I know you're probably wondering, "Well, where exactly is the god in the picture?"  I'll get to that.

DESCRIPTION:

Kami, the gods of the Shinto religion in Japan, are seen as personified deities, forces of nature, spirits, angels, demons, etc.  They're essentially the same thing as the Greek and Roman gods, only way, way lazier in execution of their representative forces.  Blacktually, they're closer to those Injun spirits we're supposed to recognize, or at least give some effort in recognizing them, like when your Injun guide tells you to put your ear to the ground and listen for Earth spirits while he gets off his horse and steals your liquor.  

Credit should go out to the Greeks for at least going through the effort of making massive, intimidating statues illustrating that your god has a huge dick and can throw lightning bolts at you.  Shintoism kind of insinuates that maybe you should consider, ever so slightly, to donate some ca$h to a temple for no real reason other than the fact that there are paper ribbons hanging in the place.  THEY'RE NATURE.  Fags.  

Even the effort of making a temple is half-assed for the Kami.  If the old Pagan gods got to have a 36,000-square-foot palace, the Kami got the equivalent of a dog house, which just points out even more that when people refer to Chinese-ish people as dogs, they have more of a point than the other way around.  The fact that you can just as easily make up a Kami for a dog just proves the point even further.

METHOD OF WORSHIP:

The closest thing I can think of to really pay my respects to any respective Kami is to do it the Old Testament sort of way: panhandling.  That "old time religion" is great at one thing, and that's taking people's hard-earned money hand over fist.  Kami seem to be a lot lighter in their poor-people-fucking ways.  Since we're not talking omniscient beings here, we just have to assume that some Kami are FUCKING EVERYWHERE and just be paranoid about offending anybody at any time at any place.  That guy just slapped you in the face?  Don't retaliate!  A Kami is in the bushes!  A Kami IS the bush! It's a bush god!  Instead, goofily smile, bow your head while making a prayer gesture with your hands, and offer him a ride on your gaijin rickshaw.  You'll be glad you did.  As for myself, once the ride is over, I'll pay tribute to the Kami of wallet-stealing and stabbing.