamic state, ruled by the Umayyad dynasty in Iberia collapsed. In this period, as a Danish prince, Cnut won the throne of England in 1016, in the wake of centuries of Viking activity in northwestern Europe.
Buddhism was imported to Japan through China and Korea before the 6th century and adopted by the Imperial court, encouraging building of Buddhist temples in Nara, Kyoto, etc., but the religion was mostly revered, studied, and practiced by noble people and elites of Japan. But, around 10th century, many monks started to make Buddhism prevail in ordinary people in society. Genshin was one of such progressive monks.
Genshin is still well known as a pioneer monk who contributed to foundation of Pure Land Buddhism that is still a major sect of Buddhism among Japanese people. So, images about Heaven and the hell for Japanese people of today are still based on Genshin's Ojoyoshu.
To write the Ojoyoshu, Genshin studied various Buddhist sutras and collected descriptions about the pure land and the hell, which he introduced in the Ojoyoshu. Those descriptions about the pure land and the hell were a kind of real, and people believed the content of the book, whose influence can be even seen today. The book, the Ojoyoshu, was introduced to China to help revival of Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty of China.
In the Ojoyoshu, Genshin encouraged people to chant the name of the Buddha while imaging the state of the pure land. He also encouraged people to do good in order to be admitted into the pure land. Even a sinful man could be accepted in the pure land only if he repented and prayed to the Buddha. It is not known how Genshin himself saw the pure land and the hell, but his description was compelling.
Even today, images a Japanese would see in his near-death experience are mostly influenced by the content of the Ojoyoshu or by contents of Japanese Buddhist sects in the 'Jodo' line based on the Ojoyoshu.
So, the paradigm of Christian Heaven and hell and the encouragement of good in Christianity can be easily understood by Japanese, since they are parallel with the images of the pure land and the hell and teachings depicted by Genshin 1,000 years ago.
If a Japanese thinks that Heaven and the hell or the spiritual world exists, it is not only because he blindly accepts Christian teachings, but it is because he can find similar teachings and images in traditional Japanese Buddhism. Therefore, it is likely that Heaven and the hell or the spiritual world exists, although Buddhism regards the Buddha as the highest personality both in this world and in the spiritual world.
In addition, the concept of Satan or Evil One is also found in the Japanese Buddhism as a false god that hinders people from accepting and following the Buddha.
As the crisis leading to the end of the world is near nowadays, the God should invoke spiritual tradition of every tribe and religion in the earth so that the mankind can conquer the crisis and survive for future centuries. And, it is lucky that Japan as a member of leading G7 countries share a similar concept on Heaven and the hell with other members that are all Christian.
Anyway, no religions accept fatal viruses that would cause the hell in the earth.
++++ ++++ ++++
Matthew 4, King James Version
23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
24 And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
25 And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan.
23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
24 And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
25 And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan.